Greetings Fringe-ers, one and all! Fernando here, offering the first of what will (hopefully!) be a series of scintillating, captivating, and at times even titillating articles. Chocks away! Flaps down! Full throttle….we have lift off!

It’s been 6 years since I was last at the Edmonton Fringe. Six long years! Of course, I haven’t been idle in that time. Oh no. I’ve taken shows to Winnipeg in the depths of winter, Croatia in the blazing heat of summer, and New Zealand in a nicely temperate Autumn. I’ve taken shows to Edinburgh, to Portugal…and to England (of course!). But now….I’m back!!

It really has been a case of hitting the ground running. A lot has changed at the Edmonton Fringe since I was last here. For a start, there’s all this Online stuff. Ah….the wonders of  modern technology! It makes life so simple doesn’t it? Well…possibly. Unless (like me) you’re a complete techno-idiot. I’ve fretted and cursed and raged at the machines while trying to fill in Online forms which don’t want to be filled, open file formats that my computer doesn’t recognise, and access websites which would rather remain anonymous. Computers! Love them or hate them, you’ve GOT to hate them!

And now…here I am doing an online blog! How did I manage to get myself into that? More computers! More compatability issues. No learning curve!

Anyway, enough ranting….for now! Today (Thursday) is the opening of the Fringe. So…all shows are ready to roll, right? Wrong! I’m here with two shows, and at the moment only one of them is ready to go. The other…TECHNOLOGY again! Let me explain. “Full of Sound and Fury” relies for its very existence on our being able to project images onto a big screen. When we did the show in New Zealand we used an old-fashioned slide projector, and all went perfectly. Since then, we have moved into the 21st century, and when we did the show in England and Croatia, we hooked up a laptop to a digital projector, and all again went perfectly. Fine. Marvellous. What could possibly go wrong in Canada?

Yet here we are, projector and screen all hooked up in the Walterdale…and the laptop and projector are just NOT on speaking terms. Nothing. Zilch. Blank screen. So…maybe it’s a Brit thing. Maybe Canadian projectors don’t like British laptops. Our trusty venue technician leaps to the rescue. Hooks up his (suitably Canadian) laptop, and lo and behold….IMAGES BEAUTIFULLY PROJECTED! Angel choirs and polished halos all round. Then the screen went dark. No more images. Back to square one.

Which is…incidentally….where we stand now. The show opens tomorrow, and at the moment we have no way of projecting the images which are essential to the plot. However, we’re working on it. Our UK laptop is in the repair shop to try to remedy the problem, and our Trusty Tech is trying to get his laptop to speak to the reclusive projector. We’ve even got our Stage Manager bringing in her Apple Mac. Maybe the projector is a bit of a snob: maybe it only moves in higher MAC circles, rather then mixing with the PC plebs?

Whatever the case, we’ll be burning the midnight oil today to get it sorted out. Wait a minute…CAN you burn midnight oil during the day? Probably not. But then, anything is possible at the Fringe! I’ll keep you up to date on developments. If necessary, we’ll just have to get our long-suffering Stage Manager to parade around the audience, showing the images on her laptop. Might work….give her a nice low-cut spangly dress…or maybe a gold spandex bikini….I don’t think they’ll notice a thing!

Edmonton Fringe eh? Long hours. Low pay. Sleepless nights. Techno-headaches…..Wouldn’t have it any other way!

A la prochaine!

FERNANDO

Tags: Croatia, Edinburgh, Edmonton, England, fringe, learning curve, New Zealand, Portugal, tech problems, Winnipeg

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 13th, 2009 at 11:48 am and is filed under Edinburgh, Edmonton, General, Shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.