Circus lover Minniti noticed that the circus component of Fringe had diminished as a result of North Melbourne’s Meat Market no longer being used as a hub for Fringe, and wanted to address this. “There wasn’t a centralised circus hub,” he explains. “Over the last few years the circus component of Fringe has gotten smaller. A bunch of independent producers banded together to create a chaotic yet fun environment and put together a hub for circus on the south side. The Boardwalk Republic is a centralised collection of venues, drawing inspiration from two of America’s famous boardwalks in entertainment history: the infamous Atlantic City boardwalk and the family friendly Coney Island.”
With some funding from the City of Port Phillip, support from Gasworks as well as some private sponsorship, fundraisers, a Pozible campaign and ‘love from me and my business partner’, Minniti and After Dark Theatre have organised three venues at Gasworks: the larger theatre they’ve renamed the Big House, the smaller studio theatre is now the Clover Club plus there’s a big top, a domed tent called Bally.
“That’s more like a pop-up venue,” says Minniti. Creating an awareness of Gasworks in the public mind as a Fringe venue has been one challenge facing the After Dark Team: people don’t see it as easy to get to in comparison to other venues. “There’s only one tram that goes to Gasworks,” notes Minniti. “So we decided to fix that – we’ve put on the Bootlegger, a bus service that runs from Southern Cross station to Gasworks. It’s a free service that goes every 30 minutes. The shows in Boardwalk include Plan B (a one man performer), Illuminate, a crew of NICA students in their final year…some bigger names like Avon Waite who’s a great gentleman, contemporary artists Idle Hands, there are mirror ball specialists…some performers have trained at Jacques Le Coq school in Paris.” There’s a Best of Boardwalk, a variety night which will showcase the highlights from the different shows. People can come along and see three different shows a night.”
Taking their inspiration from the atmosphere in the outdoor spaces at Adelaide Fringe Festival, the team are creating a fairground vibe at Gasworks Art Park. “People come in for free, they can wander around, we’ve got a popcorn cart, a fairy floss machine, there are market stalls and an art gallery,” continues Minniti. “There’s a lot of outdoor entertainment. Performers are outside spruiking their shows. We’ve got an outdoor stage and we’re screening a short film festival in the big tent between performances.” Wow. Although putting together something like this sounds like a huge undertaking, Minniti reckons it’s not that difficult.
“Once you get it going it’s not that hard to put something together,” says Minniti. “We’re a good team, Harry Cope and I go way back; we’ve been working together for a couple of months on this with our ‘lovely assistant’ Emma Shepherd, she’s managing the outdoor stalls.” Minniti is a circus performer himself but for Fringe he will be wandering around for the duration of the Boardwalk Republic and hosting the whole shebang, all the while performing Charlie Carbone, a heighted ‘people-pleasing’ version of himself.
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
