First Person: Sam Mullins (Tinfoil Dinosaur) on the thing he's glad he's leaving behind at Toronto Fringe...

It always starts with a poster sprint.
by Sam Mullins

It always starts with the poster sprint.


It shouldn’t.  But it does.

I suppose it is an undeniably brilliant opportunity for photos.  

I mean, just think: 

Theatre artists have come from all over North America and the world to perform their art here - in the heart of Canada’s largest cultural centre.  They have meticulously written and rewritten their pieces for months, as they spent their days slaving away at their awful day jobs.  They have sacrificed all of their money and time trying to breathe life into these plays.  Just to have a chance for their work to be recognized.  To be seen.  To be appreciated.  To be validated as a piece of work that is capable of enhancing the human experience.  As something that can touch people.

And here we are.  All together for the first time.  Insecure about our work, and about how we will be received here in Toronto.

“Alright!  Is everyone ready?!  Hold up your posters for the photographers!  Okay.  Everyone!  On your marks!  Get set!  GO!”


I make my way to the newly erected Fringe tent, which will serve as the main social hub of the festival.  I come around the corner and see dozens of artists hunched over their delicately pieced together posters on the ground.  The shrill crackle of packing tape fills the air, as I pull my posters out of my bag and follow suit, taping a cluster of four together.

The artists who have partaken in the infamous Toronto Fringe Poster Sprint before wear an unmistakably grim expression, and have a flicker of malevolence in their eyes.  They know what’s about to happen.

Oh yeah.  And it’s hot.  Apocalyptically hot.  

“Welcome artists!  Now if you could make your way to the start line, please.”

The crowd goes quiet, as everyone carefully folds their posters into sprinting mode. The photographers swarm around the starting line like a venue of grinning vultures, as the hundred or so artists tentatively take the starting line.  

As I stand there shoulder to shoulder with my peers, I naively think to myself, 

“This should be a piece of cake.  I mean, I used to be a junior hockey player for God’s sakes.  I’m bigger and stronger and faster than just about everyone here.  I just need to turn off my social graces for 30 seconds and tape these four posters… to that wall.  What could possibly go wrong?”

“Alright!  Is everyone ready?!  Hold up your posters for the photographers!  Okay.  Everyone!  On your marks!  Get set!  GO!”

It’s on.  

Within the first two steps there is a woman who loses her footing and falls violently to the pavement.  But lucky for her, these are all theatre people.  These are some of the gentlest and most quality people in the entire world.  So, surely someone will stop to offer her a helping hand.  Right?  Right guys?  Right?

Oh no….

I swear, I saw a dude not only step on this woman, but firmly plant a foot on her hip and essentially use her as a spring board.  Which, in the context of a Toronto Fringe Poster Sprint, was a stroke of genius.  Because that guy got the job done.  I almost forgot to keep running, I was so inspired by him.

You know the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan?  When it’s a POV shot from Tom Hanks’ character?  And everything is in slow motion, and the sounds are all distorted, and he looks over, and there’s this dude with just one arm wandering around on the beach looking for his other arm?

It was kind of like that, I thought, as I dashed toward the wall like a lemming.

I get to the wall, and awkwardly thrust my blanket of four posters toward the corrugated plastic board’s surface.  Unfortunately for me, though, my poster was right away overlapping with seven others.  Which was in violation of the Vietnam-like Poster Sprint’s one and only rule:

1. No covering up in whole or in part another company’s poster.

Shit.  

So then I had to pull out an exacto-knife (which probably would’ve come in handy mere moments earlier), and trim the portions of my posters that were covering the others.  All told, I had plastered the famous Toronto Fringe Artist Wall with exactly 1.3 posters.  

Not bad.  Not bad at all.

The posters were up, and the Fringe was now officially underway.

As I looked around, I noticed that all the other artists looked as shell-shocked as I felt.  Our eyes were all fixed to the ground ashamedly, with no one wanting to meet the gaze of another Poster Sprint victim. 

After the dust had finally settled, I made my way straight home –  for two showers.  

One for the outside.  And one for the inside.