Urthona 
Vancouver, Canada 
Playwright: William Rubel  

Two brothers return to the island cabin where their father, a struggling novelist, met a tragic end. It takes an old actor, the spirit of William Blake, and love and anger across three centuries to help them perceive the infinite in the midst of loss. Written by a Blake scholar, and author of several ritual poetic dramas, including Sonnets to Orpheus (Paper Trails new play prize), the story draws on Blake’s letters, his marriage, his three years in a cottage at Felpham, and his basic myth of the division of Urizen (reason) into Spectre (thought) and Emanation (feeling). Several of Blake’s poems weave in and out of the action, in the form of an original, live musical score. Come share an hour in eternity.

The performance on September 6 is half-price!
 
Intense / Musical / Poetic / 75 minutes / 14+

Underrepresented artist: Written and produced by a neurodiverse playwright. 

Theatre Terrific 
Vancouver, Canada  
Playwright: Susanna Uchatius in collaboration with an inclusive cast
theatreterrific.ca

LOVE!
A huge tiny four letter word!
Roy & Janet tackles love, person to person, tribe to tribe, human to nature.
Shakespeare, Ovid, The Twin Sisters (The Lions of Vancouver)... it’s all connected!
Give us your hand, we’ll take you there!
Theatre Terrific’s 14th Vancouver Fringe Festival production. Join us!

“If you have not previously heard of Theatre Terrific, you are missing out ... This company supports artists of diverse abilities to develop their performance skills, and collaborate in the production of provocative theatrical works.” —The Vandellous

Weird / Musical / Poetic / Multicultural / LGBTQ+ / 40 minutes / All Ages

Underrepresented artist: Theatre Terrific is an all inclusive theatre company that works with artists of all abilities, cultures and genders. This includes artists who may or may not identify as living with physical, cognitive, mental health, gender or cultural differences. Our productions are always wheelchair accessible.

Squirrel Suit Productions 
Hamilton, Canada
Playwright: Carlyn Rhamey 
squirrelsuit.ca 

Award-winning storyteller Carlyn Rhamey (SAOR) shares the trials and triumphs of growing up a little bit “special” and embracing what makes us different. The ADHD Project is a hilariously honest journey exploring ADHD and celebrating neurodiversity. Enter Carlyn’s world of chaos, creativity, and combat with her mind. 

2017 Ottawa Fringe Emerging Artist Award
**** “A gifted and charismatic storyteller, endearing, captivating, and tremendously abuzz with charming energy.” —On Stage Ottawa
“Rhamey takes it to a higher level.” —Arts  Ally Hamilton 

Funny / Silly / Warm and Fuzzy / 60 minutes / All Ages 

Underrepresented artist: The ADHD Project was written/performed/produced and directed all by neurodiverse artists.

The Elegant Ladies Collective 
Vancouver, Canada 
Playwrights: The Elegant Ladies Collective 
elegantladiescollective.weebly.com 

The Elegant Ladies are back with another interactive, site-specific, interdisciplinary theatrical adventure. Located in Railspur Alley, we will take an intimate journey through addiction: what makes us want a “fix,” what are our fixes rooted in, and how can we begin to fix this? A compassionate, heartbreaking and beautiful look at what ails us. 

Reviews from past shows:
On Embryonic: “What these people do is a special kind of magic.” —Two Cents & Two Pence
On Peripetiea: “Go see it!” —Plank Magazine
On ESUM: “They share freely of their creativity and compassion.” —Plank Magazine
On Eidola: “It sure was something special.” —Plank Magazine

The performance on September 10 is half-price!

Intense / Poetic / Intimate / Multicultural / LGBTQ+ / 55 minutes / 14+

Underrepresented artist: Collaboratively created and performed primarily by female and non-binary artists who may identify as physically, mentally, cognitively, gender and culturally diverse. The show addresses themes of addiction and most performers have experienced addiction themselves or within their immediate family.

