REVIEWS: Toronto Fringe Festival 2026
iPhoto caption: Toronto Fringe promo photo by Robbie Harper.
The Toronto Fringe Festival and an Ontario-based performing arts magazine walk into an arcade.
As they settle in for a round of Street Fighter II, the Fringe asks: “Are you gonna do a giant rolling file of reviews like you did the last couple of years? The 2026 festival runs from June 30 to July 12 and features a total of 123 shows, mostly selected by lottery. There’s 27 venues, including new additions Sweet Action Theatre and Young People’s Theatre. And the Fringe hub is back at Soulpepper Theatre in the Distillery District.”
“Well yes,” replies the magazine as it furiously mashes its controller. “We’re thinking 10 critics, reviewing a total of around 60 shows.”
“Game on!” exclaims the Fringe, before ending the duel with a Hundred Hand Slap.
This year, Intermission will publish Fringe capsule reviews from contributors Krystal Abrigo, Melissa Avalos, Ferron Delcy, Liam Donovan, Sania Hameed, Sulaiman Hashim Khan, Gus Lederman, Ilana Lucas, Shivani Nathoo, and Columbia Roy.
Reviews will be published below as they come in. For ease of navigation, new entries will be added to the top of the post. If you’re looking for a review of a specific show, we recommend using your device’s “find on page” function.
Dads (VideoCabaret)
by Liam Donovan
Before Dads, creator-performer Taylor Trowbridge and her brother Dylan Trowbridge, the director, encourage the audience to fill out index cards with one “challenging” trait and one “positive” trait they have in common with their dad.
Although our answers don’t return until the play’s climax, much of Dads is crowdsourced through other means, such as brief voluntary audience interviews.
The Trowbridges’ dad passed away three years ago, and the show doubles as a remembrance. Taylor explains that he was an expressive insurance-salesman-slash-writer, calling on dad-like audience members to shade his story by reading scripted dialogue.
Plus, every night, a different local standup comedian performs a 10-minute set about dads — I saw the excellent Jacob Balshin.
Near the end, Taylor says she hopes we feel more at peace about our father-child relationships, past or present. This would be a lofty, somewhat presumptuous goal for any show, nevermind one with such a dispersed range of theatrical methods; the portrait of the Trowbridges’ dad is affecting, but the fast-paced participative sequences necessarily prioritize breadth over depth.
That said, Taylor’s generous presence and Dylan’s energetic navigation of the in-the-round space imbue the experience a relaxed warmth — at least for me. As Taylor underlines early on, the show would certainly be difficult for those with absent or abusive fathers (if you need a breather, re-entry to the auditorium is allowed).
And since I think Dan Donovan will find this review: Yes, dad, you might like it.
U UP? (Tarragon Theatre Mainspace)
by Sulaiman Hashim Khan
Just like democracy, this comedy values audience participation.
Written by Omar Shamir and directed by Ken Hall, U UP? follows four border agents stationed at the Canada-U.S. Niagara Falls crossing, where Canadian agents Schmidt and Chuchkee (played by Oliver Georgiou and Samantha Lee) work alongside their American counterparts Pepper and Milgram (Saba Akhtar and Siva Pemmasani).
U UP?’s set is clever. A table sits in the middle of the stage, flanked by each nation’s flag with a rope down the middle to signify the 49th parallel. Whenever an agent tries to encroach the frontier, the voice of a disembodied disciplinarian booms from the overhead speakers, warning them to stay back.
The show starts with the cast rattling off quips about Canadian niceness and American gun culture. While it can be entertaining to indulge in national stereotypes, I feel that skipping the clichéd jokes would allow the performance to gain momentum earlier. On opening night, the production was strongest during its improvisational scenes, with Georgiou’s presence really standing out.
Scenes between Lee and Akhtar focus on their trysts on the Maid of the Mist, but their personalities clash more than their nationalities. Still, after an honest conversation prompted by an audience member brought on stage for “secondary questioning,” they are able to actualize their relationship.
Shamir doesn’t say anything new — but he doesn’t need to. As political tensions continue, U UP? reminds us that borders may separate nations, but people will always reach across.
The 2026 Toronto Fringe Festival runs from June 30 to July 12. More information is available here.
Melissa Avalos and Sania Hameed are covering Toronto Fringe as part of Page Turn, a professional development network for emerging arts writers, funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and administered by Neworld Theatre.
Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
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