Ottawa 2025 Fringe Theatre Festival Visitor Schedule Optimiser
Revision History
; $Log: Ottawa2025FringeFestivalOptimiserStartHere.html,v $
; Revision 1.10 2025/06/20 18:23:53 agmsmith
; Updated show durations to actual times for: Weathering and Waiting,
; Intimi(Dating): A Cabaret About Sex and Dating,
; Oy, What They Said About Love, The Prism of Ms. Jane Doe.
;
; Revision 1.9 2025/06/19 18:29:31 agmsmith
; Updated actual show durations for
; ANATOMICA: A Comedy About Meat, Bones, & The Skin You’re In,
; At Death’s Door, Bucket List, Kitsune. Most extremely, At Death's Door is 35
; minutes, not 60.
;
; I most enjoyed Kitsune and Anatomica in this batch. A few related comments...
;
; Obviously the hydrostatically structured creatures are better than the ones
; with interior or exterior skeletons, if you are talking about outer space.
; Anatomica limited it's environment being on Earth. Besides not having bones to
; atropy (just muscles), they should also survive higher G accelerations.
; There's even a science fiction story following the development of a
; civilization of such a race of inflatable creatures, who spread into space once
; they overcome their other limitations (was it floppy fingers?).
;
; Kitsune is a new show, after 2023's Kimiko success, still based on Japanese
; culture and performances. This time it's more about the mythical creatures,
; Kitsune the fox being the main one.
;
; While petting the fox our questor found the fox's hoshi no tama, a
; glowing gem that is tied to the fox's soul. In the show it is a little red
; glowing sphere (0.6mm diameter, illuminated like a red incandescent Christmas
; light) stored near the tail. Kitsune and the questor threw it back and forth
; (a sleight of hand trick, possibly with a second light in the fox's mouth that
; turns on and off at exactly the time of a catch or throw). Then they
; played catch with the children in the front row, until one of them missed and
; the gem landed in a stream (fabric and lighting and sound). That led to the
; next quest.
;
; Anyway, while waiting an hour for the next show to start, I was inspired by
; Kitsune to think of a throw and catch game for cell phones. A gesture would
; flip the imaginary ball (Kitsune showed you don't need anything actually moving
; in the air, or in the child's hands to catch it, just imagination) and it would
; fly over to the nearest cell phone in the direction it was pointed in. That
; cell phone's flashlight would light up when it catches it. Then you can flip
; it to a different cell phone, and the light moves.
;
; Simple. Should already exist. I searched the Apple App store and Android too,
; found a few things, lots of game screen ball throwing, but none that involved
; real world throwing. The closest one was several versions of a throw your
; phone as high as you can game (it's a thing, possibly banned by Apple due to
; damaged devices). That works by measuring the time the phone is in free fall
; to deduce the height achieved.
;
; A more general search turned up the Sony XR Catch Ball which is designed
; for everybody, including people with disabilities, to play. If you don't have
; the virtual reality equipment, you can use cell phones too. Rather than a
; gesture to throw, you shake the phone and press a button. The one inspiration
; I'd like to steal from them is that they do sound effects from all the devices
; involved to show where the ball is.
;
; Unfortuantely I don't have time to write a multiplayer throw and catch the
; light mobile phone game, but I know how it would work.
;
; First all the devices would know their location in space, at least relative to
; each other (if GPS is inadequate, some initial echo location time delay pings
; can figure things out). Orientation detection is needed too (compass can
; provide it, or some other method), to find the direction you are throwing the
; ball.
;
; Normal movement detection (accelerometers are standard nowadays) would detect
; the throwing motion and the force used. Physics can simply move the imaginary
; ball through space with that force and direction. If it lands near enough to
; another cell phone, that one catches it. If they're moving around their cell
; phone like they're trying to catch, make the catch radius larger.
;
; The throwing phone's flashlight turns off when the ball leaves their phone, and
; the catcher turns on when they get the ball. Appropriate throw/catch/bounce on
; ground sound effects eminate from all phones, made quieter for distant phones.
; You can pick up a bouncing ball if you get close enough to it, guided by the
; sound.
;
; There's some network activity to keep track of who has the ball and where it is
; and what it is doing, so all phones can make the appropriate sounds and nearby
; ones can catch it (with some arbitration to avoid two of them catching it at
; once). I'd recommend just doing the physics on the throwing phone, with the
; catcher taking over physics simulation when it gets the ball. There could be
; more balls, but that would be best done with colour and sound, so use the
; screen instead of the flashlight to make light. Lots of games and scoring
; systems can be implemented on top of that basic catch and throw mechanic. So
; why isn't it out there already?
;
; Revision 1.8 2025/06/18 19:52:59 agmsmith
; Updated show durations for DNA, Jack and Diane vs. Technology,
; Strings Attached, The Pleasant Meadows Public Library …Presents…
; The FULL Mountie: Erotic Readings by Poet Emerson Lake.
;
; A couple of those shows are 10 minutes shorter than listed!
;
; Revision 1.7 2025/06/17 19:04:40 agmsmith
; Added actual show durations for All that Glitters in the Dark,
; Arthur Bampot: The Case of the Dead Silence, Chez Suzette Boulette,
; Divine Masculine: A Rhapsody, Hmong Class 101, Sammy and “Le Grand Buffet”,
; The Death of a Swan, The Graveyard Shift, What the Fuck, Kid?,
; Whiskey Flicks Live!
;
; There are rumours of I Scream, You Scream… Justice! having French captions
; rather than English, but I don't know which shows if any have that change.
;
; Revision 1.6 2025/06/15 16:48:05 agmsmith
; Bug: I Scream, You Scream… Justice! is actually English, with English captions.
; Updated actual show durations for 10,000 Digits of Pi, Authentication,
; Eleanor’s Story: Life After War, I Scream, You Scream… Justice!, IAGO vs HAMLET,
; Sweet and Sultry Burlesque, Unsatisfaction.
;
; By the way, 10,000 Digits of Pi had a laptop battery charge problem and we (the
; audience) couldn't find any power plugs in the venue (some on the ceiling for
; lights), but did find a power bar extension cord and got it hooked up. So
; maybe that's why it ran late.
;
; Also Sweet and Sultry Burlesque had an excess of ice dumped on the stage by
; accident, which resulted in some fun improvisation for dramatic stage cleaning.
; So the show you see will be different from what I saw.
;
; Revision 1.5 2025/06/14 15:27:41 agmsmith
; Actual show durations for ECPD, Garçon Béton, Multiple Neurosis,
; Stroke of Genius: Pantomime Masturbation, The Bunker and The Wickie.
; Some were a bit long due to standing ovations!
;
; Revision 1.4 2025/06/13 19:26:19 agmsmith
; Golden Threads is actually 56 minutes long in real life.
;
; Revision 1.3 2025/06/10 00:19:39 agmsmith
; More language descriptions for shows.
;
; Revision 1.2 2025/06/09 02:26:15 agmsmith
; Added per-showing notes for masking, and lots of show duration
; changes from the Fringe Festival.
;
; Revision 1.1 2025/06/03 02:34:50 agmsmith
; Initial revision