{"id":787451,"date":"2026-07-08T03:27:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T03:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/787451\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T03:27:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T03:27:36","slug":"founder-of-north-americas-longest-running-fringe-festival-in-edmonton-has-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/787451\/","title":{"rendered":"Founder of North America\u2019s longest running Fringe Festival in Edmonton has died"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Brian Paisley, the founder of the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival seen in this undated photo. Brian Paisley died Thursday in Mexico, where he was spending his retirement, after a long struggle with pneumonia.Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The founder of North America\u2019s longest-running Fringe theatre festival and a celebrated advocate of storytelling has died.<\/p>\n

The Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival says Brian Paisley died Thursday in Mexico, where he was spending his retirement, after a long struggle with pneumonia.<\/p>\n

Paisley, a screenwriter, author and playwright, launched the festival in Edmonton 45 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll hearts are feeling his loss,\u201d said Murray Utas, the festival\u2019s artistic director, in a Tuesday interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s 30-plus festivals that are happening today across North America that are directly related to us at Edmonton and the philosophy that was founded by Brian.\u201d<\/p>\n

His death comes about a month before the 10-day festival in August. Utas said Edmonton\u2019s theatre community is set to commemorate his life during the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that we\u2019ve lost who we lovingly (called) Father Fringe, (the festival) becomes more intentional about looking at what is in the true fabric of this beautiful event that happens every year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in 1946 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Paisley grew up in Vancouver. Later in Edmonton, working as an artistic director, he was approached by city officials with a request to use leftover funding for something meaningful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen he came up with what he coined as sort of an absurd idea of where anyone can be an artist and we let artists without gatekeepers tell their stories,\u201d Utas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe honestly didn\u2019t think it was going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Utas said Paisley loved storytelling and was inspired by the work being done by artists with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, known as the largest event of its kind in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe loved the idea of what stories meant and how they were woven into the journey of who we are,\u201d Utas said.<\/p>\n

\u201c(He believed) if we aren\u2019t telling stories, recording our stories or making the stories stay alive, community isn\u2019t as healthy as it could be or thrives in the way that it could.\u201d<\/p>\n

The City of Edmonton\u2019s website says 7,500 people attended the very first festival in 1982.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Edmonton Fringe Festival has continued to expand, attracting about a half million people to the Old Strathcona area each August,\u201d the city said.<\/p>\n

\u201c(It) is now recognized as the largest alternative theatre festival in the world outside of the original Fringe in Edinburgh.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s mayor says Paisley brought people from all over the world to Alberta\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe transformed Edmonton\u2019s cultural landscape, inspired generations of artists and art leaders, and helped create a city where creativity is celebrated and everyone is invited to participate,\u201d said Andrew Knack.<\/p>\n

Paisley received the Order of Canada in 2010.<\/p>\n

In 2023, he received an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Alberta for his impact on Canada\u2019s arts community.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also a member of Edmonton\u2019s Arts and Culture Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

His passion and the work of those he inspired have kept the festival alive, Utas said, and the Edmonton festival has also been a blueprint for other theatre festivals held across North America.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said the audience was so much larger than what he expected (at the first fringe festival) and the bigger surprise is that they\u2019re still here,\u201d Utas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt amazes him that you throw a party and years later it\u2019s still going on and they just won\u2019t go home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Utas said Paisley was also a blunt person and didn\u2019t mince words.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe never stopped being unapologetically himself, and I don\u2019t know that there\u2019s many people in the world that get to say that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, the Edmonton festival said Paisley left an indelible mark on Canadian theatre and art.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you, Brian, for reminding us that imagination can change a city \u2013 and that the most extraordinary stories often begin with one beautifully impossible idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll carry it forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Brian Paisley, the founder of the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival seen in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,23752,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-787451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-edmonton","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787451","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=787451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}