![\"Fringe](\"https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/edmontonjournal/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260804db002.ej_304601597.jpg\" "\\"Fringe")
The Edmonton International Fringe Festival is a hectic, frantic time for festival goers. They juggle schedules and transportation, navigating harried crowds while sliding a taco in a bag down their gullet for fuel.
For a brave few artists, they take the already significant time commitment for a single show and double or even triple-up their schedule. They write, perform or produce multiple shows in one year, splitting their time and quite possibly their sanity.
Michelle Todd is a long-time Fringe performer who has two shows lined up for this year. She’s taking on roles in QUEENS OF ROMANCE, a show about romance novelists written by acclaimed playwright Trevor Schmidt, and a solo show about growing up in a multi-cultural family in Edmonton called Parenthood: It’s a Mutha , a love letter to Todd’s parents.
She didn’t set out to perform in two shows, but saying yes to projects meant saying yes to splitting her time between two performances. It also means less time for checking out what else is happening at the popular festival.
“The thing I’m a little bereft about is it’s a little harder to see shows you want to see,” says Todd. “It’s hard to take chances on newer shows.”
When a typical year might involve getting to see 40 shows in her free time, that’s down to maybe 10 or 15 she can slip into between her own performances.
The busiest time for artists, including Todd, is the weeks leading up to the festival; plans and promises started back in the fall start crashing into the reality of performing in multiple shows, “the collision of deadlines, coordinating promo materials on top of coordinating your technical aspects,” as she puts it in the final stretch before the Fringe.
“This is the start of the crazy.”
The biggest challenge this year for Todd could be the two venues, one show playing at the Varscona and the other at the Roxy on 124th Street. It’s not an insurmountable distance, but logistics and parking will be a challenge.
Andrea House has a much shorter commute between her two shows this year, Go West, Young Man about famed actress Mae West and the drag performer who was briefly her secretary playing at the Varscona, and 650 Light Years Away, a musical story of longing and love playing around the corner at the Spotlight Cabaret.
It’s a quick jog between her two venues, making the trip straightforward even on days she has to perform in both on the same day. The biggest challenge for House won’t be the distance but costumes and makeup, making sure they are compatible for the tight turnaround and there’s time to switch between wigs.
“All the venues have to be kind to one another and basically give the artists permission to do that because it does require some juggling and I’m very grateful that everybody was able to make that work,” says House.
Of course there’s two shows to keep straight, two sets of lines, two sets of marks to hit, two venues to get used to. Being a theatre festival, there’s also the load in and load out each performance, with minimal crew to help out. That means having fellow performers cover where they can as she slips off to another show.
“I really want to be a part of both of these shows and there’s just some years like this where you just cannot say no,” says House. “You know, normally I would probably just try to do one, but in this case, it was like both of them felt like big pieces of cake and I wanted to eat them both.”
Samantha Fraughton has a slightly less crazy festival this year. The playwright and actor is performing in one show and helping to produce another, a somewhat less hectic festival after a crazy year in 2025.
“World Peace”: The 2026 Miss Canada Pageant is a look at pageants in this country and draws from Fraughton’s own experience competing in pageants growing up. She’s also helping to produce Shams by Rumi, by Moemen Gaafar, through her production company, High Fives at Zero Theatre.
Last year she wrote and produced a pair of shows, including The Last Perfect Game, which was playing at Plaza Bowl on the city’s north side. That’s on top of performing in the award-winning “SPEED!” A 1940’s Radio Drama.
This year’s festival is presenting different challenges as Fraughton embarks on her first solo show as a performer. Everything she has worked on previously involved multiple actors or working behind the scenes as a writer. It’s an intensely personal story, even if it’s scary to be up on stage alone.
“I want to push myself as an artist to do something that’s challenging. Last year creating two shows was very challenging. Doing a solo show this year is terrifying,” says Fraughton. “I competed in pageants from ages eight to 28. I did every version of Miss Canada that you can do, some more than once. Looking back on my younger self, what was I looking for?”
She comes to multi-performance years after only a few years as a Fringe performer and artist. Her first show was in 2019, then performing every year since 2023. In that time, she’s marvelled at the appetite of Fringe crowds, who will take a chance on a new show and see something out of their comfort zone.
“To have audiences take the risk with the performers, to say, ‘Sure I will go to that show,’ that’s been the surprise,” says Fraughton. “In the real theatre world, I mean professional theatre, I think sometimes a risk is not rewarded by audiences.”
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