Today, the Toronto Fringe announces the first ever Fringe Collective, a digital offering featuring a number of companies who were to perform at the festival this summer. The collective is described as a “digital experience” that will feature “pre-recorded video, audio, written, and interactive content and will be as unique and creative as Fringe artists themselves.”
When the Toronto Fringe announced the sad but ultimately inevitable news that they would be cancelling the 2020 Fringe Festival for the first time in its history, the company promised to find some way to keep the Fringe spirit alive come July.
The Fringe Collective will take place over the original dates of the festival, July 1-12, split up into four “acts” and hosted online through the Toronto Fringe’s website. Act 1 will be available July 1-3; Act 2 from July 4-6; Act 3 from July 7-9; and Act 4 from July 10-12. Viewers can access the content through Fringe’s “Tip-What-You-Can” model. 70% of the profits will be split equally among the companies participating in the collective, while the other 30% goes towards the Fringe’s administrative costs.
Offered alongside the Collective will be a POSTSCRIPT live series, live-streamed free for any viewer to see, in the spirit of the much-celebrated pop-up patio of the same name, which is a staple of the Toronto Fringe Festival.
“We had a moment after cancelling the festival where we were prepared to just do nothing and wait until next year,” says Fringe Executive Director, Lucy Eveleigh, “but then we realized we still had an opportunity to unite our artists and our audiences in a different and exciting way. It won’t be the same as sitting together and experiencing live theatre but, given the circumstances, we think this is going to be a really special alternative.”
The Toronto Fringe will release a programming guide PDF to the Collective on June 17, 2020 along with more details about the POSTSCRIPT live series.
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