From press release

Knots is a theatrical collage of movement, music, and text, which asks: what is a knot? How do knots manifest in our politics, our culture, and our lives? Jake and Lucy wrestle with this puzzle and realize that some tangles can’t be untied.

Knots are everywhere. We use them to tie our shoes; we use them to hoist our sails. They tie up our everyday lives, and we can’t live without them. This show asks: what are the knots we can’t see? We discover the knots in relationships and in individuals, and that knots that can be humorous, surprising, and merciless. It is only when we recognize the intangible knots in our personal lives that we can begin to untie them, a task that may take us weeks, years—perhaps our entire lives.

Vocative Theatre was created by Lucy Meanwell and Jake Runeckles because the Toronto Fringe told them they had to have a company name in order to participate. These youngsters are new to the Fringe circuit, and every bit as hungry to produce their first show. One might think, “a green duo performing at the Factory Mainspace? They must be crazy!” They are.

Performances

• June 29th at 6:30 PM
• July 1st at 1:15 PM
• July 3rd at 4:45 PM
• July 5th at 10:30 PM
• July 7th at 12:00 PM
• July 9th at 8:00 PM
• July 10th at 2:15 PM

Details

• Knots plays at the Factory Theatre. (125 Bathurst St)
• Tickets are $10 at the door, $12 in advance. The festival also offers a range of money-saving passes for serious Fringers.
• Tickets can be purchased online, by telephone (416-966-1062), from the Fringe Club at Honest Ed’s Alley, and — if any remain — from the venue’s box office starting one hour before curtain.
• Be aware that Fringe performances always start exactly on time, and that latecomers are never admitted.

Photo of Jake Runeckles and Lucy Meanwell by Michael Wood

From press release

As a part of the 2016 Toronto Fringe Festival, Mirabilis Productions celebrates the centennial anniversary of the creation of the original punk anti-war art movement, Dadaism, in Zurich, Switzerland, 1916 and the fighting of WWI with the presentation of the original work Goodbye To All That.

For six brief months in 1916 in Zurich, Switzerland, The Cabaret Voltaire was the epicentre of a movement that revolutionised modern thought. Through the rejection of form, tradition, orthodoxy and the rigid social thought that gave rise to WWI, this self-immolating movement achieved a viral thought revolution that spread throughout western society, giving rise to the artistic and social expression we take for granted today.

A disgraced pilot stumbles into this milieu, wracked with shame and guilt for having violated his nation, duty and honour. Through participation in the subversive performative expression of Dada, he attempts to extricate himself from the powerful social and moral forces that drove mass slaughter on the battlefields of Europe.

Performances

• June 30th at 10:00 PM
• July 2nd at 2:15 PM
• July 3rd at 7:30 PM
• July 5th at 1:00 PM
• July 7th at 11:30 PM
• July 8th at 7:30 PM
• July 9th at 12:00 PM

Details

• Goodbye to All That plays at the Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson Ave)
• Tickets are $10 at the door, $12 in advance. The festival also offers a range of money-saving passes for serious Fringers.
• Tickets can be purchased online, by telephone (416-966-1062), from the Fringe Club at Honest Ed’s Alley, and — if any remain — from the venue’s box office starting one hour before curtain.
• Be aware that Fringe performances always start exactly on time, and that latecomers are never admitted.

Image provided by the company

From press release

The Messy Kween Collective is keeping it strange at this year’s Fringe Festival; a troupe of Toronto’s Best Actors will be convene in the gathering dusk under the fairy lights and permanent canopy of Majlis Art Garden to attempt Kyle Capstick’s probably impossible Bodies Strange. The troupe, composed of Carlos Albornoz, Larissa Currie, Annie MacKay, Jordi O’Dael, Grace Phan-Nguyen, and Alexi Pedneault will transport audiences to an imaginative world where characters transform into trees, birds, spiders, and who knows what else using ingenious theatrical devices dreamed up by designer Kelly Anderson.

This isn’t about hearts;
it’s about shapes.
I need you to know me in any shape.

Following a lover’s departure for war a woman becomes a tree and sets a family in a cycle of transformations that spans 3 generations. Bodies Strange is a theatrical challenge full of murder plots, moral quandries, and a thrillingly skewed sense of reality. It is bold in its storytelling, Greek in its inspiration, and playful in its execution.

I don’t know how you do it.
How you’ve lived all these lives with all this pain and this anger inside of you.
How you keep repeating this story.
Isn’t it exhausting to live in someone else’s story?

The Messy Kween Collective serves body on stage like you’ve only ever dreamed.  We celebrate new work that is as ambitious as it is unconventional with an artistic practice of unapologetic diversity and unrestricted imagination. 

Performances

• June 30th at 9:00 PM
• July 1st at 9:00 PM
• July 2nd at 9:00 PM
• July 4th at 9:00 PM
• July 5th at 9:00 PM
• July 6th at 9:00 PM
• July 8th at 9:00 PM
• July 9th at 9:00 PM
• July 10th at 9:00 PM

Details

• Bodies Strange plays at the Majlis Art Garden (163 Walnut Ave)
• Tickets are $10 at the door, $12 in advance. The festival also offers a range of money-saving passes for serious Fringers.
• Tickets can be purchased online, by telephone (416-966-1062), from the Fringe Club at Honest Ed’s Alley, and — if any remain — from the venue’s box office starting one hour before curtain.
• Be aware that Fringe performances always start exactly on time, and that latecomers are never admitted.

Photo provided by the company

From press release

Asiansploitation: Be More Pacific is Asiansploitation’s newest sketch show is part of the 2016 Toronto Fringe Festival.

