by AMY BARRATT

It seemed to make the Fringe crowd a little nervous. The hosts of last Sunday night’s Frankie awards were former Just for Laughs head Andy Nulman and gorgeous film actress Jessica Paré. Was this it? Was this the year the Fringe got too successful and went all corporate? I’ve just let myself in for a barrage of e-mails from those of you who think it’s been too corporate for years, but come on, compared to JFL or the Jazz Fest, the Fringe still has some street cred.

Nulman’s nervous, chauvinistic ramblings mostly flopped with the crowd. He barely let Paré get a word in edgewise - or maybe she just wisely chose not to encourage him. Anyway, you could feel the crowd loosen up when festival heads Jeremy Hechtman and Patrick Goddard finally took the stage to announce the Spirit of the Fringe award.

But let’s back up a bit. Fringe 13 was, according to the official numbers, a success. With more shows and more venues than ever before, overall attendance was up 20 per cent.

The first Frankie presented was the Chapters bookstore award for Best Original Text. The runner-up was last year’s winner, Foqué dans la tête productions for JOB II. The winner was Théâtre du cloître’s Richard III ou la chute du corbeau. The writer is Nancy Thomas, and the prize is a public reading at either Chapters or Indigo and a $100 gift certificate.

Next up was the Infinite Potential award. Infinitheatre co-artistic directors Guy Sprung and Carolyn Guillet attend every Quebec play in both languages and choose from them the one they would like to collaborate on. The winner gets $1,000 worth of dramaturgical development from infini and the chance of a production. After noting that infini’s own Fringe entry, The Contract, was of course not eligible, Guillet announced that this year’s winner was La Dernière Mise, by Sébastien-Dominic Bernier. She also expressed the company’s desire to work with Keir Cutler, of Teaching Witchcraft, and Jana Van Geest, the director of No Cycle.

La Dernière Mise was also the winner of Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui’s award for "meilleure création francophone." The prize is a public reading during Td’A’s 2003–04 season.

The Spirit of the Fringe award went to Ron Scott of Almost Productions. He wins a free slot in next year’s festival. Scott’s show, Ninjas Get All the Chicks, got an honourable mention from the Just for Laughs judges, so he might be someone to watch for next year.

The JFL award for Best Comedy was up next. Brent Schiess read off a short list of seven shows before naming Sabotage: In Fine Form, as the winner. The very talented Albuquerque-based duo of Mark Chavez and Shenoah Allen are invited back to participate in JFL’s On the Edge series July 19–20.

Centaur Theatre’s representative, Vanessa Herrick, announced a "short" list of 10 plays that a panel of seven judges admired, but the winner of the Showcase award, consisting of a week-long run at Centaur in the fall, is the expressionistic Hamlet presented by Lit Moon Theatre Company of Santa Barbara.

A final note: infinitheatre’s annual cabaret, held on June 20 in conjunction with the Fringe, was enough of a success for the company to go ahead and commission a new Quebec play. This year, infini will be working with Bruce M. Smith, who was active in the local theatre scene in the early ’90s (his The Mosquito Man was voted Best New Play by Mirror readers in 1991–92) before moving on to the more lucrative world of TV writing. He is reportedly very excited to be given this chance to return to his first love.

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