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![\"Scoop](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/4391067_web1_scoop-fringe.jpg\")
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tScoop is ready to join fellow fringers and check out this year\u2019s slate of plays.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Since 2022, the arts section in the newspaper has been offered online without a paywall, ensuring that performers both local and globe-trotting make their way into your homes and onto your home pages. Our advice: select start, take some risks, suit yourself and use the one life you have to live to see as much live theatre as you can in Winnipeg. Play on!<\/p>\n
Throughout the festival\u2019s run \u2014 July 15-26 \u2014 fringers have the chance to customize and refine their own character while exploring a map featuring 30 unique venues, each bringing its own charm to this highlight of the city\u2019s summer theatre scene.<\/p>\n
Audiences can get acquainted or reacquainted with some of the city\u2019s top year-round arts venues, such as Prairie Theatre Exchange; Manitoba Theatre for Young People; Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre\u2019s John Hirsch Mainstage, Tom Hendry Warehouse and the cult favourite Son of Warehouse; and St. Boniface\u2019s Th\u00e9\u00e2tre Cercle Moli\u00e8re. Over on Ellice Avenue at Sherbrook Street, find the festival\u2019s downtown hub at the Gargoyle Theatre and the West End Cultural Centre.<\/p>\n
To fringe smarter, stay tuned for plenty more coverage in the coming days at winnipegfreepress.com\/fringe<\/a>. For now, here\u2019s a quick roundup of some returning fringe favourites.<\/p>\n Burns and Allen <\/p>\n (Venue 1: John Hirsch Mainstage)<\/p>\n Improv impresarios Stephen Sim and Caity Curtis can be found all around the festival: Curtis alone is writing, directing or performing in six comedy productions, including a pair of shows by Winnipeg\u2019s Club Soda Improv (Love is Blank, The Truth Is Out There). <\/p>\n It\u2019s difficult to predict the heights an improv show can reach, but Sim and Curtis found a winning comedic formula in 2024 with their first run of Burns and Allen. <\/p>\n \u201cTaking us back to the golden days of radio, when the vaudeville legends Gracie Allen and George Burns reigned supreme, the pair successfully capture the magic of the real-life comedic couple with impeccable vocal mimicry and comedic styling,\u201d AV Kitching wrote in her rave review.<\/p>\n Promise and Promiscuity <\/p>\n (Venue 1, John Hirsch Mainstage)<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t SUPPLIED<\/p>\n Penny Ashton delivers a Jane Austen-inspired musical in Promise and Promiscuity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In a more belated return, New Zealand\u2019s Penny Ashton is bringing this Jane Austen musical \u2014 a fan favourite in 2014 \u2014 back to Winnipeg.<\/p>\n Billed as a \u201cnew musical by Jane Austen and Penny Ashton,\u201d the show stars Ashton as Elspeth and several others in this novel one-woman production from one of the festival\u2019s farthest travellers.<\/p>\n 52 Stories <\/p>\n (Venue 3, Th\u00e9\u00e2tre Cercle Moli\u00e8re)<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the deal: armed with a deck of cards and an agile approach to narrative and audience immersion, British Columbia comedian Dave Morris tells an unforgettable life story, using each number and suit as a mnemonic code to unlock precious memories.<\/p>\n Look out for Morris as a pop-up guest at a variety of improv shows throughout the festival, but keep your eyes and hearts open for this one-man masterclass that earned a five-star review in 2025.<\/p>\n Oversharer <\/p>\n (Venue 5, Son of Warehouse)<\/p>\n Have you met Kristen Einarson yet? It took until she was 30 years old for this Winnipeg standup to truly meet herself.<\/p>\n In this remount of last year\u2019s fan favourite \u2014 directed and dramaturged by Caity Curtis \u2014 Einarson gets into the nitty and the gritty details of a late-in-life ADHD diagnosis.<\/p>\n We could say more, but rest assured that Einarson will tell you all about it.<\/p>\n (A pairing suggestion, if we may: check out Vancouver\u2019s Katie-Ellen Humphries\u2019 new show No Worries if Not \u2014 a people-pleasing comedy \u2014 also at Venue 5).<\/p>\n Randy and Elizabeth: A Savage Love Story<\/p>\n (Venue 9, Planetarium)<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t MIKAELA MACKENZIE \/ FREE PRESS FILES<\/p>\n Geoff Hughes is back as Macho Man Randy Savage in Randy and Elizabeth: A Savage Love Story.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n You might read \u201cSavage\u201d and \u201cLove Story,\u201d and think about Seattle sex columnist Dan Savage before you think about the Macho Man. You\u2019d be wrong.<\/p>\n After stepping into the fringe arena last year, wrestling fanatic Geoffrey Owen Hughes is back to jump off the top rope and tug at your heartstrings.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if you are not a wrestling fan, this unique show is not to be missed,\u201d wrote Free Press reviewer Sonya Ballantyne.<\/p>\n (A note: Ballantyne\u2019s reviewing byline will be absent from the Freep this time around, but not from the fringe: the local writer and performer is starring in How Bono Saved My Life (Three Times) over at Venue 29, Club 200).<\/p>\n Dungeons and Dragons Improv Show XVII: The Rise of the Lich<\/p>\n (Venue 18, Park Theatre)<\/p>\n When rolling the fringe dice, there are far worse places to land than in this annual tribute to fantasy, role play and unapologetic nerddom.<\/p>\n At the Park \u2014 a new venue this year \u2014 South Osborne plays host to D&D night for some of the city\u2019s silliest and most deranged improvisers.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the majority of the audience are clearly well acquainted with all things D&D unfolding onstage, there is not one moment of confusion or exclusion,\u201d wrote Denise Duguay in the Freep last year.<\/p>\n The storyline introduced on night one continues throughout the fringe run, offering rewards for repeat viewing.<\/p>\n Lies of a Promiscuous Woman <\/p>\n (Venue 21, MTYP)<\/p>\n With Jesus Christ Superstar wrapped up at Rainbow Stage, this production from Winnipeg fringe mainstay Theresa Thomson turns back the clock to play the son\u2019s mother, the Virgin Mary, who is here to tell her own story.<\/p>\n Before Lies premi\u00e8red at the 2014 fringe, detractors had already decided how they felt: Thomson\u2019s posters were defaced with words like \u201cwhore\u201d \u201cslut\u201d and \u201cblasphemer,\u201d her car was vandalized and the actor was stalked.<\/p>\n Thomson rewrote the script and has expanded the cast to include Carlyn Graff-Czehryn, Christopher Dunn and Maggie Koreen.<\/p>\n Why remount the lightning rod in 2026? Because \u201cpatriarchy is everyone\u2019s problem,\u201d Thomson says.<\/p>\n ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Ben Waldman Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University\u2019s (now Toronto Metropolitan University\u2019s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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