This was originally going to be a wrap-up post about the Ottawa Fringe Festival, but too many amazing things happened throughout the month of June that I feel the need to go a little more in dept. Adjectives like glorious, amazing, incredible and the ever popular fantabulous will get thrown about so be prepared. This is going to be one of those look at all the great things that happened to me posts. Not because I feel like boasting about it all (ok, maybe a little), but because I sometimes need to remind myself that I am on the right path, even when a few pebbles get in my shoes. June was a month of glorious theatre intensiveness. Both the Magnetic North Theatre Festival and the Ottawa Fringe Festival took up large chunks of my time through shows, drinking, workshops, networking, drinking, creation, performance, and did I mention there may have been some drinking?
By my calculations, if you include the reading series, almost 75 shows were presented to the general public. Fantabulous! I saw the vast majority, because my sanity is somewhat in doubt.
I did an incredible amount of networking which amounted in new contacts made here and across the country. My long dormant public speaking skills also made a brief resurgence during one particular MNTF workshop which directly resulted in having the Artistic Director of the National Arts Centre's English Theatre program attending my Fringe show and the Artistic Director of one of Ottawa's oldest professional theatre companies buying me a glass of wine (though honestly I think it was because he was bored with a certain workshop, but I'm not going to argue).
Other June highlights include a stack of auditions in Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto; an extra union credit on the French side; some standardized patient work; the creation of a new production company; losing almost ten pounds; winning a crapload of gift certificates (MOST PERSISTENT DANCER FTW!) and, of course, this little show called No Exit Upstage - perhaps you've heard of it recently?
Oh, and the greatest of all my news: I received a creation grant from the City of Ottawa to develop my piece on Women's Roller Derby!!! A piece I hope to get off the ground with the help of my ultimate Fringe Crush, of course.
June was simply divine and July is shaping up to be even better: lots of get-togethers, a few tweaks and rewrites for No Exit Upstage, and then I ship off to the Winnipeg Fringe Festival.
I'm not sure how much blogging will get done between now and then, but you can be sure I will be keeping everyone up-to-date on Nancy and Natasha's Adventures in Winnipeg... That sounds catchy, like a TV series I could pitch to YTV. We'd have to clean it up a bit, but Natasha's a mom so she'd know if something wasn't appropriate...
Uh, where was I? Oh yeah, blogging about Winnipeg. Anyway, if my stats throughout the Ottawa Fringe are any indication, there are a lot of you out there who seem to be interested in what I might have to say... either that or an Adorkable Thespian just likes repeatedly clicking on my links... (Psst, Nadine, you can totally click on my links ANYTIME! - Yes, I meant that to sound dirty.)