150 plays and musicals will be taking over Toronto’s stages from July 2 to July 13 as part of the annual Fringe Festival. Of those 150 productions, some of the most exciting writers and directors participating are U of T students and alumni. The Varsity sat down with some of the students taking part in this year’s festival to discuss what makes a Fringe-worthy show, and how to get your work featured at the festival.
Commencement: A Work of Fiction and Musical of Sorts
Commencement: A Work of Fiction and Musical of Sorts is a musical written by Aviva Philipp-Muller and David Madras, both U of T students. This is their first time participating in the Fringe Festival. The play is set at the university and tells the story of a recent university graduate.
“In the play, Kate, a U of T graduate, begins her adult life, stepping into the jaws of the ‘real-world,’ acquiring a ‘real job’ and a ‘real relationship,’ all while attempting to impress her overbearing parents,” said Philip-Muller.
Kate’s post-grad dilemmas are familiar to most U of T graduates — Chelsea Dab-Hilke, the director of Commencement, is no exception. “Kate’s story is similar to my current situation in that I just graduated from U of T a couple of weeks ago and am in the position of entering the ‘real world,’” said Dab-Hilke.
Madras said that the strange place many call the ‘real world’ is actually not so real at all; like their musical, it may only be a real world “of sorts.”
“It’s kind of strange that the final thing in your university career is called a ‘commencement’ — which means ‘beginning.’ I guess the idea is that it’s supposed to be the beginning of the rest of your life,” said Madras, “But for a lot of people, it’s the beginning of moving back in with your parents, or being unemployed, or getting another degree.”
To bring their production to life, Madras and Philipp-Muller pitched their show to the UC Follies, a theatre company at University College.
“Without the resources available through the UC Follies, I’m not sure this production would have been financially viable at all,” said Madras.
With the assistance provided by the Follies, Madras and Philip-Muller applied to Fringe’s site-specific category, allowing them to participate in the festival from their own site, familiar to many U of T students, at 15 King’s College Circle.
An Evening in July
Another site-specific production, by two University College Drama Program (UCDP) alumnus, is the surrealist comedy An Evening in July. The show, written by Gwynne Phillips and Briana Templeton, has also stayed close to home by U of T campus. Inspired by the Surrealist Ball hosted by1972 French socialite Helen de Rothschild, and the documentary Grey Gardens, the play will be taking place in the garden of St. George the Martyr Anglican Church, only fifteen minutes walking distance from University College.
Phillips’s and Templeton’s experiences at U of T were a major source of knowledge and inspiration for the pair — as well as bringing the two together as creative partners.
“We were fortunate to have gone through the University College Drama Program together which has given us a highly theatrical approach to our comedy. As far as theatre programs go, the UCDP is quite academic, which works in our favour for a lot of our nerdier sketches,” said Phillips, adding, “We love comedy, but we are U of T Drama nerds at heart!”
Even as An Evening in July is poised to hit the stage, the duo is thinking ahead to even more exciting upcoming projects.
“We just finished a comedic web series for the CBC, and plan to tour our sketch comedy show a lot in the upcoming year,” said Templeton.
Group Therapy
University College’s particular wealth of resources for drama students has proved helpful for this year’s Fringe contenders, but not all U of T students participating in the festival are affiliated with the college. Marina Moreira is a Trinity student and writer of Group Therapy, a musical about six support group members who meet at a therapist’s office. She learned the theatre ropes as part of the Trinity College Dramatic Society.
The cast of Group Therapy/Photo courtesy of Mina Moreira
“It prepared me for independent theatre,” said Moreira, adding that the TCDS allows its members to be creatively independent and practice their skills. When it came time to budget for Group Therapy, for example, Moreira already had experience with managing money for a production from her involvement with TCDS.
Now going into her fourth-year in Innis College’s Cinema Studies program, Moreira wrote her play after taking a year off to pursue personal artistic projects. While she is excited to be participating in this year’s Fringe, she admits, “I wasn’t super prepared.” Marina entered her production into Fringe through the festival’s lottery system.
“I think only one out of ten people get in through the Lottery,” said Moreira. Needless to say, she was more than a little surprised when she learned that Group Therapy had a spot in the festival.
Despite her shock, she quickly got to work on the project. Much of the crew are members or alumni of the TCDS, though it was tricky getting people to stay on.
“During exam time, some of our production team was completely unavailable,” she said. Moreira had to go through several composers before settling on someone who could handle the workload — in this case, Peter Grant MacKechnie.
Despite these difficulties, Moreira states that everyone she worked with on Group Therapy are people who she’d love to work with again — and she may have the chance to do so since she’s looking into writing another play for Fringe Festival 2015.
