9 Lives, 8 Near-misses : life lessons from near-death events

La Nouvelle Scène – Studio B

A Lesbian in the Kitchen – A Cosy Queer Baking Show

Atelier Theatre

Willow Rosenberg (she/her) invites you into her kitchen and bakes you cookies while sharing stories centred around some of her favourite recipes. You will feel like you are truly just spending time in your friend’s kitchen as Willow discusses her queerness, Judaism, ADHD, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome & chronic pain, and relationship with her mum, of blessed memory. Always bringing it back to her lifelong passion for baking.

A Life of My Own

Arts Court Theatre

After fleeing a controlling relationship and a lifetime of family pressure, Maddie begins rebuilding her life from the ground up. Through music, memory, and moments of quiet courage, she learns to break old patterns and choose herself for the first time. A musical about healing, identity, and finding your own light.

Aberration

LabO

In a rural farmhouse, the dysfunctional Cain family is rocked when eldest brother Andrew reappears after a week-long disappearance from which he should have never returned. He is genial, kind, and harmless — and his siblings are terrified. As tension rises, this gothic horror exposes the rot underneath a patriarchal family.

Aliya Kanani: A Comedian’s Guide To Enlightenment

ODD Box

Award-winning comedian Aliya Kanani is going through the same existential crisis you are — out loud.

Join her for an uproarious, heart-on-sleeve rollercoaster as she barrels into awkward confessions, spirals through self-discovery & zigzags with a delightful ADHD energy, sharing tales from studying meditation in India to accidentally joining a cult in Texas.

Argile verte

Studio 1201

Sarah just lost her mother. Shit’s hitting the fan. She needs to go back to her hometown to face her ghost.

A fantastique and eerie tale inspired by the great saline winds and sunsets on the St. Lawrence River, with an accent stuck between the Lower St. Lawrence region, Gaspésie and Ottawa.

Barry Potter and the Magic of Wizardry

Arts Court Theatre

From 21 x Fringe Fest award winner Tim Motley (Dirk Darrow):

Experience the wonder of world-class wizardry in a realm of messenger owls, robed wizards, & talking snakes! Witness feats of sorcery… with jokes! Ages 7+

★★★★ “Seriously impressive” -The List (UK)
★★★★ “Charms your red and gold socks off” -Winnipeg Free Press 
“
A natural comedian and illusionist” -Yahoo Entertainment

Black Fish

Studio 1201

The story of a young woman who is challenged by simple questions about whether to leave or to stay. The conflict of her choice transforms her into a storyteller, which results in her confronting the truth at the core of her journey. A compelling story about choice, loss, and the cost of starting over.

CRACKS: a one trans-woman dark comedy memoir

ODD Box

A one-trans-woman dark comedy memoir about growing up in the Catholic Church and a JROTC military high school and the pervasive ways those places affect a trans identity. CRACKS is as vulnerable as it is funny. Through a hybrid of storytelling, stand-up, and theatre the audience is taken on an emotional roller coaster of navigating gender identity, substance abuse, and finding joy.

Dimensions of Opacity

La Nouvelle Scène – Studio A

BRING YOUR OWN DEVICE & HEADPHONES.
Choose your path. Do not feel the need to explain what you chose or why.

An experiment in collective witnessing and private decision-making. A performance about Black hypervisibility and the right to be opaque.

Homecumming

La Nouvelle Scène – Studio B

Homecumming follows a woman who loses her orgasms… and loses herself. While orgasms are the inciting incident (and an entertaining one), they’re really an invitation into a much larger conversation about mental health, depression, shame, and self-worth. This is not a play about sex (maybe a little) — it’s a play about healing. Inspired by real life, Homecumming explores the taboos surrounding female sexuality with honesty, humour, and tenderness. Her journey is messy, funny, sexy, vulnerable, and painfully relatable.

Joplin: Rock on Out

Studio 2201

A raw, soulful journey through the music of Janis Joplin by way of a tribute concert honouring her voice and her story. Blending live musical performances with personal storytelling, Joplin: Rock on Out explores the meaning behind Janis’ songs, relational moments from her life, and the deep, messy ways her voice still resonates with us today.

Karl the Cat and the Junkyard Pack

ODD Box

Karl is an adventurous cat, exploring the garbage peaks and demolished cars of their junkyard home, but they struggle with figuring out their purpose. Introducing the audience, the junkyard tourists, to their many puppet friends, Karl will begin to figure out who they are. They’ll find adventure with those who matter to them most in a spectacle of live music and originally designed hand-puppets.

La tragédie du Brise-Glace

La Nouvelle Scène – Studio A

Aboard the Ice-Breaker, Captain Hubert Kizmo sets sail with two close friends and three sailors still new to the waves. Stuck in a frozen ocean, they recover a mysterious statue during a storm. This discovery gradually reveals each person’s true nature: pride, faith, hypocrisy, ignorance, greed, and discernment. A tragedy in which everyone carries their own burden.

