A full fall Fringe

Island Fringe Festival 2025
Various venues
October 9–12, 2025

The Island Fringe Festival (IFF) staged eight shows this year in four venues: the Beaconsfield Carriage House, the Black Cultural Society Theatre, The Guild and “The Kirk” at St James Presbyterian Church. The biggest change was when they did it: October, instead of IFF’s usual summer run. Darkness-dwelling, heat-shunning hobgoblin that I am, I quite fancy the switch to less sweltering nights—though I heard mixed reviews from fellow patrons in that regard; and speaking of reviews, here’s a countdown summary of my 2025 favourites in 100+ words apiece… 

8. A Guide to Collecting Antique Maps(comedy from New York at Beaconsfield Carriage House)

Written by Kathryn Taylor, this dark comedy stars her and Charlie Hume as rural married couple John and Jill Hanks, increasingly at odds since Jill’s return from vacationing at a “commune” that is most definitely a cult. Apart from some technical difficulties there’s fine stagecraft here, and the appealing Taylor-Hume duo performs the thoughtful, sometimes amusing script well (hence the show’s Artists’ Pick of the Fringe award); but the story’s climactic twist is so glaringly telegraphed and deeply unpleasant that the play left a bad taste in my mouth despite its merits—though I concede that’s partly the animal-loving vegetarian in me talking. 

7. The Heterosexuals (solo comedy from Toronto, ON at the Black Cultural Society Theatre)

Written and performed by Johnnie McNamara Walker, this maniacally over-the-top, frequently vulgar, oft-hilarious one-man show offers a flamboyantly gay, quasi-anthropological take on the baffling quirks of heterosexuals—also called “Breeders” or “Dry Toast” or “The Fun Police” here—with detours into Walker’s own youth, enabling him to show some range as his closeted, glumly subdued younger self “John”; but the bulk of the show belongs to the very queer, gleefully crazed “Johnnie” as he lampoons “The Straights” while sharing tips on how to weaponize Bette Midler music or get salacious kicks from Archie digests. 

6. Drag Me to the Opera (solo musical from Calgary, AB at The Kirk)

Winner of this year’s Patrons’ Pick of the Fringe award, this charming musical revue is written and performed by Steven Morton, who appears primarily (though not exclusively) in his larger-than-life drag persona as “Aida Cupcake” here, monologuing and singing his way through his long, strange journey into professional opera while performing classics by the likes of Gounod, Mozart and Puccini. Morton combines vocal virtuosity and show biz flair with moving pathos, shifting from arch theatricality to raw vulnerability and back again as he asks of his operatic dream: “Can I plausibly pursue this!?” I would answer most emphatically yes—though admittedly, much of what I know about opera I learned from Bugs Bunny. 

5. She, is ME.(dance dramedy from PEI at Beaconsfield Carriage House)

Written, directed, and choreographed by Dawn Ward-Dames and narrated by Rebekah Brown with live saxophone by Diana Delirio and dancing in various styles by Ward-Dames, Alice Gladstone, Brooke Hannah, Isabelle Lee, Charlie MacLaren, Abi McCarthy, Livia McPhee, Lauren Scott, Brianna Smith and Gabriela Zambrano, this mass meditation on the lives of female dancers skews a smidgen preachy or pretentious in spots but more often rings warmly wise as a confessional and cri de coeur that morphs into a manifesto. Brown smoothly cuts through the music and motion as the voice of the show and all the dancers have their moments, such as Hannah’s serene poise, McPhee’s fierce energy or the fun dance/sax “El Cumbanchero” pairing of Ward-Dames and Delirio. 

