Soulpepper Theatre will be ground zero for the 2025 Next Stage Series at the Toronto Fringe Festival, which runs from July 2 to 13. Two of the shows in the series will be offered in Soulpepper’s Michael Young Theatre and the other two will be in Soulpepper’s Tank House Theatre.
“In the new Next Stage Series model, Fringe audiences have the chance to experience four productions that are moving to the ‘next stage’ of their development,” the festival stated in a news release earlier this year.
The 2024 curation commmittee of Laura Paduch, Lucy Eveleigh, Derrick Chua, Virgilia Griffith, and Indrit Kasap curated the 2025 Next Stage Series lineup. This is how the Toronto Fringe describes each show in the news release:
BABZ JOHNSTON: Songs by a WANNABE
Created by Barbara Johnston
Company: Wannabe
Producers: Alan Kliffer and Ann Merriam
Venue: Michael Young Theatre
Barbara (Babz) Johnston is back for the second instalment of her one-woman musical series. In BABZ JOHNSTON: Songs by a WANNABE we find career Spice Girls Impersonator (and award-winning theatre artist/writer and current Mirvish Come From Away company member) in a moment of reckoning as she chronicles the thrills and perils of a life lived in someone else’s platforms.
Have Fun Kids
Written by Laura Anne Harris, Directed by Jessie Fraser
Company: Convection Productions
Venue: Tank House Theatre
At the edge of the event horizon is a tipping point, a place where memories hover for infinity, or so it seems, before they are gone forever. Featuring the words of Jordan Mechano, join storyteller Laura Anne Harris, (Destiny, USA, Pitch Blonde) as she invites you in to explore the edges of her own lived and inherited memories of loss and love.
Justice for Maurice Henry Carter
Written by Donald Molnar & Alicia Payne
Company: Arbez Drama Projects
Venue: Michael Young Theatre
Two men, one Black, one White, become brothers while fighting to overcome a wrongful conviction. A choir/chorus helps tell this true story through spirituals, hymns, and gospel music woven throughout.
Siranoush
Written by Lara Arabian, