TK Fringe 2025: A Festival in Review
When the TK Fringe began this year and I received my press pass I found myself thinking: “How much can I abuse this power?” Each of the KTA’s three summer critics were assigned five shows to review, so I knew not everything would be covered and I would not be assigned to see every show I was interested in. So rather than simply abuse the power of the press pass to sneak into the shows of my friends and colleagues for free, I proposed to our wonderful editors that I would write an article about the Fringe as a whole. Over the course of seven days I managed to catch all 18 shows in the 2025 TK Fringe (plus an early extra with Adventures in Canadian Parking Lots by Jem Rolls opening the festival back in June), and so below I offer a few of my thoughts on this year’s Festival in its entirety.
“Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?” (As You Like It 4.1.112-115). By the time I was able to attend The Naughty Bits by Don Randall (about halfway through the festival), the performer prefaced their segment on Shakespeare with a quip about it being an obligatory part of the TK Fringe. One third of this 18-show festival featured Shakespeare in some respect. The frequency was so high that if you dared to view The MaryRobin Show and Life More Sweet back to back, you would be receiving two renditions of the “All the World’s a Stage” monologue from As You Like It consecutively. This is not a complaint, I personally love Shakespeare and every reference to his work excited me, but it did make for a unique experience in viewing Shakespeare: Say It! by Dana Schindel—a show which attempts to introduce audiences to the excitement of these classic plays. No show I attended had such an electric energy in the audience as this, but after the whole festival I am left unsure whether to credit this entirely to Schindel’s charisma or if a large contributor was Kingston’s vast population of bardolators.
Another trend in this year’s festival was a large upsurge in improv shows. Last year’s festival contained only one, but this year has jumped directly to three with Father, Forgive Me with Alex McLarry, A Play We Just Wrote – Just Now featuring Selena Vyle and Hillary Yaas, and [Blank] Town featuring All-Inclusive Comedy’s Tony Babcock and Wilding. Improv is not the only thing these three shows had in common: all three also feature Babcock and Wilding in their runs at some point (with both performers being in every show of Father, Forgive Me and both being featured one night in A Play We Just Wrote – Just Now). Of course, improv is difficult to judge based on just one performance because every night will be entirely different, but from what I saw it was no surprise that Wilding and Babcock are in such high demand; [Blank] Town was a definite standout even with the amount of improv shows. Both performers are witty, dedicated entirely to the bit (no matter how ludicrous), and always seem to truly enjoy doing what they love. Their energy is contagious, and if there’s going to be an increase of improv in Kingston I could not be happier to see them taking such a large part in it.
Shakespeare and improv are both fun, but this year also saw its fair share of heavy messages; Fringe festivals being a lottery system means anyone has a chance to share their story as long as their name gets drawn, and so they often end up showcasing emotional journeys or big thoughts of talented artists who need a platform to share their research and experiences. This year’s festival is certainly no exception: Mad River Theatre’s Madness Lies by Chloë Whitehorn features upsetting truths about the historical (and unfortunately still relevant) mistreatment of women using mental health practices. Like much of Whitehorn’s writing, the story is complex and not served to the audience on a silver platter, but for those willing to dive into the intriguing chaos it was a powerful and well researched piece bringing to light this real world issue. Another highlight of these darker shows was The Drake Equation by Chris Dupuis. The show features Dupuis simply sitting at a desk discussing suicide, aliens, and art with a minimalist slideshow playing behind him. The humour is extremely grim, and the format felt somehow reminiscent of both Spalding Gray’s Swimming to Cambodia and a true-crime podcast. It’s exciting, it’s unique, and since it’s currently unfinished it was a rare chance to see a scripted play in a state that will never be viewed again.
The most perplexing development I noticed in the 2025 festival was the growing sizes of casts and crews. The Fringe payment model tends to operate on a profit share basis, and so the smaller the team, the more money each party makes; for this reason (plus the fact that the stages available in the TK Fringe are rather small) shows tend to keep their team at a manageable size. Because of this, I was absolutely baffled to see that Love? And Other Letters by Alina Siwy features a team of more than a dozen and 1969 by Janet Kish boasts a team of over 20 people. With 1969 the result is a production where you can see the effort of all those involved but question whether or not the stage can quite fit such a large ensemble (For further thoughts on 1969, you can find my full review here). However, in the case of Love? and Other Letters the inflated team size is hardly justified by what is presented on stage. The show features a cast of five, only two of which appear onstage for more than a few minutes. Characters had such brief appearances that they easily could be written out of the script and merely alluded to, rather than asking an actor to sit backstage each night only to enter and speak two inconsequential lines. I appreciate both of these shows providing more opportunities for artists to practice their craft within the festival but also have to express concern that by inflating the team sizes they are all but assuring those involved will not be appropriately compensated for their efforts.
There are a multitude of other shows I would love to discuss, but just did not have the chance to include with the larger trends of this year’s festival. Every August, Kingston explodes with exciting new theatre thanks to the efforts of the TK Fringe and the Kick and Push Festival. It is a time when the theatre community feels more alive than ever, and I applaud each and every risk artists take in this uncurated festival to challenge both themselves and their audiences. Managing to catch it all in the short 11 day run can be a challenge, but having now managed the entire TK Fringe circuit two years in a row I can confidently say the effort is worth it. The wide variety of artistic experimentation always leaves me with a renewed sense of faith in the theatre. Even as house sizes and funding streams continue to shrink, artists are here every summer honing their skills and creating something entirely new, wonderfully exciting, and perfectly fringe.
The TK Fringe is presented by the Kick and Push Festival. The 2025 Festival ran from August 7-17. More information about the TK Fringe can be found here.
