The Vancouver International Fringe Festival is known for presenting do-it-yourself theatre that's off the beaten path, and a number of performers have taken that notion literally with site-specific works staged on fire escapes, under the stars of the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre and in the cozy confines of a moving pedicab. One local playwright will perform in her backyard, while another intends to feed the audience dinner, with dessert dripping from a chocolate fountain. It's all part of the Bring Your Own Venue (BYOV) portion of the Fringe Festival, which runs Sept. 9 to 19.

Director Marisa Smith says Vancouver's Alley Theatre originally planned to present award-winning playwright Morwyn Brebner's Matador Love on Granville Island, but when the venue fell through mere days before the Fringe Festival's application deadline, the nimble young company switched gears.

Alley Theatre released a call for submissions and chose three short plays by local writers from 20 to compliment Brebner's, which is set in a café. With connecting themes of relationships, longing for love and acceptance and secrets, the company will present four plays, dubbed Wicked Shorts, at Wicked Café--a coffee shop at the corner of Hemlock and West Seventh Avenue.

"[Site-specific theatre] brings you closer to the story. You feel almost like a fly on the wall," Smith said. "The stage isn't lit, so there isn't that separation between the audience and the actors."

Last year, Smith acted in Alley Theatre's Fringe Festival production of TAPE, which focuses on three friends and their interpretations of an event in a hotel room that haunted them all for 10 years. The production in a room at the Waldorf Hotel on East Hastings had critics including the Courier's Jo Ledingham riveted to their up-close-and-personal seats, and the performance by Smith, Daniel Arnold and Matthew Kowalchuk, as directed by Amiel Gladstone, was held over for three days and seven performances. Arnold has acted as dramaturge for Wicked Shorts.

Alley Theatre takes its name from the first play it produced, Confessions, which was performed in a coffee shop in Railspur Alley on Granville Island.

In addition to Brebner's play about a blind date from hell, the inner thoughts of a waiter are revealed as he serves the date night crowd in Kathleen Oliver's Rendez-Vous. Playwright Christopher Cook serves up his mysterious and psychological story about families, deaths and nosebleeds with a twist, and Seth Soulstein's Monsters in the Closet tackles love and secrets in a modern relationship.

Elizabeth Kirkland and Guy Christie will morph into different characters for all four Wicked Shorts plays.

Victoria's Theatre SKAM is credited with producing the first bring-your-own-venue play at the Vancouver International Fringe Festival in 1997. SKAM's Louis and Dave took place in a 1978 Plymouth Volare where audiences took a backseat to the two guys on a hunt for girls.

This year, Fringe productions will roll out at 30 unofficial Fringe venues, with 11 site-specific BYOV productions. For more information, see www.vancouverfringe.com.

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The 125th Anniversary of Vancouver Chinatown 2010 Exhibition is on now until Sept. 7. One side of the room at 163 East Pender St. near Main features chronological photographs that document Chinatown's evolution over the last 125 years, including mind-blowing neon in Chinatown in the 1950s. The other side features contemporary art interpretations of many Chinatown heritage buildings rendered by Emily Carr University students who've incorporated mail slots and keys, stitching, paper, cigarettes and beads into their works.

crossi@vancourier.com