Be More Pacific examines how our urban lives as Asian Canadians have been impacted in a city where East meets West, Old World meets New. Hamburgers meet Sushi.  Some of us have assimilated.  Some of us have dug in our heels.  Some of us have dug into a bag of Lay’s Shrimp Chips.

By coincidence, the entire cast and director are children of first generation immigrants which prompted us to explore the many things that bug us and saw that our annoyances were a place of common ground with the rest of the world.

The five-member Asiansploitation writer/performer ensemble includes James Cheng, Tiffany Kwan, Ellie Posadas, Jeff B. Santos, and Anthony Tran.  The show is Directed by four-time Funniest Female Improviser nominee Jane Luk and stage managed by Tita Kyrtsakas.

Founded in 2006 by Jeff B. Santos, Gary Chan and Glenn Gabriel , Asiansploitation is a collective of Asian-Canadian writers and performers that use comedy to examine, critique and re-imagine our society and expose the human condition. Since that time, Asiansploitation has created 10 original revues and three remounts across the GTA garnering critical acclaim and a dedicated audience base.  Don’t be fooled by the troupe’s name and wonder “Do I have to be Asian to get it?” – definitely not!  Men and women of all diverse cultures and  ages  have told us with big grins “I’m not Asian” but I get it.  And they do!

“……strong cultural influences that also appeal to a broader audience”.  Bruce DeMara, Toronto Star  (2010 Toronto Fringe Festival Review)

Performance dates

• July 1st at 9:45 PM
• July 2nd at 11:30 PM
• July 3rd at 1:45 PM
• July 5th at 4:30 PM
• July 7th at 7:30 PM
• July 8th at 12:00 PM
• July 9th at 10:30 PM

Details

• Asiansploitation: Be More Pacific plays at the Robert Gill Theatre. (214 College St)
• Tickets are $10 at the door, $12 in advance. The festival also offers a range of money-saving passes for serious Fringers.
• Tickets can be purchased online, by telephone (416-966-1062), from the Fringe Club at Honest Ed’s Alley, and — if any remain — from the venue’s box office starting one hour before curtain.
• Be aware that Fringe performances always start exactly on time, and that latecomers are never admitted.
• This venue is wheelchair-accessible provided you arrive early (at least ~20 minutes) and notify the House Manager you require an accessible route.

From press release

Audiences looking for a brutal, intimate, comeback comedy can look no further than Rowing at the Toronto Fringe. Set in an intimate basement in Kensington Market, audiences will join the Westdale Community Rowing team’s failed victory celebration as they attempt to figure out what went wrong during the race, play numerous party games and discover how to raise $50 000 for the Heart and Stroke.

After losing their first race in 51 years, it’s a long night for Westdale’s community rowing team. Team captain Mark is missing, first seat Howie is going through a quiet mental breakdown and no one is coming to their charity fundraiser. Filled with party games, pyromania and encounters with emerging psychopaths, Rowing is a fast paced, brutal coming of age story about what it means to be a winner in Hamilton, Ontario and the monsters we become when we fail.

Rowing features an equally emerging team of young artists from across Toronto, Francois Macdonald (Dora Nominee -Zinspires Puissance Quatre, Theatre Francais, Our Town, Theatre Rusticle), Andrew Markowiak (Man Seeking Woman, FX), and current second city Conservatory Member, Lauren Griffiths, out of school, hungry and ready to prove themselves.

Rowing is directed and written by Aaron Jan (Age of Arousal, Factory Theatre, The 10/10/10 Project, Then They Fight/Bismuth Theatre), an award winning alumnus of Fu-GEN’s playwriting Kitchen program and Factory Theatre’s Foremen program, a new training program for directors of colour to direct new work. Jan’s plays have received funding by the Ontario and Toronto Arts Councils and have been produced professionally at Theatre Aquarius. In 2012 he was youngest playwright to win the Best of Hamilton Fringe award. Rowing is dramaturged by Tom McGee, dramaturg for Theatre Brouhaha’s Best of Toronto Fringe winners, Punch Up and Help Yourself.

“A must see!” – The Theatre Reader
“A Trip Worth Taking!” – My Entertainment World

Rowing
Presented by Chrysalis Workshop in association with Filament Incubator

Featuring: Madeleine Brown, Lauren Griffiths, Francois Macdonald, Andrew Markowiak, Anthony Perpuse and Isaac Powrie

Written and Directed by Aaron Jan
Dramaturgy by Tom Mcgee and Lucy Powis
Set and Costume Designer: Aram Heydarian
Lighting Designer: Logan Cracknell
Sound Designer: Jason Thomson
Fight Choreographer: Neil Silcox
Graphic Design: Jordan Laffrenier

Performance Dates

June 30th at 8:00 PM
July 1st at 8:00 PM
July 2nd at 8:00 PM
July 3rd at 8:00 PM
July 4th at 8:00 PM
July 5th at 8:00 PM
July 6th at 8:00 PM
July 7th at 8:00 PM
July 8th at 8:00 PM
July 9th at 8:00 PM
July 10th at 8:00 PM

Details

• Rowing plays at the Kensington Conference Centre. (56C Kensington Ave)
• Tickets are $10 at the door, $12 in advance. The festival also offers a range of money-saving passes for serious Fringers.
• Tickets can be purchased online, by telephone (416-966-1062), from the Fringe Club at Honest Ed’s Alley, and — if any remain — from the venue’s box office starting one hour before curtain.
• Be aware that Fringe performances always start exactly on time, and that latecomers are never admitted.
• This venue is wheelchair-accessible provided you arrive early (at least ~20 minutes) and notify the House Manager you require an accessible route.

Photo provided by the company