This year’s Toronto Fringe Festival will present 123 shows at 27 different venues from June 30 to July 12. The lineup includes the return of Srutika Sabu as the zany second-hand Tesla owner Santosh Santosh (a.k.a. Tosh) in 1 Santosh Santosh 2 Go: Live at Grind-Con. Developed through the Buddies in Bad Times Emerging Creators Unit, this Shohana Sharmin-directed show reveals Tosh’s delight over being invited to be a last-minute speaker at Grind-Con.
“He’s known for his linkedIn presence, with over 37 endorsements and one heart reaction from Sundar Pichai’s fan account,” states the blurb on the Toronto Fringe Festival website. “When he’s not doing asynchronous API orchestration, Santosh likes to kick back, drink beer and spend time inside his girlfriend.”
Sabu’s last appearance at the Fringe was in 2024 with 1 Santosh Santosh 2: Tosh Finds His Groove. Sabu was born in South India and her family immigrated to Brampton when she was a kid. Later, they moved to New Jersey where she attended from high school and Rutgers University before going on to graduate from the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine.
On her Linkedin profile, Sabu describes herself as a “doctor turned multidisciplinary artist dedicated to transforming complex ideas into accessible, impactful experiences through storytelling”.
She created her character, Santosh, during a drag king clown workshop, according to a profile in Sesaya Arts Magazine. Sabu told Sesaya founder Arpita Ghosal that her inspiration was “very much South Indian software engineer meets man transitioning to Malayali uncle”.
Another comedic performer returning to the Toronto Fringe Festival is Aliya Kanani. She premiered her one-woman show, Where You FROM, From? at the festival in 2022. This year, she’s back with Aliya Kanani: A Comedian’s Guide to Enlightenment.
“Think Julia Roberts on her Eat Pray Love journey, but brown, funny and poor,” the Toronto Fringe Festival states on its website. “Following her acclaimed show Where You FROM, From?, Aliya returns with a high-energy, heart-on-sleeve adventure, with stories from studying meditation in India to accidentally joining a cult in Texas.”
In 2021, Kanani was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for an actress in a leading role for her performance as Ms. Hina in Scarborough. She also appeared as Kathy in Atom Egoyan’s 2023 film Seven Veils and as Saba in Antoine Bourges’s 2022 film Concrete Valley.
The Toronto Fringe Festival runs from June 30 to July 12. For a list of all the shows, visit the festival website. The Toronto Spark is on Bluesky @torontospark.bsky.social.
