Fringe 2012, Victoria and Vancouver.

After the moderately successful Winnipeg and Saskatoon runs, the show started to come together a bit more solidly--just in time for Victoria, where I had the most success of any Fringe Festival I've done so far. Lies! won the top spot in the Pick of the Fringe voting, as determined by audience members, and even had a couple of sellouts. A solid review off the top helped a bit, and there were some other good bounces that led to the show being successful in that festival.

The show going well in Victoria was fortunate, since the key Vancouver theatre critic comes to Victoria to review some of the Vancouver bound shows. Fortunately, Colin Thomas liked the show (which felt good, as although I'll occasionally disagree with him, I've always respected and enjoyed his work--much more so than other theatre critics across Canada), and he included it in the Georgia Straight's top recommendations (it was also reviewed by The Snipe). After a couple of medium houses, I managed to sell out the rest of the run. Not the greatest accomplishment in the world, since the theatre was only 60 seats, but still something.

The prize for winning Pick of the Fringe in Victoria is every bit as glorious as you'd hope:

Fringe 2012: Lies!

Another Fringe Festival tour complete. For 2012 I toured a new show, called Lies! which consisted of about two thirds new material, tied together (loosely) by a discussion of lying in the context of a theatrical magic show.

The show started in Winnipeg, where I worked out the bugs, made adjustments, tried to figure out the new material. One show I screwed up the finale (and had already gone over time, so couldn't make use of my backup). Full on screw up, no way to recover. And of course, the CBC reviewer was in the house. Luckily the mistake didn't affect the review too much.

From Winnipeg to Saskatoon, where the show survived some hilarious tech issues. A wobbly, cobbled together stage in the middle of a giant school gym, with a tech person who had never done it before in her life (she was enthusiastic, hard working, and everything you'd want in a technician, just no experience whatsoever).

I was surprised at how difficult it was to get some of the new material off the ground, at just how much work it was taking to get things up to standard.