ON STAGE
What: UNO Fest Online
Where:
When: May 4-24
Tickets: Free (some performances are $10)
Intrepid Theatre鈥檚 UNO Fest needed to switch at the last minute from an in-person to an online event in 2020, which posed its share of 11th-hour headaches.
For the upcoming 24th edition, there was never going to be an in-person component, which gave organizers time to branch out with new ideas for their popular festival of solo performance.
鈥淲e didn鈥檛 want to plan and then have to rewind, and then plan and rewind,鈥� said co-artistic and marketing director Sean Guist of Intrepid Theatre. 鈥淭hat is why it stretches over a month. I just don鈥檛 think people have the capacity to see a festival of multiple shows over 10 days. We wanted to give people more opportunities to watch things.鈥�
UNO Fest Online will offer artist talks, livestreams and a pair of online shows over its three-week run. The first performance, a pre-recorded three-camera performance of Anthony Hudson鈥檚 Looking for Tiger Lily, opens Tuesday and is available on-demand until May 9. Gemini, a COVID-19 response by University of Victoria grad and former City of Victoria Indigenous artist-in-residence Lindsay Katsitsakatste Delaronde, will be released May 18 and is available on-demand until May 23.
Both free and paid programming is available. The festival will also include online content in multiple formats, including Facebook Live and Instagram Live talks with Hudson (May 4), J. McLaughlin (May 7) and Delaronde (May 8).
Guist said he used a floating program model for recent events by the company, including UNO Fest Online. By breaking the Intrepid Theatre season into three-month segments, he鈥檚 able to keep their options open for when live events return. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 want to have a year of digital programming [planned] if things change. That鈥檚 the hope, and if not, we鈥檒l have more digital programming. I鈥檓 trying to keep things flexible.鈥�
Intrepid Theatre is hoping to do more shows like this in the fall 鈥� either live, online, or a mixture of both 鈥� possibly under the UNO Fest umbrella, Guist said. It鈥檚 all wide open at the moment. 鈥淭his one is a little bit of a smaller festival, but part of that is people only have so much appetite for digital content. I don鈥檛 know if we鈥檒l do an UNO Fest part two, but the hope is that we can do more shows in the fall.鈥�
Theatre transitions well to the digital format, which makes the switch from live to pre-recorded less awkward. Everything can be viewed on-demand at a later date, which gave organizers the opportunity to look at programming unique to the here and now. Hudson鈥檚 Looking for Tiger Lily 鈥� a popular booking on the North American touring circuit 鈥� has been on Guist鈥檚 wishlist for three years, while a new version of Gemini, which Delaronde presented for the first time during last year鈥檚 festival, has been purposely re-created for the 2021 digital-only edition.
鈥淢ore things are possible now,鈥� Guist said. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 have to rely on artists鈥� timelines, or what the theatre can physically hold, those kinds of of things. It opens it up in a different way. We鈥檙e giving artists opportunities, and they are trying new things. Which is what we should be doing, encouraging them to keep pushing boundaries and making new work.鈥�
