Notes by Patrick Langston.  Running Aug. 28-Sept 7, this year’s Atlantic Fringe Festival in Halifax features about 60 companies and 300 shows. Most of the companies seem to be from Nova Scotia although the program fails to identify the origin or, frequently, even the name of the company (the website appears to have most of the missing information but is cumbersome).

Ottawa shows include Kavalier’s Kuriosities (Dead Unicorn Ink) and Mabel’s Last Performance (written by Megan Piercey Monafu and performed by Kathi Langston).

Unlike the centralized Ottawa Fringe Festival, venues in Halifax are widely disbursed. That’s a plus in that the city’s attractiveness makes the travelling around a pleasure but a minus in that the festival has no physical focus or, as far as I could determine, anywhere that artists and audiences can readily gather – somewhere like, say, the Ottawa fringe’s popular courtyard.

That absence of a physical centre also militates against the excitement that typifies a centralized festival where attendees constantly bump into each other and talk about shows. You can always text, of course, but that’s no match for face-to-face chatter.

Even so, the 24-year-old festival pulls in over 10,000 patrons annually and, with admission to shows costing as little as $3, it’s eminently affordable.

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