by AMY BARRATT

Once again, the beer tent has pulled up its stakes and the Montreal Fringe festival has departed, leaving only the scent of stale St-Ambroise wafting up from the paving stones of Parc des Ameriques.

Last Sunday's Frankie award presentations, hosted by The Thirteenth Hour's Zack Wynters (newly mohawk-ed) and Sweet Sweet Jimmy Priest (having thrown off the previous day's darling drag persona, Carnaby Gogo), brought the 15th annual fest to a close.

The least surprising win of the night was the guys from Never Surrender taking the Spirit of the Fringe award (awarded by Fringe staff to the company that hangs out the most, drinks the most beer and isn't afraid to get its hands dirty when necessary.) Everywhere I went this Fringe, Tim Rabnett and Mike Patterson were there, including all pushed-up and pulchritudinous at the drag races. Their company, Lips-Inc., gets a free spot at next year's festival.

A new award was offered this year by Eric Amber of Théâtre Ste-Catherine. He will work with a company to develop and workshop their show prior to a week's run at the groovy downtown space. Amber has chosen to work with Humanity Theatre/Théâtre humanité (aka the always-offbeat Ed Fuller) on Sans titre/Untitled. Let's hope the first thing he does is help them think up a name. (Note: titles are important, especially at the Fringe, where sometimes they're all the audience has to go on. If you were offered Sex and la Cité or Untitled, which would you choose?)

In the evening's most puzzling development, a show billed as "mime, dance, accordion," Floridian Wilson Loria's To the Winners won the Chapters/Blue Metropolis award for Best Text. The script - apparently there is one - will be given a reading at the Blue Met festival. Loria, who was a no-show at the awards ceremony, most likely because he was wrapping up the final performance of his show, also gets a $100 gift certificate to Chapters bookstore.

The announcement of Studio 303's award for best dance show was greeted by a lot of blank stares. Choreographer Dana Michel's The Greater the Weight was, it turns out, included in the program of Upstream and Blurred Shutters, though there was no mention of it in the publicity.

For the first time since the Frankies were created, the same show won the two most coveted awards: the Centaur Off-the-Main and the Just for Laughs festival's Best Comedy of the Fringe award. They both go to the fleet feet and tight buns of BoyGroove, a show about the making and breaking of a boy band. The Just for Laughs slot is July 19–21. These hard-working Vancouver-based lads are scheduled to be at the Winnipeg Fringe July 20–30, but hopefully they can work something out. Actually, JFL split their prize between BoyGroove and Man 1, Bank 0, which left Montreal early to open off-Broadway. Man 1, Bank 0, by Patrick Combs of San Diego, will get a spot at next year's Just for Laughs, alongside the 2006 Fringe winner. The Centaur prize includes a spot in next January's Wild Side Festival.

Several shows sold out every performance at the 2005 Fringe. Among them were Sex and la Cité, Sugarpuss Burlesque and Never Surrender Saves a Baby.

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