Grande Parlour on the “Verge” of Summer Festival

The Grande Parlour in Cold Lake is upping the artistic stakes this August to the tune of a three day festival. The Verge Arts Festival will be held Aug. 10-12 and will showcase dozens of local artists visual and theatrical work on three different stages.

The Beantrees Cafe will open their stage for the event, and organizers Craig Konechny and Teresa Pettit hope to put an additional stage in the back alley to create a “craft beer” or “wine garden” vibe.

The plan each night is to have one stage active at a time and to rotate performers on each stage. So once one act finishes, viewers will move to the next stage, and so on. This will continue throughout the evening until the two main acts.

“It’s going to be quite a sensory experience,” said Craig Konechny.

“There’s a lot of moving parts, when one thing stops here, another will be starting right away in another spot. So it’s not about sitting down in one place and claiming your real estate, it’s going to be getting up and moving around. It’s going to be interesting and a lot of fun.”

“Between the three stages there will be six productions going on theatre-wise. We have almost 20 artists who’ll be performing throughout the weekend, plus the two main-stage events, and then 20 visual artists in the space also.”

As always the focus for the Grande Parlour is on local artists and playwrights for the festival, and with the wide array of both visual and performance art, it makes Teresa Pettit excited for the challenge.

“A lot of the people who’ve submitted the art – the new writers and directors I’m working with – they’re doing some pretty interesting pieces: some serious pieces, and some comedy pieces,” said Pettit.

“So I think it’s going to be really challenging for the actors taking part, and really interesting for the community to see what we can do.”

Currently, the Grande Parlour is accepting submissions for The Verge festival. For more information find them on Facebook or their website www.thegrandeparlour.ca.