Your Guide to this year's Winnipeg Fringe Festival at PTE
Goin' Fringin'? This guide has details on all the shows taking place at Prairie Theatre Exchange (Venues 16 & 17 in your program!)
This festival is a celebration of both old favourites and fresh, innovative works, spanning a wide range of genres from heartfelt dramas to side-splitting comedies. Prepare to be captivated by performances that defy categorization. Get ready to immerse yourself in the wildness of the Fringe!
This year’s iteration of the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival is fast approaching, and with 150+ productions taking place in 25 venues across the city, planning your day of theatre can be quite the undertaking. Lucky for you, we’ve compiled an overview of every show taking place at PTE’s two venues.
PTE’s two stages are listed as Venue 16 & 17 in your Fringe Program. And to save you the page-flipping and cross-referencing, we’ve gone ahead and compiled a one-stop guide to every show, ranging in styles from burlesque to storytelling to puppetry, taking place here at Prairie Theatre Exchange.
Relax in the Lobby Lounge
The PTE Lounge just might be the perfect, central location to rest, refuel, and cool off in-between shows. Especially since PTE is amping up our lobby amenities for the occasion! For starters, we’ll be tripling our bicycle parking, so guests can enjoy themselves with confidence, knowing their bikes are safe, secure, and supervised in our air-conditioned lobby. Once you’ve locked up your bike, visit the Lobby Lounge for an expanded menu of refreshments, snacks, and NEW iced coffees!
Venue 16: The Mainstage
The Cherry Karpyshin Mainstage – a thrust-style theatre with 323 seats surrounding three sides of the stage.
Chase Padgett: Grab Bag Cabaret
Written, directed & performed by Chase Padgett
Fringe Fest favourite Chase Padgett (6 Guitars, Nashville Hurricane) presents a brand new show showcasing his prodigious skills as a guitarist, singer, storyteller and comedian. This show is packed with a random running order of songs, stories and sketches that Chase has been dreaming up for years but haven’t quite fit into any of his other shows. This fun series of experiments will be filled with laughs, music and heart.
As an actor, guitarist, singer and improviser, Florida-based Chase Padgett is no stranger to Fringe Festivals. He has toured extensively all over Canada and the USA with his solo performances, even completing a contract as guest entertainer on Disney Cruise Lines.
Following last year’s touring production of Nashville Hurricane, Padgett is returning to PTE & Winnipeg Fringe with a brand new show, featuring a little bit of everything: The Grab Bag Cabaret!
Performance type: Cabaret
Runtime: 60 minutes
Accessibility: N/A
Be Warned: This show features some mild language. Rated PG.
“Thank God the fringe circuit doesn’t have to lose legends like him to Hollywood” – Orlando Weekly
Absolute Magic with Keith Brown
Prepare to be engaged in extraordinary feats of magic unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. World class entertainer Keith Brown has inspired wonder in over 20 countries and counting. With over a decade's worth of experience and performances in over 22 countries, A1 Radio named him Toronto’s BEST magician…and he’s not even from Toronto!
Absolute Magic is the fusion of mystery, wonder, and storytelling in an intimate and interactive theatre setting. Keith Brown is a world-class VIP entertainer, keynote speaker and magician, having most recently performed in Iceland for the First Lady! He’s also a TEDx speaker and an international best selling author on Amazon. When not touring his public show to sold-out houses and rave reviews, Keith trains Ivey MBAs and business executives in effective communication and high-impact presentational skills.
Performance type: Magic
Runtime: 60 minutes
Accessibility: Hard of hearing/Deaf, English as a new language, and Blind/Low Vision
Be Warned: This show includes active audience participation. Rated G.
Critic's Choice: Best Magic Show – Orlando Fringe 2023
"Absolutely mind-bending, mind-boggling and mind-blowing"
– Orlando Sentinel
Ingi’s Fingies
A SNAFU Production, co-created & directed by Brit Small
Co-created & performed by Ingrid Hansen
When you’re small, how do you live in a world designed for big people? This show brings tiny things to life and magnifies them onto a huge screen. Watch Baby Tyler discover his unique super powers to solve problems.
A NEW, family-friendly puppet show from a Fraggle Rock/Sesame puppeteer. Watch Ingi perform a live puppet film before your very eyes, using only household objects, a camera and her bare hands.
Danish-Canadian puppeteer Ingrid Hansen also works on the Jim Henson Company’s Fraggle Rock and Sesame Workshop’s Emmy-Award-winning Helpsters. Together with Kathleen Greenfield, she is co-artistic producer of SNAFU Dance Company, which produces live spectacles, puppet shows, and prison theatre in B.C., touring their shows to theatres and festivals across Canada. From time to time, Hansen and Greenfield also teach specialty workshops in puppetry, play-building, viewpoints, and physical theatre.
“It’s been so fun to make this new show,” says Ingrid Hansen, whose Epidermus Circus puppet show has been a staple at the Fringe Festival for the past several years. “We find ourselves having very serious discussions about the color of the gummy bear DJ’s turntables,” she added, “and then bursting into laughter at how ludicrous it all sounds.”
