Play the Fool FestivalThis week, clowns from Edmonton and around the world head online to entertain for the Play the Fool Festival 2020.
Play the Fool Festival launches today and will be running until the wrap-up on Saturday, September 26th. Humorously dubbed “Fool Around Online,” this year’s online festival will be exactly as the name suggests. Leading up to Saturday, there will be two-minute film screenings, as well as performances by local artists from the festival’s Signal Boost campaign.
“The [films are] just little gems of under two minutes of all sorts of different styles,” Festival Director Christine Lesiak said. “Some of them are really, really rough and ready… and some are very elaborately crafted little filming gems.”
The festival will include acts from groups around Alberta, as well as some from across Canada and around the world. To highlight just a few, there will be features from The Calgary Clown Society in the Telethon-a-thon live show, opportunities to book award-winning juggler The Great Balanzo, a screening of The Wise Fool, Geraldine Carr’s documentary about renowned clown Jan Henderson, as well as a panel discussion on culture, identity, and clowning.
The Play the Fool Festival hosts a similar discussion panel every year, speaking about what affects and influences their art.
“This year it’s an all Indigenous and Black and person of colour panel from across North America,” Lesiak said. “It’s three Alberta-based artists, one Vancouver-based artist, and then two from the US, just talking about issues about being a person of colour, Black, or Indigenous in clowning, which in North America is primarily a white-dominated culture.”
Although the festival may not be what people expect, clowning is meant to be a theatrical art.
“There is a great history of clowning on the screen, going back to Chaplin and Lucille Ball and even more modern clowns we might not obviously think of as clowns, but they are, like Jim Carrey and Melissa McCarthy,” Lesiak said.
The festival also aims to shine a spotlight on under-appreciated artists, with a special focus on local comedians in the Edmonton area. The Play the Fool Festival has a mandate to support, mentor, and promote local artists, allowing them to shine on the same stage as international artists. The Signal Boost campaign is part of the program which the public can view, and it is meant to highlight local artists.
After being asked what makes the Play the Fool Festival so special, Lesiak said, “Primarily it would be the genre, physical comedy [and clowns]. But I think what’s really interesting about it is a community that is local.”
“I think that some people could learn a little bit more about clowning, and the breadth of clowning and physical comedy,” Lesiak added.
Even if you’re not familiar with clowning or physical comedy, Play the Fool Festival is worth a gander. There’s not a lot of opportunity for us to ‘clown around’ nowadays, so why turn down a good laugh?