Awkward Stage Productions 
Vancouver, Canada
Playwrights: Ryan Scott Oliver & Hunter Foster 
awkwardstageproductions.com

When you’re failing classes, kicked off the swim team, and your family is on the skids, life can feel like it’s going to hell. In a night of teenage desire, Jasper and her best friend Agnes consummate a years-long friendship. In the morning Agnes is gone. Jasper goes after her. Come meet us at the touch of water. Take a deep dive into Deadland. 

“Jasper In Deadland is a journey of self-discovery that moved me in such a way that it brought tears to my eyes.” —New York Theatre Guide
“And electrifying surge of theatrical energy!” —Entertainment Weekly

Weird / Intense / Musical / LGBTQ+ / 90 minutes / All Ages

Underrepresented artist: Jasper in Deadland is led by a core production team of queer women and  features a cast of diverse actors in the story two teenage girls falling in love in the face of natural and supernatural adversity.  The story was originally written with a cis-gender, male-female romance, but the NYC writers have given special permission for Awkward to explore this narrative through an intersectional lens.  

Pretentious Productions 
Edmonton, Canada 
Playwright: Savanna Harvey 
savannaharvey.ca 

Protagonist is the last remaining human on earth. She has been stranded on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, in the middle of the ocean, for years... but her days are numbered. She tells her final tale using improvised garbage puppets and really, really bad poetry. Wastelands is an apocalyptic comedy about garbage and the pieces of trash who produce it.  

Silly / Weird / Intellectual / 60 minutes / 18+ / Coarse Language

Underrepresented artist: Wastelands is written, directed, designed, and performed by a team of two trashy ladies. Unlike plastic bottles in the ocean, we need more femmes in leadership roles and in season programming.

Tomo Suru Players 
Vancouver, Canada 
Playwrights: Gerald Williams 
tomosuruplayers.com

How well do you ever really know someone? Trevor and Margaret bring this struggle to the stage with life changing consequences for everyone involved. From the very beginning in Trevor’s life, complicated relationships have a strong impact, starting with his father and a dead mother. Margaret has her own issues as a woman willing to settle for something far less than perfect. A relationship built on disappointment and half-truths shouldn’t be enough for anyone, but Margaret is considering marriage. When will too much be too far for even this long suffering, self deluding woman? 

PLEASE NOTE: This venue is 19+ 

Funny / Intense / LGBTQ+ / 45 minutes / 14+ / Coarse Language / Violent Content / Sexual Content

Underrepresented artist: A performer and the writer and crew members are queer. Working with non-queer cast mates allows us to find common ground and reflect on the positivity of inclusive production teams. The content of the play explores family issues that relate to coming to terms with one's sexuality, and more universally, coming to terms with being loved in different forms.

Classy Little Bitch Productions 
Burnaby, Canada 
Playwright: Kuan Foo  

SELF-ish follows Esther, a 35-year-old Korean-Canadian woman, examining herself in the face of a recent tragedy. Esther wakes up to the familiar tremor of existential angst ripple over her body like a pee shiver and takes us into her family dynamics, her crappy workplace and her present day angst. 

**** “Kuan Foo’s script resonates especially for Asian-Canadian audience members. When Esther's tears finally come, Bang has no trouble digging deep, and in the intimate BMO Incubator, it’s hard not to feel those same emotions.” —NOW Magazine 

The performance on September 7 is half-price!

Funny / Tear-Jerker / Intimate / Multicultural / 60 minutes / 14+ / Coarse Language 

Underrepresented artist: The writer is Asian-Canadian. The performer is Asian-Canadian.   

Vancouver Puppet Theatre 
Vancouver, Canada
Playwright: Viktor Barkar 
vancouverpuppet.com 

Come see a new family-friendly puppet show at Fringe this year: Baba Yaga! Puppet show, you say? Yes! Handmade marionettes are waiting to tell you the story of Baba Yaga. This ancient Russian forest entity is cosmically cranky and lives in a chicken legged-house. There’s only one thing that can stop her and it isn’t love. 

Musical / Warm and Fuzzy / Multicultural / 30 minutes / Kid’s Show / All Ages / Smoke/Fog /

Underrepresented artist: Our show is produced and performed by artist who was born and grew up in Eastern European country (Belarus).
This show is based on the Eastern European traditional folklore and, therefore engages with members of the Eastern European community.

