Robin (The Only Bar) Henderson's Fringe Blog

June 12, 2011

Hey Fringe,

Day 3 of the Fringe was another “gangbanger” for “The Only Bar”.  

My family was in town to come and see the show. All together my Mom, Dad, Brother, Aunt Shirley, Aunt Nancy and Aunt Nancy’s new “friend” Phil all made the trek from Ottawa to come and check out my latest project. 

I am the only artist on both sides of my family.  As they all live in Ottawa, they mostly all work for the government.  Needless to say that my theatre-artist lifestyle is very foreign to them.  But to their credit, they always travel to come see my work and that support means a lot to me.

Family in the audience is always simultaneously heart-warming and daunting as these are the people whose opinions matter the most to me.  I think every artist can appreciate wanting their family to be as excited about your work as you are.  If they like it, then at least it slightly justifies to them why you’ve made the choice to work your ass off for very little money.  A truly bizarre concept for most government employees. I am lucky that most of the time my family really enjoys my work but once I had another Aunt and Uncle come to check out Dance Animal and the feedback I got was that it was “interesting”.  Ughhh!  I think the “stripper-burlesque-bunny” routine was just too much for them.

But “The Only Bar” seems to have been a hit with this crew of fam.  Phew!!  It is always great to hear their laughter in the audience.  My Aunt Shirley has a particularily identifiable laugh that I love.  And one thing is for sure, they all really loved the venue.  But how could they not?  The Verres Sterilises is so damn charming.  Check out this video of my very embarrassed and fully biased family talking about what they thought of the show.

And on another note, I always find backstage life so interesting.  The conversations before you go on stage are always a little silly and nerve fuelled.  Last night the cast already had 2 shows under their belt so they were a lot more relaxed.   I find everyone in this cast to be such fantastic personalities to spend many hours around.  Check out these two videos from our 2 different backstages for a candid look at “The Only Bar’s” cast moments before they go on stage. 

And a big thank-you to Josh Budman, the designer of our cast t-shirts.  We love them and we love Josh so check out this vid where he tells me about his show “On the Spot’s: Horrific, Hysterical Historical Improv Walking Tours” that run every night until the 19th at 7:00pm: 

Go Fringe Go!!

Robin x