Frontmezzjunkies reports: Hamilton Fringe Festival Celebrates 21st year with New Festival Hub
Hamilton’s Biggest, Boldest 12-Day Arts Festival
July 16-27, 2025
When I heard about the Hamilton Fringe Festival, I was intrigued. I’d never been to any theatre in Hamilton before, and after my little day trip to the Blyth Festival for their opening performance of The Wind Coming Over the Sea, I thought, “Why not?” The 21st festival is running from July 16-27, 2025, featuring over 50+ shows in 350+ performances in over a dozen venues. Hamilton Fringe is the largest theatre festival in the Greater Hamilton Area, lighting up spaces across town with live comedy, theatre, musicals, dance, art, film, family fare, and more. And this theatre junkie is going to go that last weekend of the event and take in a whole bunch of shows.
Hamilton Fringe is excited to announce Fringe Boulevard, the new festival hub! Fringe Boulevard will transform King William Street at James Street North into a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly hub filled with free programming on an outdoor stage – plus Kids Club Fun Day. Fringe Boulevard will be the heart of the festival with the incite Fringe Info Hub at the Lister Block, the Relay Outdoor Patio, a local artisans Marketplace, and exclusive Fringe deals at partner businesses and restaurants along the strip – the perfect place to celebrate the weird, wild, and wonderful Hamilton Fringe community.
Welcoming nearly 20,000 attendees over 12 days, Hamilton Fringe will host a dynamic range of theatre and performance includinga dozen shows by LGBTQ2S+ artists, over eight shows by artists over the age of 50, four shows written and/or performed by artists who are disabled or neurodivergent, and three shows about horses and the people who love them (Pony Girls, Horseface, and Men Love Horsies: The Musical).
The 2025 event listings are online now, with tickets and passes on sale at HFTco.ca/hamilton-fringe-festival.
Here are a few of the many Hamilton Fringe Festival highlights:
A Very Queer Easter Pageant at The Players’ Guild of Hamilton:
Häus of the Holy Spirit presents a drag-infused dramatization of the Bible’s Easter story with a surprise musical twist. An anti-colonial love letter, this play comes to life with a cast of alternative drag artists dedicated to shaking up “Canadian” conversation. Presented as part of FringeXchange, a knowledge-exchange program supporting emerging and equity-deserving artists.
Crane Girl at Theatre Aquarius Studio
Winner of the Hamilton Fringe New Play Contest, Crane Girl (Falling Iguana Theatre) follows a woman who walks out of her life and climbs a crane. Inspired by a real GTHA event, it explores rage, women’s bodies, reproductive rights, and what it means to find your voice in a patriarchal nightmare.
The Fruits that Rot in our Bellies at Theatre Aquarius Studio
After agreeing to be a surrogate for their sister, Fimi is haunted by who or what is growing inside them. Darren Aronofsky’s Mother meets Jordan Peele’s Us in this afro-surrealist ghost story about a young non-binary person coming face to face with the spirit realm. Presented as part of FringeXchange.
A Question Of Character at Mills Hardware
Paula Wing and Tanisha Taitt star in this edge-of-your-seat thriller that will keep you talking after it ends! The clock is ticking when Leni Riefenstahl is visited by an interviewer with more than questions for the infamous filmmaker. From the winner of the Best New Play in Toronto and Hamilton Fringe, Steven Elliott Jackson, and acclaimed director Alice Fox Lundy, comes the most talked-about play of the Hamilton Fringe!
Sex Goddess at Mills Hardware
This solo show featuring Riel Riddick-Stevens uses Hip Hop/R&B, comedy, and heightened storytelling to explore the relationships between power, bodily autonomy, and sense of self in a patriarchal world. Sex Goddess will also appear at Montreal, Toronto, and Victoria Fringe through the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals touring lottery.
Visiting My Mother and Other Repetition Compulsions at Theatre Aquarius Studio
A therapy session, a family dinner, a hospital visit, the unbearable tension of the ordinary. Presented by Afterlife Theatre, the Company-in-Residence of HFTco’s ALERT program, witness a show about the burden of unsaid inheritances, the pathology of familial love, and the tragedy of unconscious repetition.
Returning this year by popular demand is Fringe On The Streets, the free outdoor performance tour presented in partnership with the City of Hamilton, with support from the incite foundation for the arts, Downtown Hamilton BIA, and Keeping Six. Fringe On The Streets is an immersive, hop-on or off, 75-minute walking tour of live art and performance along York & James. Fringe On The Streets stops will feature music and avian sculpture at the Farmers’ Market, sidewalk burlesque, the women of vaudeville behind the Tivoli, a puppet show with a historical twist, a condo realtor presentation from the great beyond, and a dancing grand finale on King William.
The 2025 Hamilton Fringe Festival venues will include: Mills Hardware, The Players’ Guild of Hamilton, Theatre Aquarius Studio, The Westdale, Ringside, The Staircase (Studio Theatre, Bright Room, Elaine May), Hamilton Theatre Inc., The Gasworks, and Centre for the Talking Arts.
Hamilton Festival Theatre Company (HFTco) is a not-for-profit charitable organization committed to training, platforming, and amplifying Hamilton’s theatre artists and storytellers. Since 2003, we have been building a community for artists and arts lovers, and cultivating work that is accessible, innovative, and artistically adventurous.
Hamilton Fringe Festival is a member of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals (CAFF). We adhere to CAFF’s Guiding Principles, which includes that: artists are selected on a non-juried basis through a lottery system, artists receive 100% of the ticket prize in box office revenue, Fringe festival producers do not interfere with artistic content of each performance, and that the festival provides accessible opportunities for all audiences and artists to participate in the Fringe festival.
Hamilton Fringe Festival
July 16-27, 2025