4. Where it’s Too Deep to See(drama from PEI at the Black Cultural Society Theatre)

Written by Kris Williams and directed by Kassinda Bulger, this PARC Award-winning play follows struggling lobster fisher Mike (played by Ben Hartley), his long-suffering righthand man Frenchy (Cam MacDonald) and their crude crewman Marshall (John MacCormac) as they navigate tensions in the fishing community, plus corrupt DFO agent Walter (Adi Vella) blackmailing Mike and Frenchy about a murder. Staging the show in the round enhances the play’s intimacy and intensity, Bulger gets strong drama out of improv comedy veterans Hartley and MacDonald, MacCormac is a sullenly weaselly Marshall, Vella is quietly effective as an oddly moralistic blackmailer and the whole cast creates moments of comedy—especially MacDonald, looking like some lost Maritime Mario Brother in his luridly primary-coloured fishing garb—but a preposterously ill-motivated confession and a confounding plot twist subvert an otherwise strong script. 

3. Afterbirth (drama from PEI at The Guild)

Written and directed by Candace Hagen with the reliable offstage voice talents of Graham Putnam, this otherwise solo show stars Rosie Shaw as tart-tongued, hard-drinking, surreptitiously smoking senior citizen Theodora Finch, an unimpressed occupant of the underwhelming Sagewood Manor facility. With little to do apart from drink, smoke and reminisce, Rosie talks about her life in the theatre (even sharing the stage with Gracie Finley as Anne Shirley way back when), how her best friend Madge built her up (“she made me bigger”) but ultimately broke her heart, and how she scorned societal expectations like marriage and motherhood. Hagen and Shaw craft a memorable and slyly funny if somewhat misanthropic character here, and Shaw has one of the best entrances of IFF 2025 as she creeps transgressively onto the stage during an IFF volunteer’s show introduction. Winner of the Staff Pick of the Fringe award. 

2. Bless You!(dark comedy from PEI at The Kirk)

Winner of 2025’s Oscar Wilde Award, this melancholic mirth machine is directed by Dana Doucette and written by Jay Gallant, who also stars as the self-proclaimed voice of God, said voice emanating from a hospital chapel’s Kleenex box. (Wait, what?) Chapel visitors include semi-estranged sisters Manny (played by Lindsay Schieck) and Sarah (Marli Trecartin), both coping with the imminent death of their religious but emotionally distant father—especially Manny, a lonely and bitter divorced lesbian atheist who is understandably weirded out when a box of tissues offers her advice. Schieck (full disclosure: my cousin) is great as the lead here, hitting the dramatic moments hard, nailing the comedic beats and crafting a believable, appealing character, while the voice of Gallant charms as a cheerfully heretical tissue deity, and the Trecartin-Schieck duo is a powerfully emotional combo. Hannah McGaughey also has fun cameos as a random person blown away by the chapel’s divine tissues. 

1. The Forest Ends With You (multimedia dramedy from Toronto, ON at The Guild)

Created by Big Kids Theatre, a collaborative “devised theatre company” specializing in “magical-realist, multidisciplinary works,” The Forest Ends With You (TFEWY) is an alternately creepy and charming tale set in suburbia circa 2004. Seven teenage friends—played by Aryan Kalra and the script’s co-devisors Dylan Carter (also lighting designer/game developer), Matthew Finnigan (also fight/intimacy director), Zoe Magirias (also sound design assistant), Payton Oswald, Madeline Sadai and Makenah Welsh—spiral into soul-searching and in-fighting after finding a classmate’s dead body, and then slowly realize their favourite text-based RPG video game seems to be coming to life. A darkly playful blend of acting, dance, music, puppetry and video gaming, naturalistically acted by its ensemble yet made surreally dreamlike by staging devices like occasional Greek chorus outbreaks, TFEWY has a low-tech, low-budget guerilla theatre feel that suits its characters, its fringe status and its commendably Val Lewton-like approach to cultivating horror via shadows and suggestion, though the show’s concretely climactic monster puppet undercuts that Lewtonian vibe somewhat. Regardless, TFEWY is an inventive, earnestly heartfelt show that plays like the precocious thespian love child of Stand by Me (1986) and Stranger Things (2016-up), a smart blend of quirky nostalgia and coming-of-age drama.