My First Day at the Toronto Fringe

We finished the last matinee performance of The Amorous Ambassador (what is with ending a show on a matinee?) on Sunday and had hit the road to Toronto by 4 pm. While I was hoping to be in town with plenty of time to catch a late show, the holiday traffic on the 401 made sure that was not meant to be.  7 hours later, after many bouts of going 20 km/hr on the highway, I finally arrived at my friend's condo in TO. Ok, no Fringe for me that night.

Monday rolled around and after a delicious brunch at a place called Insomnia (OMG SO GOOD!), I found myself at the very empty Fringe Beer Tent.  Well, it was early afternoon, so I guess that makes sense.

I caught three official Fringe shows that day: The Shakespeare Show, Fruitcake & Carnegie Hall.  But the highlight of my day really came that night with a special one-off presentation of Uncalled For's Hypnogogic Logic.  You see, Uncalled For didn't get into the Toronto Fringe (like most festival's across the country entrance is through a lottery system) and, since the guys were all in town with other projects, they presented their new show at The Second City.  It was absolutely brilliant!  Keep your eyes and ears open for this one next year on the circuit, people, you'll be in for an incredible treat!

Today, I am taking another break from the Fringe.  Daily work life calls.  In addition to stuff I'm doing for the GCTC, I've picked up a marketing contract for Odyssey Theatre's upcoming production of They All Do It (expect to hear more on that particular one very soon).  Somehow, I think my Ignite the Fringe presentation (now available through Ottawa Tonite) had something to do with landing me the gig.  So a big thank you to Heather-Marie Scheerschmidt and the Ottawa Fringe for that one!

Now, however, with work done, I'm off to an acting class. But fear not, fellow #FringeTO members! I'll be back tonight for more.

Ignite the Fringe!

I'mnervous. So nervous my space bar is s h a k i n g. Tomorrow, at lunchtime, I get to give a presentation in the Ignite the Fringe event.

An Ignite event is actually a very specific thing. According to my Wikipedia bible, it can be summed up as: a style of presentation where participants are given five minutes to speak on a subject accompanied by 20 slides. Each slide is displayed for 15 seconds, and slides are automatically advanced.

Basically, I'm giving a Power Point presentation (or Keynote - thank you new Mac!) and I'm nervous about that.  I know, I know, I'm a professional performer type who gets up in front of people all the time.  Would you believe I get ridiculously nervous every single time then too?

Though I've seen the event in Ottawa in the past, I've never done it before.  Here's a few things I've learned from the process so far:

• Creating slides is A LOT of work - not only do you need to know what you are going to be talking about, but you need some good visual to go with it as well.  Google Images has been my new best friend.
• 15 seconds is not a lot of time to say something and yet when I practiced my presentation at home it seemed to take forever.
• Keynote is a really great program.
• I've now know how to take screenshots.

I hope people think it's funny and entertaining and don't throw things... unless it happens to be money.   You can throw money.

See you at lunch!

Ignite the Hype

If someone had told me ten years ago that I could have a successful career as a marketing professional, I would have laughed in their face. These days, however, it seems to make perfect sense. As part of the Ottawa Fringe Festival's Lunchtime Artist Series, I've been asked to participate in the Ignite the Fringe event on Friday June 25th at noon.

My topic is on "Branding the Artist" - though I'm not going to spoil it all here because I'd love for you to join us in the Fringe Courtyard (or "Beer Tent" as I sometimes hear it's called), I am going to tell you that my mind has been wandering towards promotion, buzz and hype lately.

On Friday night, I had the privilege of seeing the Shadows opening night. This show came with a lot of hype. Amazing professional production team, award-winning actresses, incredible promotional material, and a curiosity factor around this being the writer's first solo produced play. Fortunately, it beautifully lived up, in my mind, to all of that. I was incredibly moved by this piece to the point where I just needed to be alone for a little bit afterwards to decompress (My apologies to anyone whom I may have been rude to and ignored while running away from the venue. I just wanted to settle for a moment before the craziness that is the beer tent.) I also know that I am adding to the hype just by writing this, but if you can get tickets to this show (it's been selling out!), go and see it. It's fucking awesome.

I've also been thinking a lot about my own hype lately. I mean, I'm "nancykenny". I've been somewhat taking it as a joke around the beer tent, but part of me wonders how much weight that actually carries.

Tonight, I will be doing my one and only performance at the Ottawa Fringe Festival in Jayson McDonald's The Last Goddamned Performance Piece at 11pm in Venue 5 - Studio Leonard-Beaulne. The marketer (and ego hungry individual) in me worries that I won't live up to the hype and the only people in attendance will be the director, the performer I'm billeting, and that guy who stalks me on Facebook (OMG! What if my stalker DOESN't come?). It is after all a late show and tomorrow is a work day.

Realistically, I know there will be more people than that. And my artist is simply thrilled to be performing this beautiful play, no matter how many people see it.

There is no way to control who will or will not come, no matter how good your promotion is, which is such a weird situation to be in. However, though the marketer can build up the hype, the only thing the artist can do is the best job she can. My artist is now taking over and she doesn't care about the hype.

So, if you come and see my show tonight, I will do my very best to be present, truthful, and entertaining for your viewing pleasure.

I hope to see you there!