Performance type: Puppetry
Runtime: 60 minutes
Accessible: Hard of hearing/Deaf, English as a new language
Be Warned: This show features cartoonish puppet violence, dark lighting, loud sounds, and some surprises. Rated G.
“Hansen turns anything and everything into a puppet and makes it funny.
A MUST-SEE” – FringeReviews.com
“Utterly magical, insanely inventive, wickedly funny” – Free Press
Queen Shmooquan. The End Times Show!
Performed & directed by Queen Shmooquan
Hilarious, unhinged psychedelic theatre, comedy and music with legendary underground cult favourite Queen Shmooquan. In all her flagrant pop culture weirdness, she’ll drag you along into her glorious, terrifying, rainbow-hued wake as she dives headfirst into the End Times. Is it a lounge act, stand-up comedy, cult indoctrination, multi-level marketing scheme, musical, variety show (wherein Queen Shmooquan is the only variety)? YES.
Queen Shmooquan, the Modern Day Oracle otherwise known as Jeppa Hall, is a Seattle-based performance artist and a “shapeshifting purveyor of bizarre images and prophetic messages.” Her solo performances are hysterical, absurd, and beyond weird, but still manage to be poetic, revelatory and always compelling.
Queen Shmooquan's utterly unique performance art/comedy/music experiences have lent themselves to be featured in just about every performance venue imaginable, from contemporary performance theatres and museums, to cabaret, burlesque, music, and comedy stages. She has developed a diverse underground cult following and has been characterized as heir to Klaus Nomi, Dina Martina, Nadia Comaneci, Pee Wee Herman, Peggy Seeger, Evel Knievel, Harry Houdini, Pam Grier and Joni Mitchell.
Performance type: Play-Comedy
Runtime: 90 minutes
Accessibility: N/A
Be Warned: This show includes mild language and sexuality. Rated M.
“It was like the heavens split open and a choir of angels began
vomiting unicorns down on us all.” – Sunbreak
“If you haven’t seen the Queen before, I dare say you haven’t properly lived.”
– Translinguistic Other
Colin Mochrie LIVE at the Winnipeg Fringe
An SMR Performance Society production, featuring Colin Mochrie & Kevin Gillese
Improv legend Colin Mochrie is coming to the Winnipeg Fringe for a few nights only. He’s teaming up with known troublemaker Kevin Gillese for some hot improv duo action. Leave the kiddos at home, this comedy show is for grownups.
Since becoming internationally-known and -acclaimed on the long-running unscripted TV show, Whose Line Is It Anyway, Canadian improviser Colin Mochrie has made his rounds through the Fringe circuit with improv-based performances dating back to 2016 and beyond. Most recently, he toured with fellow Whose Line alum, Brad Sherwood, and even collaborated with hypnotist Asad Mecci on Hyprov - an participatory production that placed hypnotized audience volunteers into improv scenes with Mochrie himself.
This season, Mochrie will be performing alongside Edmonton-based Kevin Gillese. This isn’t the pair’s first time working together, having performed improv together on multiple occasions and even collaborating on a comedy film produced by Gillese, titled How to Ruin the Holidays.
Performance type: Improv
Runtime: 60 minutes
Accessible? N/A
Be Warned: This show features coarse language and may include depictions of violence or sexuality. Rated M.
“Mochrie is a master of his craft.”
– Reflections in the Light
Venue 17: The Colin Jackson
The Colin Jackson Studio Theatre is just a few steps away from the Mainstage, and offers about 100 seats for a more intimate experience.
Meteor Shower by Steve Martin
Hill Party Productions - Directed by Jon Bruckshaw & Brendan Jamieson
Featuring Bailie Bruckshaw, Mark Finnbogason, Daniel Grant & Eden Jamieson
presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc.
On a summer evening in Southern California, two couples gather to witness a once-in-a-lifetime meteor shower. Corky and Norm have invited the enigmatic Gerald and Laura Newman over to take in the celestial event and to get to know them better. What starts as a casual get-together soon takes a left turn as a series of events and unexpected revelations cause the couples to question their relationships, and even their reality.
Steve Martin’s signature wit is on full display in this absurdist take on life, love and human connection. Expect the unexpected.
Building off the success of Matt & Ben in last year’s festival (in which they portrayed heightened versions of Matt Damon & Ben Affleck) Hill Party Productions is taking on a new work based in pop culture with Steve Martin’s Meteor Shower.
Performance type: Play-Comedy
Runtime: 90 minutes
Accessible? N/A
Be Warned: Coarse language, sexual content, drug & alcohol use. Rated M.
“Meteor Shower is a very funny play. Keening-like-a-howler-monkey funny.
Design-a-new-cry-laughing-emoji funny.”
– Entertainment Weekly
Rob Teszka: Magic Dropout
Directed by Travis Bernhardt
Rob Teszka, almost-PhD of magic, presents an irreverent magic show about failure! Enjoy a mind-blowing cocktail of tongue-in-cheek takes on everything from Mai Tais to academic burnout. Magic Dropout weaves uncanny coincidence and sleight of hand together with stories of an undeserved medal, vintage psychic phenomena, and making up conference talks on the spot.
