When I went on my first Fringe theatre tour, I'd been living in Paris for six years. I wasn't ready to come home to Canada for good, but I liked the idea of touring the country for a summer. The Fringe is a low-fame version of Canadian Idol-bare your soul, see the country, make some money. And as a bonus: since I was only stage-managing my husband's show, it wasn't my soul (or my butt) being bared up there on stage. I just had to make sure the lights worked.

Our show last year was a hit. We had sold-out houses across the country. It was so much fun, we decided to tour again, this time with a new show named for our road-trip vehicle: Driving Back to Vegas in a '64 Skylark. So I'm writing this from the road. This year, we played it safe by restricting ourselves to Winnipeg, Saskatoon, and Edmonton. A complete Fringe tour lasts all summer, Montreal to Vancouver, with optional detours to Halifax, Athabasca, and Victoria, depending on which route you choose. The Fringe circus rolls into Vancouver on September 8, with boogie vans full of props, armloads of flyers, and enough posters to build an extra bridge to Granville Island.

Being a Fringe performer is a curious enterprise. We bet our savings on the chance to strut our stuff, hoping to make it big-in a smallish kind of way. The Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals ensures that member festivals keep to a strict set of guidelines. It's a simple formula created by the Edinburgh Fringe Festival over 50 years ago, to provide artists with the opportunity to produce their play, no matter what the content or style, and to make the shows as affordable and accessible as possible for the community. It works. You want to perform at a Fringe? Put your name in the lottery and you have as good a chance as any experienced theatre company.

Vancouver-based Cara Yeates is touring Knee Deep in Muck, a show about tree planting. "As a writer-performer, there's nothing else like this. You're up there, and it's sink or swim. I've never worked so hard on anything in my life!

"Putting up posters and handing out flyers is crucial to attract an audience. Then we have to rehearse and perform almost every day of each festival, and deal with criticism. You have to develop such a thick skin," says Yeates. "But it's rewarding to be doing what you want."

In June, we drove from Vancouver to Winnipeg. We rehearsed en route; my husband practised his tap routine in tennis courts and back alleys. We really do own a 1964 Buick Skylark; it's red, it's not exactly great on gas, but the trunk can hold an entire theatre set. A more common Fringe vehicle of choice is a van. However, vans aren't always trouble-free: Terri-Lyn Storey, who's touring Torched, tore her boogie van's roof within days of buying it. "I repaired the holes with fibreglass and itched for the first week of the tour. By Portage La Prairie, it was raining so hard through the roof, I had to get pots [to catch the water] from the van kitchenette." So far, our Skylark is waterproof.

After each show, we have 15 minutes to break set and clear the stage for the next performer. In Winnipeg, we scored a lovely black-box space. Putting away our props, we chatted with Aaron Talbot, whose one-man physical theatre show pause was up next. Edmonton-based Talbot was cheerfully recovering from Toronto, where the sweltering venue nearly killed him. "But," he said, "the Fringe is still the best opportunity to get your work out to a wide audience, without any restrictions."

The first Canadian city to jump on the Fringe bandwagon was Edmonton in 1982; their Fringe remains the biggest in Canada. Winnipeg runs a close second, and a bizarre selection of other cities, such as Swift Current, also offer Fringes. The trick is applying to the right ones so you don't plan a Fringe drive that goes from Ottawa to Athabasca to Thunder Bay within a single month (as a New York performer did last year-imagine her face when we showed her a map).

New Yorker Chris Caswell is more geographically savvy: this is her third year on the Fringe. She's currently touring Maudlin Dementia, in which she plays multiple characters. "I love the principles of the Fringe: 100 percent of the box office, unjuried, so you get lots of artistic freedom. It costs so much money to produce a show in New York-the company I work with has never made a profit there. But [the Canadian Fringe] at least offers the potential of making a living."

That's why such amazing American, British, and other foreign performers tour the Canadian Fringe-there's nothing like it in other countries. "I had never been to Canada before doing my first Fringe," says Caswell. "Winnipeg was my entrance point. I couldn't believe it-you make a right turn at Fargo and end up in this funky city that loves art. It was through the looking glass for me."

In Winnipeg, Driving Back to Vegas got good reviews, but somebody broke into our Skylark while we were performing one afternoon. The stereo was ripped out and the lock needed replacing. Other performers commiserated, sharing their horror stories. Aaron Talbot described his drive from Toronto to the 'Peg with Terri-Lyn Storey: "Somewhere past Sault Ste. Marie, the van got stuck behind a hazardous- materials truck. We got bored, stopped for a dip in Lake Superior, then noticed heavy black smoke pouring past us." Then the police screamed by. The truck they had been following had exploded, closing the Trans-Canada for hours.

Right now, we're in Saskatoon-great Fringe, but small audiences. Flyering becomes absurd when seven performers are handing out info to 10 Saskatooners in line. But the slow pace means we take an evening off to visit a 1910 Prairie dance hall, where I learn how to polka. Performers meet at midnight to parody each other's shows, and to sing rock karaoke at a local bar. We give each other free tickets, so when we go on there's someone out there beyond the footlights. In between shows, I play shuffleboard with Brad Curtin, who studied at Studio 58. Last year, Curtin toured Water, about the Walkerton tragedy. This year, he's produced Timmy's Sexual Adventures. He's flyering in costume, wearing only tighty-whiteys with red suspenders. He made the cover of the Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal-on the same day terrorists attacked London. "It's surreal," he admits. "The reviews, the flyering, seeing everyone's show. The performers become your family on the road. We keep each other going."

Exactly. The Fringe gives audiences access to contemporary international theatre, and it gives performers a chance to build their own community. What other summer job lets you see great theatre, perfect your performance skills, and sing Johnny Cash tunes in karaoke bars from coast to coast with insomniac fellow Fringers?

We hit the road for Edmonton tomorrow, then the Fringe circus heads for Vancouver. You have been warned.

ACCESS: The 21st Annual Vancouver Fringe Festival runs September 8 to 18. For tickets, call 604-257-0366. If you're interested in volunteering, visit www.vancouverfringe.com/. Volunteers see one free show for every four-hour shift they work.