fours and fives

boy oh boy am I having trouble getting my blog posts to post! If this one posts, I'll be amazed. "If you're reading this, you probably..." The elder of my two unposted posts has been missing from the blog for so long that it's starting to show up on milk cartons.

Oh, wait. I just figured out why this is happening. FTP password stuff ... this is embarassing. c'mon Alex, if your *website* password changes, then so does... geez.

Anyway, here we are together.

I got my first four-star review of the tour! Getting a four-star review at a big festival is sort of like cutting a hole in the glass ceiling and pulling yourself up. In Edmonton, particularly, if you get a four-star, you're likely to sell out. Three-and-a-half? No. Edmontonians are, bless them, obsessed with the star ratings in the Edmonton Journal. I always see crowds of people all doing the same task: checking the day's show schedule against their clipped out star list from the Journal. Four and up, they can fit it in - regardless of weather, regardless of time of day, regardless of what the show IS, even. If it's a five-star, they'll fight each other, and line up for five hours in rain and snow (Edmonton Fringe can have volatile weather) just to buy a ticket, and quit their jobs and leave their families just to see it. No matter what it is. And sometimes, I'm told, the cold stare of a give-me-the-five-star-show-I've-been-promised crowd is a little too much to bear.

Thankfully/unthankfully, we're in Winnipeg, where the star-rating / attendance relationship is a little bit less direct. So, we're the four-star show that is still getting half houses. In an 80-seat house. My understanding is that, in Winnipeg at least, I sell a certain percentage of my house, regardless of total capacity. It's like they *know*. It's the half-house city, for me at least.

But whatever, things might pick up - we have four shows left and we're working hard. And we're in the four-star club! Keir Cutler ("Teaching the Fringe") has been giving me four (like giving five with the thumb folded) everytime he sees me.

There really is something going on with that here. Nile Seguin ("Fear of a Brown Planet") has been trying to resurrect the retro "low five". I'm still getting used to it. I go high, and then I correct down. To make sure I go low enough with my five, I repeat this mantra: "So low that you might miss". The contact and the resultant sound are not nearly as electrifying when the five is low...but it's so much more relaxing. I've been trying to teach Nile my high six - and hand plus a finger. You have to make sure you're mirroring each other, or the solitary fingers can get hurt.

This has been an odd Winnipeg Fringe. Really odd. Ticket sales are down (visibly) despite amazing weather (not hot like the last two years - very little rain). Cell phones are going off during shows all over the place. Two days ago, Keir Cutler had to restart his show three times because the (probably sold-out) audience wouldn't settle down! CBC dropped its Fringe bloggers (I was one for the last two years, so I'm a little sad about this) and Uptown Magazine has hardly reviewed 20% of the shows, as far as I can tell.

Ah well, off to see Bat Boy the Musical. Because, why not?

AAA