Pulsive Party 
Vancouver, Canada
Playwrights: Ashley Whitehead & Natalie Tin Yin Gan
ashleywhitehead.ca/tagged/pulsiveparty 

Will you come? Maybe-a-labia.

They’re pink! They’re passionate! They’re practically perfect in every play. Through saucy song and aggressive choreography, this hilarious duo dives into cheeky vulva personas in search of acceptance of themselves and of each other. 

The performance on September 7 is half-price!

Silly / Intimate / Shocking / 60 minutes / 18+ / Coarse Language / Sexual Content

Underrepresented artist: This show is created and performed by one first generation Chinese-Canadian woman, and one queer woman.

Produced by Tender Container, Associate Producers Neworld Theatre and New(to)Town Collective 
Vancouver, Canada 
Playwright: Davey Calderon 
newtotowncollective.com 

Big Queer Filipino Karaoke Night! is a Clown-Drag-Karaoke Extravaganza, serving up Filipino-Canadian identity shenanigans, queer insights, family epiphanies, and soul gratifying karaoke! Inspired by Davey Calderon’s visit to his family’s ancestral land, the Philippines, this show is an interactive celebration of the intersections found in oneself. 

PLEASE NOTE:This venue is 19+ 
The performance on September 8 is half-price!

Funny / Musical / Intimate / Multicultural / LGBTQ+ / 65 minutes / 18+ 

Underrepresented artist: Written and performed by Davey Calderon (a queer POC who is of Filipino descent), directed Chris Lam (a queer Asian cis man whose ethnic background is Chinese), dramaturged by Dominique Wakeland (a Black gender fluid darling), and produced by Katie Sly (a white bisexual trans boi).              

Maximaliste Productions 
Montreal, Canada 
Playwrights: Maximaliste Productions  

Two-time Montreal Spirit of the Fringe Award winner (2016/17), Montreal’s Best Kisser (2015), and Certified Sexpert Fiona Ross stars as Ms. Beatrice Haven (who knows little about sex, and frankly, finds it scary). Watch as she struggles to navigate sexual education, her own sexuality, and dental dams. Hopefully, you’ll learn something along the way 

Funny / Silly / Intimate / LGBTQ+ / 60 minutes / 14+ / Coarse Language / Sexual Content 

Underrepresented artist: The show has been created by a team of queer women as a response to standard sex-ed, with the desire to be more inclusive in how we talk about sex. 

Indigenized Indigenous Theatre 
St. Albert, Canada 
Playwright: Josh Languedoc  

Meet Nakota, a young boy who is trying to write the greatest story ever. One day, his grandfather, 103-year-old Rocko, comes over for a visit. Next thing Nakota knows, he is whisked away into a world of stories that are right below his feet. Within the land.

This show explores the interplay between stories of the present against the long forgotten.

Ottawa Tonite: Top 10 Picks of the Fringe 2018
APT613: Top Picks of the Fringe 2018
"Masterful storyteller...Languedoc fills the entire stage with his performance and characters...run, don't walk, to get tickets." - APT613

Warm and Fuzzy / Intimate / Multicultural / 45 minutes / All Ages

Underrepresented artist: Written and performed by an anishinaabe playwright who looks white enough to have privilege, but is coloured enough to be exotic and labeled as an "other."                         

Anais West and Sara Vickruck 
Vancouver, Canada 
Playwrights: Anais West & Sara Vickruck 
www.polyqueerloveballad.com

An intimate, edgy new musical, merging slam poetry with catchy pop-folk tunes. Nina, a polyamorous bisexual poet, meets Gabbie, a monogamous lesbian songwriter, at Cafe Deux Soleil. With two microphones, a loop pedal, and array of instruments, they struggle to reconcile their fierce mutual attraction with their opposing perspectives on love. 

“Vickruck can belt a song, croon a song, and massage a song into existence—and she can act, too.” —Vancouver Courier (on Love Bomb)

“[Anais West has] got great comic timing and she is fearless about going to dark emotional places.” —the Georgia Straight (on Dry Land)

The performance on September 10 is half-price!

