SummerWorks Festival
Toronto’s Other Summer Theatre Festival Comes Into Its Own
SummerWorks and the Fringe of Toronto have evolved into distinct entities on the Toronto theatre scene.
In the late '80s and early '90s there was a great explosion of summer theatre festivals in Toronto First came the Fringe of Toronto, which has become established as a sure summertime hit. The there were SummerWorks and Under the Umbrella. The latter has now disappeared, but SummerWorks is moving from strength to strength.
At first, it wasn’t easy to tell the difference between these summer theatre free-for-alls. At first, the Fringe accepted presenters according to a ballot-in-a-hat process, while SummerWorks was simply first-come, first served. But when SummerWorks moved to a lottery as well, it wasn’t at all clear to the casual observer how they differed; just that they offered a summertime cavalcade of brief, diverse and often unpredictable performances. Now, more than fifteen years later, these two summer theatre festivals continue to evolve into distinct entities serving quite different needs in the theatre community.
In its early years, the quality of the programming at SummerWorks (like that of the Fringe) was entirely – and literally – up to the luck of the draw. When Franco Boni arrived as Artistic Producer of SummerWorks in 2000, he thought some changes were in order. In his first two years, he created a system that preserved some of the element of pure luck, while at the same time giving him some creative powers to shape the overall line-up. In 2003, he reviewed more than 100 applications and culled 50 for a lottery to fill 28 places. He also invited ten productions of his own choosing. The final place went to a returning company chosen from among the previous year's presenters.
"I think, with those ten shows that I choose, it qualifies my title as Artistic Producer and it gives me a little bit of power to produce the festival with some very strong audience pleasers," Boni said at the time. Not all of the invited shows came out of the regular submissions. When Boni saw Robin Fulford's Five Fingers, for instance, he invited the show to SummerWorks, even though it was 20 minutes longer than the normal one-hour limit for festival presentations.
From 2000 to 2004, under Boni’s directorship, the festival gradually evolved into a showcase for some of this city's top independent theatre artists. In 2005, the festival moved under the joint artistic directorship of Keira Loughran and Kimahli Powell, who kept it moving towards its present status as a festival of mature talents along with up-and-comers. They also created a partnership with the Stratford Festival and Harbourfront Centre to import important new works from across the country under the banner of "The Canadian Pavilion".
Now, theatregoers can expect to see the work of Toronto’s most established theatre artists as well as the most exciting newcomers at the festival; names like Alisa Palmer, Philip Akin, Soheil Parsa, Earl Pastko and Paul Thompson in the first category, and Joseph Jomo Pierre or Weyni Mengesha in the second. The 17th annual SummerWorks theatre festival runs from August 2 to 12, 2007 in various locations. For tickets, call 888-222-6608 or visit TOTix.
