Current Season
The Fringe Theatre Season celebrates bold new work by independent Artists.
2025/26 Fringe Theatre Season
Read on for details on Countries Shaped Like Stars, February 17 – 28, 2026!
Save the dates for ᐋᒋᒧᐃᐧᐣ âcimowin March 20 & 21, 2026 – more exciting details to be announced soon!
The official Holdover Series kicked off the 2025/26 Fringe Theatre Season, August 27 – 30.
The first show in the 25/26 Fringe Theatre Season was Tough Guy by Hayley Moorhouse, October 28 – November 8, 2025.
Offer What You Will Tickets
Offer What You Will tickets are available for every performance in our Fringe Theatre Season. You may offer any dollar amount you’re able to contribute, or you can offer other non-monetary ways of showing respect and mutual investment, such as tobacco, your own art, or something you feel the Artist(s) will benefit from. No one will be turned away.
Part Storytelling, part concert, Counties Shaped Like Stars is a whimsical love story spun from everyday magic and the sounds of spoons, whirly-winds, and a mandolin. Gwendolyn Magnificent and Bartholomew Spectacular live on neighbouring peninsulas in a world where words grow on trees and anticipation hums in the air. Connected by string, sound, and the spaces in between, this is a love story that will leave you breathless.
Born on the Fringe Festival circuit, Countries Shaped Like Stars is a shining example of how remarkable theatre can begin at Festivals like the Fringe. From 2009-2022, audiences fell in love with this magical story at various Festivals across Canada where Artists take bold chances and create extraordinary things.
Winner of the Staff Choice Award at the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival in 2013, and recipient of the Prix Rideau Award for Outstanding Fringe Production and Outstanding New Work, this story invites the audience into a dreamlike fable about love, longing, and the beauty of trying to stay connected, even when you are worlds apart.
Age Rating: Parental Guidance (14+) – parental discretion advised
This show contains: sudden sounds, surprising moments of appearing and disappearing, loud noise, strobe lights, and haze.
Accessible Performance Information:
Wed February 25: CART Captioned and Relaxed Performance
Thu February 26: CART Captioned Performance
CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) captioning services provides real-time subtitles of dialogue and sound cues during live theatre performances, ensuring Deaf and hard-of-hearing Audiences, as well as those who benefit from text-based access, can fully engage with the performances.
Relaxed performances are specifically supported to be sensitive to patrons who might benefit from a more relaxed environment, including those with a wide range of social, sensory, or educational needs.
CAST
Dayna Lea Hoffmann – Gwendolyn Magnificent
Michael Watt – Bartholomew Spectacular
CREATIVE TEAM
Created by – Emily Pearlman & Nicholas Di Gaetano
Director – Murray Utas
Assistant Director – Nicole Maloney
Production Designer – Even Gilchrist
Sound & Lighting Operator/Resident Technician – Jadera (Jadey) Capaldo
Our Partners
Check out the many offerings of our incredible community partners. These local creative organizations offer an excellent variety of shows, workshops, and more!
Past Shows
Tough Guy
By Hayley Moorhouse
OCTOBER 28 – NOVEMBER 8, 2025
Backstage Theatre
Tough Guy follows a group of friends as they navigate the aftermath of a shooting at Aria, a queer nightclub. They’re all nursing wounds, visible and invisible, and are thrown into further turmoil when their friend Emerson, a rising star in the independent film scene, comes back home to film a documentary about the shooting.
How do we go on when the unthinkable happens? What does it mean to point a camera at a catastrophe? How does queerness endure, time and time again?
Winner of the 2025 Westbury Family Fringe Theatre Award and the 2025 Alberta Playwriting Competition, Tough Guy is at once an excavation of a tragedy and a celebration of the tenacity of queer joy. It’s gripping, visceral, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, always unapologetic.
Age Rating: Parental Guidance (14+) – parental discretion advised
This show contains: discussion of homophobic and transphobic violence, gun violence, injury, death, strobe lights, loud music, and haze.
Accessible Performance Information:
- Tuesday, November 4 8PM: CART Captioned Performance
- Wednesday, November 5 8PM: CART Captioned/Relaxed Performance
CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) captioning services will be provided by Katie Gallin. CART captioning provides real-time subtitles of dialogue and sound cues during live theatre performances, ensuring Deaf and hard-of-hearing Audiences, as well as those who benefit from text-based access, can fully engage with the performances.
