Satirical performances and plays with comedic impressions? We’re in
Dear University of Regina community,
The Regina Fringe Festival recently returned to Queen City, and we thought you should know.
After canceling last year due to missed grant deadline and a venue under construction, the festival — a collection of short plays and other live performances — was back with a vengeance. This year’s lineup featured 10 performances, ranging from storytelling to satirical comedy. Shows were split between The Artesian and The Unitarian.
A few of us at the Carillon attended the fringe festival preview night and thank god we did! We were able to see short three-to-five-minute scenes from each of the participating shows.
Oh, to be young exploring unconventional and satirical performances!
(Oh, to be old, too! Lots of seniors in the crowd.)
Who let the gorillas out?
Among the performers was a student improv group from the University of Regina.
UR improv is a club focused on improvisational theatre, where the crowd shouts a prompt and the actors are forced to create a scene from scratch. For this preview, the prompt was “gorillas interrupting the fringe.”
They had quite the funny interpretation! UR improv performed Shakespeare dumb with gorillas crawling on the ground, and interrupting a beautiful rendition of “to be or not to be,” from Hamlet (quite depressing).
The one-minute performance was then repeated into a hilariously condensed seven-and-a-half seconds.
It had us giggling in our chairs, watching the impressive speed of the performers.
Bits and Pieces
We also saw other cool snippets, including:
● Gameshow, Gameshow, Gameshow: One side of the audience against the other in a competition of trivia, interactive noise control, and battle of physics.
● Lapsed Catholic: Funny & Filthy Bits from The Bible: Shocking excerpts from the holy bible, and personal stories on the comedic religious upbringing.
● Steven Goes to Japan to Run A Marathon: Intense bit by performer Steven Andrews on his discomfort of having to pee before running a marathon.
● Things that Go Bump: Mystical live tarot card reading about the fate of the fringe.
Anyways… the vibe was electric and the audience lively. From games to love advice, the crowd was in stitches.
We left feeling energized, hoping to see more performances.
It’s always great to get out of the digitalized world and view some in-person theatre.
Sign us up! (you should sign up, too!)
With love,
Anya and Chanchal
