Adam Proulx is no stranger to performing. After winning the BC Touring Council Award in 2015, he had the opportunity to tour across the province with his show, which led to opportunities on screen too! We asked Adam what inspired his journey into the world of Fringing…
I was inspired to make a Fringe show after attending my first Fringe festival in Toronto. It awakened the desire to make my own creative work. At the time I was a young actor performing with Avenue Q (thanks to my experience in puppetry when working at Disney World), so I decided to make a puppet show for adults. I also love how puppets allow for the focus to not be entirely on me – you may not know this seeing me on the stage, but I can be shy. My first Fringe festival was in 2014 in Toronto – I actually performed on the stage where I saw the Fringe show that inspired me. That was BAKER’S DOZEN: 12 Angry Puppets, which was also the first show I brought to Vancouver Fringe in 2015! Performing at Fringe festivals helped me to realize that the best thing I could do as an artist was to not try and fit myself into a box by trying to be in other people’s shows.
I’ve performed at the Vancouver Fringe more than any other festival – I love the community here, and the Revue Stage is my favourite theatre on this planet. At my first Vancouver Fringe in 2015 I won the BC Touring Council Award, which allowed me to tour my show across the province. As a young actor, there’s no way I could’ve done that on my own, and it helped to grow my career as an artist. I’ve come a long way since then – now I’m lucky enough to be in shows on Family Jr., Netflix, and CBC Gem.
Emilio’s A Million Chameleons was my first Fringe show for kids. It was created during a residency with Tarragon Theatre in Toronto – I started only knowing I wanted to use flip sequin fabric! Performing a children’s show in a post-pandemic world was a fascinating experience. I would ask children to raise their hands if it was their first time at a theatre show, and most would. This meant the theatre was sometimes chaotic because they didn’t know how to behave as an audience, but it was also delightful to see them discover the joy of live performance. Maybe I inspired one of them to eventually create a Fringe show, the same way I was inspired to all those years ago.
Feeling inspired? Your right in time to enter our 2024 lottery! Whether you’ve performed in countless productions or never stepped foot on stage, the Fringe is for you. Enter today, you never know what opportunity might knock…
