TK Fringe — Kingston Theatre Alliance

A peculiar parlour game, a sauce salesman, a ghost ship, and a little girl behind a door. In Creeping Murmur; Poring Dark, John D. Huston transforms an unassuming hotel conference room into a site of spectral thrills. Though breakfast had barely settled in my stomach by the time I took my seat, I was immediately transported to a late-night world of chilling tales by Huston’s wry, lively storytelling.  Huston presents […]

Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong? Like you couldn’t find “your people”? Are You Catching What I’m Throwing is a one man Circus Theatre Show performed by William Alex Larson. The show follows a man as he discovers his passion for juggling. An audience follows him through the highs and lows of this passion and in the bigger picture, the highs and lows of being accepted by society. […]

No, it’s not a typo—The Fronge Festival is a festival within a festival at TK Fringe, and it’s one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in Kingston this year.  The concept is simple and absurd: at each performance, the audience is offered a list of Fringe shows from another Canadian city and gets to decide which ones the Fronge’s troupe of improvisers will ad lib. Director Kyle Warne performs alongside […]

Intimate and uplifting, The ADHD Project will captivate an audience as Comedian/Storyteller Carlyn Rhamey explores the ups and downs of living her life with ADHD. Through compelling storytelling, she recounts the moment she received her diagnosis, her challenges with bullying, and finally her acceptance of her newly embraced “superpower”.  Before the show starts, instead of waiting offstage, Rhamey talks to the audience. She cracks jokes and welcomes the audience. I began seeing […]

There’s no “I” in RAPP BNGO. There are no prizes, no winners, and no losers. Instead, there’s DJ Seith and his record collection.  Get ready for the mildest party of your life.  RAPP BNGO takes hip hop and bingo and creates a mellow, stakes-free opportunity for people to hang out and listen to music. Each participant gets a bingo card full of words and phrases from rap lyrics (mine included […]

A tragic, humorous, and thought provoking play; gripping attention from the very beginning. Birthmarks is a bittersweet one woman show that follows Kate. As a young woman recounting her life, she is trying to move on from the sudden death of her infant child while also coming to terms with her mother’s place in her life after abandoning her as a kid. Alex Boese is fantastic as the one and […]

Life is rife with heartache, but Blueberry Fever is ripe with humour. Created by Karina Milech and Ben Jensen-Reid, this contemporary show about nothing follows a small group of friends as they navigate adulthood in Toronto.  The play opens with a montage of scenes set to a song—it’s bass-heavy and sexy, with a silky alto voice carrying the melody. It feels like a sitcom intro—one I wouldn’t ever want to […]

Who committed the crimes? No one knows. Welcome to the Disoriented Express. Surely, Sherlock is a witty musical written by Ann Marie Mortensen and Daniel Smith with lyrics and music by Michael Capon. The musical is a parody of the 2017 hit movie, Murder on The Orient Express, and is being performed at the Baby Grand Theatre in the 2023 Kingston Fringe Festival as part of the 2023 Kick and […]

One rainy night, 70-year-old Mary Louise (Janet-Laine Green) invites an Internet friend (Booth Savage) over for coffee. (You can tell they’re in their 70s because they say “Internet friend”.) She wastes no time stripping him of his wet clothes, dressing him in her husband’s hand-me-downs, and interrogating him within an inch of his life. In the time it takes for his things to dry, the situation goes from weird to […]

So, you’re 50 years old and sobbing under a desk at work. Where do you go from here? If you’re Sandra Banman, you’ll crawl out and craft a beautiful memoir. Presented with gentle wit and a generous spirit, Menno-Morphosis is a one-woman show written and performed by Banman and directed by Catherine Hume. It takes a lot to grow up and out of a strict Mennonite family in Manitoba. Banman […]

Recently, I had a chance to sit down with performer Alex Boese and director Michael Catlin to chat about their upcoming play Birthmarks, which will be playing at Kingston Fringe. The play was written by Canadian playwright Alexandria Haber and follows Alex’s character, Kate. Birthmarks follows Kate as she tries to get over a tragic loss in her life while also trying to reconcile the relationship with her mother whom […]

Who knew that ducks, friendship, and existentialism could coincide into a single theatre performance? These elements came together in a heartfelt conversation between two men in a recent performance of The Duck Variations. bEST Theatre Company’s The Duck Variations that played at the Grand Theatre as a part of the Kingston Fringe, produced by the Kick & Push Festival, was an existential and meandering conversation between two men on a […]