Behind the Fringe Curtain: A look into how the theatre festival is put together

Hamilton Spectator (May 10, 2025)

You know the game. You pick three digits and hope they’ll match some random draw the next day. The odds are crap, to put it in a family-newspaper way.

The Hamilton Fringe Festival is no numbers game. At the Fringe, pick three random plays and you’ll walk away with something. A laugh, a thought, a tear. You never know. That’s the magic of Fringe.

For Chris Stanton and Franny McCabe-Bennett, that laughter, thought or tear is worth the numbers they churn through practically daily to chart the festival’s progress.

According to Stanton, executive director of the Fringe’s parent company, the Hamilton Festival Theatre Co., the yearly festival brings together 300 artists from the city, region, country and world, creates more than 50 jobs, enlists more than 200 volunteers, offers more than 50 plays in three different series over 12 days of programming in a dozen venues.

Out of breath yet? All this enterprise nets the city more than $2 million over the run of the festival.

As surprising as these numbers are, they’re also not surprising: Hamilton’s name as a Fringe Festival worth attending has spread over the 22 years of its existence. A record 202 applicants vied for a spot in the festival this year.

But Stanton and McCabe-Bennett chart progress mostly in terms of people.

Hamilton’s Fringe festival is so popular because people are No. 1: whether they are playwrights, actors, stage crew, volunteers or audience members.

“Care is a huge part of Fringe,” HFTco managing director McCabe-Bennett said in mid-February, as she and Stanton were sorting out government funding issues and nailing down venues for this year’s festival. “We prioritize care for artists and the audience. Our job is to do everything we can so (audience members) can sit and have a great time.”

“Leading from joy, leading from kindness” is the way Stanton described it.

This year’s regular programming runs July 17 through July 27. The festival gala is July 16, a night when artists associated with a play get to play carny and pitch their work.

As part of that people-forward approach, 100 per cent of the base ticket price of every show goes to the artists. This tradition goes back to 1947 and the origins of the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, where small, independent theatres excluded from a major European arts festival put up booths and staging outside the event venue, a fringe of dissent against the established model of theatre in the U.K.

Stanton admits it’s a weird business model, but it works. There are artists who apply to participate year after year and, of course, there’s the audience that keeps coming back as well. Last year, there were 17,650 attendees. Of those, almost 32 per cent came from out of town, according to the province’s Tourism Regional Economic Impact Model.

Having ticket receipts go to the artists means they can “get their idea out there, follow their dreams a bit, put on a show that they might not be able to get out there otherwise,” said Matthew Surina, manager of the Staircase Theatre on Dundurn St. N., among dozens of venues that host Fringe plays every year.

Fringe is a cultural highlight for the city, “helping transform the city’s streets and venues into dynamic creative experiences,” said Lisa Abbott, director of the city’s Tourism and Culture division.

“In addition to the festival enriching the city’s cultural life, Hamilton Fringe has proven itself a powerful economic driver, providing a significant boost to the local economy by attracting visitors from across southern Ontario and beyond.”

Abbott said her division is proud to support the festival and is looking forward to the new Fringe on the Streets program as well, an outdoor program piloted last year.

Stanton and McCabe-Bennett welcome past accolades, but these days — since September, actually — they’ve been busy gearing up for the new season.

From September to November, they and two full-time staffers — communications manager Aleena Faisal and development co-ordinator Grace Lamarche — write grants; solicit artist applications and financial sponsors; prepare for the lottery, where the year’s participants are chosen; and set up HFTco’s new play contest, the winner of which automatically wins a production slot in the festival.

January through April, they hold the lottery and match winning plays with the right venue, based on the play’s needs; hold meetings via Zoom with various artists and production companies from around the world, including an orientation meeting, a Production 101 workshop run by Afterlife Theatre’s Patrick Teed and Carly Billings, and a workshop on publicity. “It’s mini-professional development, setting you up for success,” Stanton said.

During this time, they also act as liaisons for artists and venues who participate in what is called the “indie venue series.” The HFTco doesn’t curate this, McCabe-Bennett said. It’s designed for “artists looking for a venue that fits what they want to do, or a venue is seeking a play. It’s first-come, first-served. There’s some matchmaking, but mostly we let them figure out their own schedules.”

In May and June, they nail down the venues, seek volunteer ushers and ticket takers and hire stage and tech crew.

Come July, in the words of Cole Porter, it’s “another openin’, another show.”

“If artist interest is a leading indicator,” Stanton said, “then we’re in for a really exciting year.”

Chris Stanton executive director of the Fringe’s parent company, the Hamilton Festival Theatre Co., with managing director Franny McCabe-Bennett. “Our job is to do everything we can so (audience members) can sit and have a great time,” McCabe-Bennett says. Photo: Aleena Faisal

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