FACT SHEET

· CAR STORIES, a play set in real cars was the first show ever to be kicked out of a Fringe Festival. With 30 annual festivals in the world, the first one being started in 1949, it is the first of tens of thousands to be kicked out.

· The Gazette newspaper, a sponsor of the Montreal Fringe Festival (with money and coverage) abused this conflict-of-interest sponsorship by insisting CAR STORIES be removed, after the critic Pat Donnelly was offended.

· Jeremy Hechtman, producer of The Fringe Festival launched a smear campaign to discredit Donovan King (Optative Theatrical Laboratories), the creator of CAR STORIES.

· Mainline Theatre and the Gazette initiated a high-level media cover-up, involving, among others, Gaetan Charlebois (theatre critic for The Hour.)

· Jeremy Hechtman, Patrick Goddard (Mainline Theatre,) and Lisa Levack (Geordie Productions) defrauded OTL of over $1000.

· Mainline Theatre did not follow the mandate of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals, resulting in the defrauding of 65 young and experimental theatre companies, and consequently, hundreds of struggling artists.

· Anti-globalization activists are alarmed: with the “fringe” becoming corporate and corrupt, artists may have nowhere to turn to express themselves.