Martin Dockery: Wanderlust

Geneva Hall

In this multi-award-winning, true odyssey, Dockery negotiates the giddiness, terror, & absurdities in travel & love, as he searches for an Epiphany. Any Epiphany at all. A wildly hilarious existential storytelling adventure to Timbuktu. Best-of-Fest: Adelaide, Vancouver, London, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Ottawa, & Orlando.

“5 STARS” -CBC.

“A one-man storytelling tornado.” -The Stage, Edinburgh.

Mom Jokes

Atelier Theatre

We hear dad jokes everywhere – on t.v., social media, family dinners, posters on the dentist’s bathroom door. Where are mom jokes? More importantly, what are mom jokes? Join Lauren and Christina as they joke about motherhood because if they don’t laugh, they’ll cry.

Mommy, I’m Stuck in Highschool!

DARC Microcinema

Life isn’t easy for the emo girl in a suburban town’s high school. That is until Devon — a senior who’s never quite fit in with the popular crowd — gets invited to her first high school party! Man this is just like the movies! But she’s seen this cliché before, and despite her dreams of having the ultimate high school experience, she can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t quite right.

Onwards!

Studio 2201

ONWARDS, hurtling through the chaotic balancing act of life vs robots. Dark comedic storytelling + virtuoso singing by opera busker anarchist Bremner. Comic, angry, stupid songs, sung with 100% human artifice. A concert or a therapy session or a situationist revolution about muddling through.

“Fantastic show, outstanding singing. Sleazy. Stirring. Utterly memorable” -Sunday Times, UK

Politicians are Puppets

LabO

This show is about politics and is not for the faint of heart. Due to the subject matter you will be taken on an emotional journey. This show features visual, protest art, live music and audience participation is encouraged. Be warned: this show will be hilarious, impolite and weird!

(Also… trigger warning because Trump makes an appearance)

Rainbow Conceptions

LabO

A true-ish story of Greer, a Queer wobbling along the STRAIGHT path to parenthood. With Fab, a witchy best friend, Billie the emotional support bear and sassy sperm donor Steve, Greer’s quest serves laughs, tears and the warm fuzzies. This merry band of queerdos deal with fertility doctors, legal contracts and negative pregnancy tests. Will Greer’s dreams of a rainbow conception come true?

Robin Hood But Everyone is a Glove

Studio 2201

Robin Hood: Outlaw. Adventurer. Icon. And, for one Fringe only, a Glove.
It’s got puppets. It’s got action. It’s got tax collecting. Cancel all other plans: this June, all you need is glove.

Roominant

La Nouvelle Scène – Studio A

Roominant follows Miko as she works through a rejection. Withdrawing into her internal world she comes face to face with some odd shadow beings and a friendly robot called Moi. Together they work through her past experiences and internal wiring to get her through this rough patch.

The Etymology of Love

Arts Court Theatre

What is love? Is it romance, or something deeper?

Love is the invisible thread connecting us across race, country, distance, time—even death.

It appears in unexpected places—in strangers who become kin, in lifelong friendships, in deep bonds between souls. Through music and storytelling, this performance journeys through the seasons of our lives—the love that endures.

The Rock That Boated

Studio 2201

It’s 1804, that rascal Napoleon rules the waves, and the British Navy’s favourite tactical island has gone adrift. Can its hapless crew survive an increasingly preposterous Odyssey? Can they endure sirens, sea monsters, and the Welsh? With a shanty in their hearts and nary a thought in their heads, The Rock That Boated is sailing to – well, somewhere! It’s a very nearly true story, after all.

The Yodeling Ranger

Geneva Hall

Who is the Yodeling Ranger? An Imposter? A Hero? A Fool? Or proof that even the most frivolous act of music can be life-saving? Veteran performer Tor Lukasik-Foss debuts this brand new work for this year’s Ottawa fringe, an energetic fusion of music and storytelling, loaded with the same ‘spellbinding charisma and passion’ as his 2024/5 Fringe hit NEW WAVE YOUR BEHAVIOUR.

Who’s Gonna Push Your Wheelchair?

ODD Box

What happens when a girl with bad boyfriends, a messy family, and a predilection for self-sabotage faces a future of disability?

Tales of hilarity and tragedy weave through her fight for independence as she confronts MS … action-packed with breakups, love bombs, smothering, and bad credit.

From the creator of 2025’s Multiple Neurosis 5-STARS “hilarious and heartbreaking” – Edmonton Journal

Working Title

LabO

WORKING TITLE is a devised performance piece that combines visceral movement with live-cued soundscapes to explore how the ceaseless noise of industry dictates the pace of our inner worlds. The two performers oscillate between characters while equipment grinds and screeches, their embodied humanity confronting the absurdity of an inorganic, faceless antagonist.