Alberta\u2019s theatre community is grieving after the passing of Brian Paisley, the world-renowned founder of the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival.<\/p>\n
Paisley\u2019s partner, Ti Hallas, announced his passing at 7:46 p.m. on Saturday in a Facebook<\/a> post, saying he \u201cpeacefully let go\u201d after spending 42 days battling severe pneumonia in a hospital in Puerto Escondido, Mexico.<\/p>\n \u201cHe rallied, he fought,\u201d Hallas said in the post. \u201cHe \u2018did not go gentle into that good night.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Hallas gave thanks to the friends, family, and well-wishers who offered both emotional and financial support during Paisley\u2019s battle. She said the funds allowed Paisley to stay in a private hospital and afford daily palliative care.<\/p>\n \u201cYou sent prayers and encouragement and messages and donations. It didn\u2019t save him, but it helped him have a dignified and gentle death,\u201d Hallas wrote. \u201cWe had video calls with him and sent audio messages every day. His children got to see him and spend time with him and say goodbye.<\/p>\n \u201cBrian knew the extent of what his friends and family tried to do for him.\u201d<\/p>\n He made \u201cFringe\u201d a verb<\/p>\n Paisley\u2019s unfortunate passing comes just over a month before the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival hits a milestone 45th anniversary on Aug. 13.<\/p>\n Over the last 45 years, Paisley helped take the word \u201cFringe\u201d from a noun to a verb to an indelible part of theatre all across the globe, inspiring Fringe theatre festivals in Australia, the Netherlands, and in American cities like New York and Indianapolis.<\/p>\n Paisley took a bold step in 1982 by taking concepts from the famous Edinburgh Fringe and giving them a platform in the Canadian Prairies.<\/p>\n In a 2011 interview with Postmedia celebrating the Edmonton Fringe\u2019s 30th anniversary, Paisley noted that someone else would have done it if he hadn\u2019t gotten there first.<\/p>\n \u201cI do think that something of that ilk would have happened, inevitably,\u201d Paisley said. \u201cThere were too many (theatre) people around, with not much going on in the summer. Something like the Fringe had to emerge. Inevitably.\u201d<\/p>\n That first year, Paisley had 45 theatre groups eager to participate, with 7,500 theatre goers ready to see 200 live performances across five theatres.<\/p>\n \u201cThe audience was so much larger than I expected,\u201d Paisley said. \u201cAnd the bigger surprise is they\u2019re still there. It amazes me. You throw a party, and 30 years later, it\u2019s still going on. They just won\u2019t go home.\u201d<\/p>\n The 2026 Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival runs Aug. 13 \u2013 23.<\/p>\n rostad@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism:\u00a0Don\u2019t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add\u00a0EdmontonJournal.com<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0EdmontonSun.com<\/a>\u00a0to your bookmarks and\u00a0sign up for our newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites.\u00a0The Edmonton Journal<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0The Edmonton Sun<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alberta\u2019s theatre community is grieving after the passing of Brian Paisley, the world-renowned founder of the Edmonton International…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[277749,49,48,277753,23752,277751,277750,277754,277752],"class_list":["post-785511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-brian-paisley","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edinburgh-fringe","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-fringe","tag-fringe-theatre","tag-the-fringe","tag-ti-hallas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}