Arts, theatre, and music: The Verge festival is set to “collide”

The second annual Verge Fest is this weekend at the Grande Parlour in Cold Lake.

The theatre/art/music festival is one of a kind that’s set to gear up for their second run, said Cold Lake Entertainment Society president Craig Konechny.

“I think it’s a really unique event. There are so many elements that we’ve pulled from things we’ve seen elsewhere and kind of combined them into this one event.

“When you get in here, we have the back alley with the stage and the beer and wine gardens. When there’s the theatre productions on, you’re in the Grande Parlour theatre, but in-between the theatre shows, and after and before the theatre, we have music stages where there are solo or duo artists playing on the Bean Trees stage or in the back alley stage.

“Once the theatre wraps up then the Grande Parlour main stage is where the main bands play and we have three bands and we also have three DJ’s with house music playing in the back alley,” said Konechny.

The three-day festival wraps up on Aug. 11 with a family-themed show called Unwonderland with Star Wars and Disney characters who wind up on the hull of a ship and don’t know why they are there, said Teresa Pettit.

“We have this theme around the Verge called Collide. What you’ll see is different types of collision. Whether it’s a collision of worlds or an actual physical collision, that’s kind of the theme,” she said.

The Friday shows are Mingulay Station by Roan Clay and the Stardust directed by Pettit.

On Saturday, Slaughter, an adaption of Roald Dahl’s Land of the Slaughter and It’s a Dead Body by Megan Rennie take centre stage.

Musical acts for the weekend include Ryan Langlois, Experience Points, Yikes, Punch Drunk Cabaret, A Rancher’s Son, and Eversky.

In the back alley, is a wine and beer garden with DJ’s later in the night.

Konechny adds, “We have the static art gallery in the library with 15 artists, it’s just an amazing platform for a lot of artists to showcase them. We tried to combine everything we do through the year into this one-weekend event.”

Tickets for the shows are available through the Grande Parlour website.