Fringe launches workshop series for veterans and newbies
Fringe Theatre is offering a workshop series to help artists succeed at its own festival.
Launchpad consists of six workshops running from March 23 to 27. The sessions are open to all Fringe artists, from those who have never produced a show to established artists who want to learn a new skill, artistic director Murray Utas told Taproot.
"I think there's value for whether you are walking into your first (production), to whether you're tuning up to hit the road, and even if you're a pro — you might be reinventing yourself," he said.
The workshops will give artists tips on how to write and improve a play, build a production team, design a show that can tour to other festivals, design lights and sound, promote a show, and plan a tour. The Fringe has assembled a group of notable theatre artists to teach the workshops, both from within the organization and from the wider theatre community.
The series formalizes the way the Fringe already helps artists, Utas said, and aims to teach skills that can at times be mysterious to newer artists and producers. "I'm going to help you get out of your own way by giving you some tools for the toolbox," he said, adding that it's a way to equip artists to "close the gap on what (they) think is unattainable, and look at it and go, 'I just built a bridge myself, and now I'm going to walk across it.'"
The workshop series is just one initiative in Edmonton that aims to help newer theatre artists get their work produced:
- Workshop West Playwrights' Theatre offers a playwrights' circle and a play-reading service;
- The Alberta Playwrights' Network runs the annual EdmonTEN competition;
- Common Ground Arts trains producers through the RISER program;
- Walterdale Theatre produces a new play festival;
- Nextfest curates work from emerging artists for its annual festival;
- Fringe Theatre has also started a free playwrights' table to help writers prepare for a Fringe production.
Meanwhile, the organization is preparing for its second annual Fringe Benefit, promising an evening that is "more daring, decadent, and deliciously unpredictable than before" on April 10. The benefit is a way to raise money, but also to demonstrate what the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival is about.
"We want people walking in that love us, and we also want people walking in that may not know us," Utas said. "If we want to showcase the fun, weird, amazing place that we are, then we need to make sure that they get that."
The fundraiser party started last year as part of the Sustain Fringe campaign, seeking to help the festival recover from COVID-era losses by building a monthly donor program. By the end of the 2025 Fringe Festival, the donor base stood at 692. This year's Fringe Festival returns from Aug. 13 to 23.
