Southeastern Manitoba is well represented at this years Winnipeg Fringe Festival.

The festival kicked off Wednesday and wraps up on Sunday, July 29th. This year quite a number of local troupes are taking part.

Mitchell Resident Marc Moir says he is putting on an original show called See No Evil which is an Alfred Hitchcock style suspense thriller. He notes throughout the show the audience is trying to figure out if the main character’s husband is trying to kill her or if she is just making it up in her mind.

Moir says, as a fairly new resident of the Southeast, it is great to see so many local troupes performing in the Winnipeg Fringe Festival this year.

"I teach theatre at Providence and one of the courses I teach is theatre history and that is one thing that we have seen is that theatre has always thrived when it connects with regular people and people from rural and urban and all over. We have got multiple groups from the Southeast and I think it is great to see people using the talent they have."

Jeremy Plett is a local actor and the Director of the Backyard Theatre Company. This year he helped write and direct a sketch comedy show called Sidetrack Bandits: Round 2. He says a lot of work goes into putting on a fringe show.

"Lot’s of rehearsal time is put into the show and for example our show, there are four actors and one musician and they are also the support team behind it so the directors and the writers, all of us are doing everything. You feel like you are doing a little bit more than acting in a show when you are also gathering your props and writing your own scripts."

Alan Fehr has put on many local productions over the years and has been participating the Winnipeg Fringe Festival for 10 years. He notes local performers use a festival like this to learn and grow.

"We have got so much talent in the area here and It is so great when we are able to do that for our local community. It is so great when we can go to Winnipeg and get better at what we do and then bring those experiences back to our local community and up our game and to always be improving on what we have to offer here in the southeast area."

This year Alan Fehr is putting on a fun family-friendly production called Blue Horses with a number of actors from all over the Southeast.

Other Winnipeg Fringe Festival shows with Southeast representation include Your Brain On Anxiety and Pirates and Greeks: The Untold Stories.