Director's Notes from the Program

I don't know what's going to happen tonight.

Well, I have some idea, This show is the culmination of two years of furious work by a team of far-reaching artists, technicians, volunteers, and partners making it, in the end, highly probable that certain things are going to happen tonight to a fella named Fred.

But exactly what will transpire out there is unknown.

Other Freds is about a fella named Fred who brings his lunch down to the docks each day and watches life pass him by. If you have felt alone, if you have hesitated too long, then made a hash of things, if you have ever been stuck, then you know Fred.

Other Freds is an improvisation between our story and the everyday world of the site. Quantum Mechanics will tell you that a parallel world exists out there for every possibility that exists. Fred's story, the site and these possible worlds make up the world of our play.

I am entirely grateful to Team Fred for their tenacity in pushing an impossible idea through the small funnel into the realm of reality. I also give thanks to my folks, my dad, the scientist, always seeking to understand how the world works, and my mom, the political activist, dedicated to changing that world. In the theories of quantum mechanics I find both--the scientific proof that ultimate reality is responsive to consciousness, and that changing the world is as easy as hopping a qwiffian branch...it is a deeply hopeful message from our fundamental particles, and from Fred, tonight, to you.

"There is no such thing as a Fred existing alone in a world of his own."
-Dr Dwight Vincent, physicist, CBC radio, Ideas

Enjoy!
Kendra Fanconi