20 Years On and Still Living on the Fringe

Ottawa Life’s Festival City Series is back! We'll provide a unique look at some of your favourite events.
We’ll go beyond the music with artist interviews, volunteer profiles, concert reviews and spotlights on
the tastes, sights and sounds of the festival season. 

Your city! Your festivals!
Like a good sunscreen, Ottawa Life has you covered.

Photos courtesy of Ottawa Fringe

Since 1997, the Ottawa Fringe Festival has given back more than $1.62 million to independent artists. For those of you who don’t know, Ottawa Fringe Festival is Ottawa’s largest theatre festival where artists of the event keep 100% of their ticket sales. The lineup for this open-access, uncurated festival was released earlier this month with over 361 performances of 57 shows in 12 venues.

This year’s programming includes performances of 37 different genres which will cover comedy, dance, magic, puppetry, music, Shakespeare, improve, clown, storytelling, and aerial theatre. Witness a mix of classics, new works, and remixed classics from Ottawa, across Canada, the United States, and even as far away as Australia, Argentina, England and Japan.

You can explore 328 Besserer Street’s immersive House Show created by Ottawa-based company Two Second Push Up. Take a musical journey through the 20th century with Movin’ Melvin Brown from Texas, USA. Melvin Brown has an award-winning entertainment career in singing and tap-dancing, and has sold out performances from Edinburg to Edmonton. From Maryland, USA meet the Creator in God! The One-Man Show, a prequel to Bible. See the world through the eyes of a giant talking fish in Argentina/Japan’s multimedia one-woman show Fish Saw. Of course, these are only a few of the hundreds of performances to see!

The Festival will also hold a handful of special events to commemorate Fringe’s 20^th anniversary in Ottawa. Don’t miss the Fringe Museum with artifacts spanning the Festival’s history; the return of Off the Record, Fringe’s printed newsletter; and their 1997 Party on June 10^th.

In addition to the return of Off the Record, Ottawa Fringe Festival is bringing back their Beer Tent. They have partnered with the

University of Ottawa to bring the Tent to Tabaret Lawn after two years without a home at the event. Tabaret Lawn will be THE place to enjoy a drink, grab a bite to eat, and chat with other Fringe Festival goers.

Even your kids can spend the afternoon learning a play and then performing for you before heading home at the Mini-Fringers program. This camp will take place on Saturday June 10^th and June 17^th.

If you are around any of the 12 venues including Arts Court, the University of Ottawa, and Downtown Rideau make sure to check out the festival during June 8^th – 18^th to celebrate the festival’s 20^th anniversary.