"In England, while researching the psychology of magic, I became a member of the prestigious Magic Circle,” said Rob Teszka, “As toxic academia tried to crush my spirit, I found joy in performing magic, and themes of psychology bled into my performance. This show is about my disillusionment with my academic career and my re-illusionment with magic."
The show touches (gently) on themes of unfairness, academic life and the search for meaning. Rob encourages himself and the audience to laugh at our failures and to be kind to ourselves (in exactly the way academia doesn’t). Join Rob Teszka, Magic Dropout, for the unexpected results of a decade researching the psychology of magic.
Performance type: Magic
Runtime: 60 minutes
Accessible? N/A
Be Warned: Mild language. Rated PG.
"An emotional mixture of magic and memoir from a world built on illusions"
– Sarah Rose, Capilano Courier
“Somehow the magic tricks may look random at first glance, but Teszka wonderfully – and logically – ties it all up in the end.”
– Stuart Nulman’s Grapevine
The Stakeout by Martin Dockery
A Racing Sloth Production, Directed by Vanessa Quesnelle
Featuring Andrew Broaddus and Martin Dockery
A comedy/drama about two men on a stakeout of two men on a stakeout of them. Fresh off two Off-Broadway runs. A uniquely funny and heartrending story about fathers and sons that keeps you guessing until the very end.
From the company that brought us Fringe hits like Dirk Darrow and Barry Potter, Brooklyn-based Martin Dockery is a theatre artist who's performed in just about every type of venue, from large theatres to intimate trailer homes, to his own front porch. Before the pandemic reduced him to a large collection of high definition pixels, he'd spent the majority of the year as a three-dimensional, independent touring artist, performing his ten one-person shows and seven two-person plays at festivals and theatres throughout Canada, Australia, the UK, and the US where he won innumerable "Best of Fest" awards.
Performance type: Play-Dramedy
Runtime: 60 minutes
Accessibility: Low vision/Blind
Be Warned: Mild language. Rated G.
"A contender for best show at the festival. It’s comedy and drama, magic and wonder in one of the best performances of the year.” –Edmonton Journal
”This dramedy came out swinging… with tension, humor, and empathy. A phenomenal story told with impeccable cadence.” –Winnipeg Free Press
“Dockery’s script is outstanding… Entertaining, funny and poignant.” – UMFM
Field Zoology 301: Myths & Monsters
by Shawn O'Hara & Jessica Tai
Dr. Brad Gooseberry returns with a new class! Have you ever wondered what the average lifespan of a mothman is? Or how to properly prepare sasquatch bait? From monsters of myth and legend to the ones lurking under your bed, get ready for an “expert” presentation from a “qualified” professional on the wilder parts of the wild.
A new show from award winning comedian Shawn O'Hara, who brought you Field Zoology 101. Armed with a collection of stories and lessons almost as unbelievable as his credentials, join infamous Field Zoologist Dr. Bradley Q Gooseberry and his trusty overhead projector as he shares a lifetime of his “knowledge” and “experience” and teaches you how to thrive and survive in the harrowing and hilarious world of field zoology. This production has played to sold out houses in North America and is a laugh-out- loud evening of comedy for folks of every age!
Performance type: Play-Comedy
Runtime: 60 minutes
Accessible? N/A
Be Warned: Coarse language. Rated PG.
“Never stops surprising” – Georgia Straight
“I laughed so hard I cried” – Orlando Decoded
Moms Moms Moms
Written & Performed by DD Brassiere & Your Mom Kathy
Older, wiser, and medicated, these moms are funnier than ever.
A raw and revealing dive into the dirty minds of comedians DD Brassiere (Tits Up) and Your Mom Kathy (Chubrub). These two bodacious babes, known for their onstage mischief, use comedy as a form of self-care. A coming of ‘middle’ age story with a splash of burlesque. For Adults Only.
This brand new comedy shines a light on the complexities and contradictions of motherhood. Perhaps there's more to life than being the essential cog in everyone's wheel but their own? These moms are taking up more space, being seen and heard, and reclaiming their joy and desires. It's time to laugh, relate and celebrate the unapologetic essence of motherhood.
DD Brassiere is the founder of Tits Up Productions and the current Director of the Winnipeg International Burlesque Festival, a position she took on after relocating from Vancouver to Winnipeg in 2021. DD also brought Smut Slam to Winnipeg, hosting monthly open mic readings around the city. Moms Moms Moms is a brand new work with collaborator Your Mom Kathy, premiering only at Fringe!
Performance type: Play-Comedy
Runtime: 60 minutes
Accessible? N/A
Be Warned: Coarse Language, Sexual Content, Nudity, mention of opioid overdose and drug use. Rated M.
Tickets and programs are on sale now. Tickets ($10-$14) are available online or in person at at Royal MTC Box Office (174 Market Ave., Mon–Fri 12–5pm). Physical programs are available for $10 at Royal MTC, McNally Robinson and select Liquor Mart locations. Showtimes and additional information can be found in your program or online at WinnipegFringe.com. Happy Fringing!
