The beauty of The Fringe is that it is a coming together of actors, writers, directors and producers from across the world.  Each person brings their own special set of talent and is willing to share their experiences with others.  The sharing of The Fringe is what makes it so special.

    Marcus Fernando, who toured our Canadian Fringe with Dreamscape Productions, lives in England.  He told me that in England, Fringe companies regard each other as competition and rarely cooperate with each other.  He commended us Canadians for the assistance we provide to each other and the friendships that develop.

     When I look at my own plays, other Fringe performers have been the editors, the directors and the lighting programmers: and in return, I have assisted where and when requested.

     This mutual back scratching has existed with most companies and the list of joint productions is long indeed.

     One of my favourite Fringe stories is from Edmonton, many years ago.  Many of the performers were out on the strip, hustling up an audience with flyers.  One of the performers from ‘Pajama Men’ was handing out his advertisement and I asked him “why are you flyering?  Your show is sold out.”  He handed me one of the flyers and it was for someone else’s show.  He said “they are having trouble finding an audience so I thought I should help them out.”  That is what we do.  Help each other out. 

     I love The Fringe and the things people have taught me.  Greg Morley was the one who told me to stop speaking after I delivered a strong statement.  He told me that audiences needed time to digest strong statements and they couldn’t do that if I kept talking.  He taught me to not be afraid of silence on the stage.

     Allison from The Weird Sisters was the one who told me that an actor can communicate more though their breathing than they can through the spoken word.  The lights went on and I started to watch the good actors and how they used breath.

     Alan Bratt taught me to hold back, to always let the audiences think there is something more to give.  He also taught me not to rely on lights and sound and any other technology but to create my own sense of magic.

     And there have been a hundred or perhaps it is two hundred actors now who have inspired me to work harder after I saw their talent on the stage.  Dawson Nichol out of Seattle has always been regarded as an actor’s actor, and I stand in awe of him.  I have never seen anyone with the ability to morph from one character to another without a seam showing.  Courtney Siebring left me in a suspended form of animation with her sheer talent.  No dancing squirrels.  No singing penguins.  Just her alone, on a simple stage, creating character and story.  Again, the list could go on and on, filled with actors who inspire me…all at The Fringe.

     Long before we had a Fringe in Regina, I would produce these weekend mini Fringes during January and February.  I would get together four or five or six actors from the circuit, and everyone would stay at our house for the week.  We would stage two plays a night and we literally had to beg people to attend as very few had ever heard of The Fringe.  We called ourselves ‘The Regina Knot-A-Fringe Theater Group’ to circumvent the copyright on the word ‘Fringe’.  We did this nine times before a festival was started in 2005.

     One of my favourite memories from those weekends of ‘Knot-A-Fringe’ was the fellowship of everyone under one roof.  Stories would be told until the wee hours of the morning of unfair critics, strange billets and comedies that no audience would laugh at. You have not experienced life fully, until John Huston has held court regaling you with stories, at 4:30 a.m., wearing his silk, dressing gown as you make breakfast.

     One Sunday morning, there were eight of us having breakfast after one of these Friday/Saturday gigs we were doing.  I had told everyone that it was to be ‘Breakfast Theater’ as I had a new play in the works and I wanted to hear it read by actors.  Lubricated with much coffee, waffles and bacon, my Fringe friends launched into a table read of my new play.  An hour later  I thanked all at the table.  Then I said:  “In the future, we will look back upon these days as the best days of our lives.  When we would all gather together to work on each other’s plays.”  One of us would be running the tech board, one of us calling the show, one of us taking the tickets and all of us doing something.  Everyone agreed that these were good times indeed.

     And today, the same situation continues.  Actors, writers, directors and producers all come together to build something larger than ourselves, a festival.  A sense of community and friendship develops and we are all a little better people for it having happened.