Depending on how much you read about the Toronto Theatre scene, you may or may not have heard of Amanda Campbell. She is the founder of the theatre blog The Way I See It.
For now the blog has a pretty strong Toronto-focus, although she is in the process of expanding it. What does this have to do with the Toronto Fringe Festival you may ask…
Well, right now she’s in Halifax and trying to raise enough money to come back to Toronto so that she can review loads and loads of Toronto Fringe Festival shows. I’ve donated to her campaign, and I’m taking a moment to encourage my readers who believe a variety of voices is important to consider donating as well. For more information on her campaign check out this article.
It might seem odd for me to be leaping into the fundraising campaign of one of my ‘competitors’, but I’m a big believer in being collaborators in the theatre community, not competitors. We all need to support each other. And, given that my whole philosophy is based on the idea that there are no rights or wrongs in a production, only individual opinions, I think the more opinions we get out there the better.
Also, since the loss of EYE as a reviewing sponsor for the Toronto Fringe Festival the more reviewers out there the better. And yes, I know that NOW has taken over the sponsorship, and I think that’s fantastic, but they also have said that the are not planning on reviewing every production.
I know many of us are in the “starving artists” category, but I encourage you to consider having 2 drinks less at the Fringe tent this year and instead donating that $10 to help get TWISI back into the city so that Fringe shows can get more coverage.
Thanks for reading guys!