Relaxed performances are specifically supported to be sensitive to patrons who might benefit from a more relaxed environment, including those with a wide range of social, sensory, or educational needs.
CAST
Mel Bahniuk
Michelle Diaz
Jasmine Hopfe
Marguerite Lawler
Autumn Strom
CREATIVE TEAM
Playwright/Producer – Hayley Moorhouse
Director – Brett Dahl
Dramaturg – Evan Medd
Stage Manager – Jess Haight
Set & Lighting Designer – Lieke den Bakker
Sound Designer – Kena León
Projection Designer – Ian Jackson
Production Manager & Sound Operator/Resident Technician – Liv Bunge
Lighting Operator/Resident Technician – Jadera (Jadey) Capaldo
Fight Consultant – Morgan Yamada
Accessibility Consultant – Brooke Leifso
CART Captioning Services – Katie Gallin
Persistent Myth Productions engages professional Artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association under the terms of the INDIE 3.0.
Alphabet Line
WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY AJ HROOSHKIN
April 22 – May 3, 2025
Set in Yonker, Saskatchewan in the late 1940s, Alphabet Line follows Duncan, a Queer man who has lived on his family farm his entire life. He sends out daily messages via radio in the hope of receiving a response and finally hears from Nicholas, a graduate student from Saskatoon. As the men take refuge in their shared conversations, days pass and both Duncan and Nicholas will have to reckon with each other’s pasts and embrace vulnerability or risk losing all they’ve built.
Sign Language Interpreted Performances: 8PM April 23 (WED) and 8PM April 24 (THU).
Open Captioned Performances: 8PM April 23 (WED), 8PM April 24 (THU) and 2PM April 26 (SAT).
Relaxed Performances: 8PM April 23 (WED), 8PM April 24 (THU) and 2PM April 26 (SAT).
Age Rating: 14+
This show contains: adult language, references to bigotry, psychological and mental procedures, religious content.
Flickering lights and rolling thunder sounds occur during a thunder and lightning storytelling sequence. There is a lighting level change (dark to light) and the flicker rate is randomized (not consistent strobing). The longest sequence of flickering is 20 seconds. There is also a great deal of non-moving light on stage during the same sequence. There is the sound of rolling thunder and the actors speak at a normal volume during the sound sequence.
ᐋᒋᒧᐃᐧᐣ âcimowin
March 21 – 22, 2025
ᐋᒋᒧᐃᐧᐣ âcimowin, Fringe’s Winter Storytelling Series curated by MJ Belcourt, is a celebration of Indigenous storytelling where the word âcimowin carries the essence of story in the Cree language. In the quiet of the season, storytelling warms our spirits, connecting us to our ancestors, culture, and community. As winter blankets the land, our gathering holds special significance. We are joined by Elders who impart traditional wisdom; we hear stories and experience works in process created by Artists local to Treaty 6 and the Métis homeland; we connect in community, in circle. This year, we are honored to welcome two incredible storytellers: Ekti Margaret Cardinal and Teneil Whiskeyjack.
🌿 Ekti Margaret Cardinal will share her story, “Tea with Kohkom, from the Time of Horses.” Through this theme, she will reflect on her life, honoring the wisdom of her people.
🍓 Teneil Whiskeyjack presents “Body, Berries, and Bears – Oh My!” A story in progress, her piece explores what it means to be Nehiyaw while reclaiming intimacy with one’s body, voice, and power.
Brother Rat
WRITTEN BY ERIK RICHARDS WITH MUSIC BY JOSH MEREDITH AND ERIK RICHARDS.
November 26 – December 7, 2024
Sickness, family, love, and noise. Punk Rock and concrete. A play with music, Brother Rat explores the triumphs and pitfalls of our mental wellness system through the lens of the band Theresa Give Me That Knife as they play a show in downtown Edmonton. Robby, Slayde, and Dianne play their instruments live in a ferocious bid to choose life ahead of grim survival and escape the tangled web of pipe and cable that has led them in and out of public housing.
Adapted from the song Brother Rat / What Slayde Says by Canadian punk band NoMeansNo.
Brother Rat will be LOUD! Ear protection is strongly encouraged. Ear plugs will be provided at the show, free of charge.
Relaxed Performance: November 27 (WED).
Age Rating: 14+
This show contains: Adult Language/Content, Drugs/Alcohol, Mental Illness/Disorders, Smoke/Fog and Strobe Lights
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