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Duncan Watts-Grant is stoked about the upcoming Vancouver Fringe Festival for a multitude of reasons, some speaking to goals finally being achieved, and others tied into the thrill of the unknown. Excited as he is, the VFF's executive director is also unexpectedly calm, despite getting ready to launch an indie-theatre extravaganza featuring 87 shows and 630 performances over 11 days. How relaxed? Now in his third year of overseeing the Vancouver Fringe, one might expect Watts-Grant to be hunkering down, making sure everything is in place for the looming, beautifully creative hurricane. Instead, he's looking forward to hitting the road for a bit.
"I'm sneaking away to Edmonton for a couple of days to see their Fringe," the decidedly upbeat Watts-Grant tells the Straight. "I've never been, and it's the biggest Fringe festival in North America. It's hilarious timing because it's right before our festival, but this is the first year that I've felt comfortable enough to take a couple of days. That's not a reflection of the last few years. It's more that I've done everything twice now and have a much better sense of how to make this work. That's allowing us to try new things, which is really exciting."
Watts-Grant took over the helm of the Vancouver Fringe Festival in 2023, that period one of the most challenging in the 40-year history of the independent theatre celebration. At the time the city's arts groups were struggling to recover from the pandemic, with lockdowns changing how people spent their entertainment dollars. Watts-Grant was well aware what the Fringe was, and still is, up against.
"The competitor is Netflix," he says in an interview with the Straight, "and getting someone to leave their house."
To that end, Watts-Grant stepped in to lead the Fringe with ideas he wanted to implement. Three big ones will come to life this year. The first is Kids Fringe, running September 6-7 at the Picnic Pavilion at Granville Island.
"Kids Fringe is a dream that I've had kind of since I've started," he says simply.
He notes that Vancouver is the only city in Canada where the Fringe takes place after Labour Day, by which time kids are back in school and schedules become hectic.
"And so, it's a bit of trial," he acknowledges. "But we talk about being theatre for everyone and welcoming everybody. Our vision statement is to be a home for independent performing arts. And if we're saying that, that doesn't come with a caveat saying, 'Unless you're under 18'. So I think we have a role to play if we believe, fundamentally, that everyone can be an artist, and everyone can create art. That actually starts with kids."
"My hope for this is not necessarily to turn everyone into actors," Watts-Grant continues, "but instead to make sure that everyone gets to experience live performing arts. Cost is not a barrier -- the whole event is free. And pretenses are not a barrier -- performances are not inside a theatre, they are outside on a stage on Granville Island. So bring your kid knowing they don't need to be quiet and they don't need to sit -- they can engage, make noise, and be involved."
A second change at this year's Vancouver Fringe Festival is more adult-oriented -- aimed at those faced with the reality of living in one of Canada's most expensive cities. Whereas in past years a $10 Fringe membership was needed to attend shows, that's been scrubbed, part of the festival's determination to make the run more affordable to all Vancouverites. There's a bonus beyond the monetary saving.
"Our web developers described buying the tickets previously as like signing up for a phone plan, which I figured was not a great description," Watts-Grant says with a laugh.
The final major change in his third year at the helm is that Vancouver Fringe fans will be able to get their theatre fixes after the 11-day sprint has wrapped.
"We've been trying little bits of programming outside of the festival for the past couple of years," Watts-Grant says. "This is the first year we're properly launching a 'Fringe Presents' series. That's going to start in November with Fringe favourite Jon Bennett coming up to his show. We're also working with three other organizations -- Touchstone Theatre, Monster, and Axis Theatre -- to bring back our 48-hour playwriting contest, Theatre Under the Wire, and that's coming in February."
What will remain the same is Granville Island continuing largely as home base for the Vancouver Fringe Festival, with performances taking place not only outdoors for Kids Fringe, but at spaces including the Arts Club's Waterfront Theatre and Revue Stage, Performance Works, and Arts Umbrella Mainstage. (Shows will also be staged at Little Mountain Gallery in Gastown.)
Noting that attendance has been up at Fringe Festivals across Canada this season, Watts-Grant says that advance tickets for Vancouver this fall have bounced back to near pre-pandemic levels. That can be attributed, he suggests, to not only a continued return to normalcy, but also the Vancouver Fringe's determination to keep things affordable and accessible.
"The way that we draw audiences is unlike any other performing arts festival of our kind in that our shows are cheap -- every ticket this year is 16, 18, or 20 bucks," Watts-Grant says. "Our shows are short. The shortest one this year is 25 minutes; that's the one that takes place in the back seat of a car -- and our longest is 70 minutes. So it's not a time commitment."
Vancouver Fringe remains loyal to the idea that anything can, and often does, happen, with that tying into Watts-Grant's excitement about the thrill of the unknown. The festival remains uncurated, with shows ending up on the Fringe schedule through a mix of first come first served (apply early!), lottery, and bring your own venues. So, if you come up with an idea, it's likely going to end up on stage. Or, as Watts-Grant notes, in the back of a van (Ride Or Die) or onboard a Granville Island ferry (False Creek False Tours), or the other end of a cellphone (Last One Standing).
"The second day of the festival is in some ways the most exciting -- and the most terrifying -- because you go, 'Hey -- what was on our stages last night?'" he says with a laugh. "That's the reality of being an uncurated festival."
The idea that anyone who wants to put on a show -- no matter how out there -- can become part of the Fringe might be terrifying. But kind of like lighting out for Edmonton just weeks before helming one of Vancouver's biggest cultural events, Watts-Grant suggests some things are more scary than they seem.
"I think we actually go so much further than other festivals do to make sure artists understand what our code of conduct is, and what they are agreeing to," he says. "Hopefully our audiences understand that as well. It means that people do take risks, because this is a place for risky theatre. When I came here in my first year, I had the idea 'Fringe is for risk-taking artists -- it's about risky theatre and doing things that you wouldn't see elsewhere.' All that is true -- the notion that we develop risk-taking for artists. But I think there's something actually more interesting and more profound, and that's that we actually develop risk-taking audiences."