Naughty / Musical / Poetic / LGBTQ+ / 75 minutes / 18+ / Coarse Language / Sexual Content

Underrepresented artist: Created and performed by queer women, with an all-female, mostly queer creative team.

Erroneous Productions 
Toronto, Canada 
Playwright: Charlie Petch 
charliecpetch.com/mel-malarkey.html 

It’s the last night at the Vagabond Theatre and Mel can’t bear to tell the audience. She keeps the bawdy acts going and the elixir flowing. In private, she delivers odes and tells stories of her “Vaudeville theatre for the unrefined.”
 
Written and performed by award winning playwright and spoken word artist, Charlie Petch. Donkeys! Desperation! Debauchery! 
Best Spoken Word Album of 2017. “A bittersweet tribute to an age when the options for performance seemed endless ... a chronicle of lost theatre forms ... [a] bizarre and hilarious play.” —Electric City Magazine
“Flamboyant and raunchy ... solemn and emotional ... for my money the best Vaudeville act.” —The Coast (Halifax)

Funny / Weird / Poetic / LGBTQ+ / 55 minutes / 14+ / Coarse Language / Sexual Content

Underrepresented artist: The Artist is a transmasculine person and their show, while being a vaudeville show, also touches on themes of queerness and trans identities in the 1930's. They also live with a disability.

Virginia Jack 
Toronto, Canada 
Playwrights: Virginia Jack 
virginiajack.com 

Inspired by art house cinema and a penchant for the fantastically bizarre, Virginia Jack creates a brash and compelling one-act play on the spot. Two improvisers create characters together, and build an entire play from a single audience suggestion. The result is sometimes dark, often beautiful, and always hilarious. 

“Sprightly, fast-paced performance ... an ironclad format and strong character work.” —the Portland Mercury

The performance on September 8 is half-price!

Funny / Weird / Intellectual / LGBTQ+ / 50 minutes / All Ages

Underrepresented artist: One of us is a bi-sexual woman. The other is not.

Heckin’ Good Theatre 
New Westminster, Canada
Playwright: Neil Labute

From the ever-popular Neil Labute, a biting tale of love, lust, and betrayal. When shy and sheltered Adam meets art student and would-be vandal Evelyn, the two are immediately drawn to each other. Before long, Evelyn adds a dose of chaos and rebellion to Adam’s life with her boldness, fierceness, and the revelation of one shocking secret. 

“Clever, uncomfortable and brilliantly staged, The Shape of Things leaves the audience with much to talk about.” —CurtainUp
“Mean and marvelous.” —TheaterMania 

The performance on September 7 is half-price!

Intense / Intellectual / Shocking / 100 minutes / 14+ / Coarse Language / Sexual Content

Underrepresented artist: The Shape of Things features a predominately female creative team with a number of queer spectrum artists

interdepend dancetheatre 
Vancouver, Canada 
Playwrights: Levana Irena Prud’homme & Clay Nikiforuk  

Amid pro-choice/pro-life debates, what about having choices—plural? A dance-theatre piece that proposes a completely alternative—or perhaps ancient—vision of pregnancy loss. Described as “powerful,” “moving,” and “thought provoking,” dance and story combine to bring empathy, community, and an unconventional offering of autonomy to the discussion. 

Audience feedback:
“Powerful! Moving; stays with you long after it’s over.”
“Deep and thought provoking.”
“Powerful work. It is moving and emotional and real and important.”
“I want this to be performed everywhere.” 

The performance on September 8 is half-price!

Poetic / Intellectual / Intimate / LGBTQ+ / 30 minutes / 14+

Underrepresented artist: All company members are non-binary, genderqueer, or gender nonconforming, and all are queer or lesbian.

Yellowbelt Productions 
Mission, Canada 
Playwright: Elisa McRae  

In the #metoo era, how do we support someone when we are in the #notme category? On the eve of Lucy’s wedding, revelations of past abuse trigger reactions that will change this family forever. This witty, entertaining, and profound ensemble family drama asks: if we confront the horrors of the past, can we move forward with hope?

The performance on September 7 is half-price!

Intense / Intimate / 75 minutes / 14+

Underrepresented artist: This show features an underrepresented artist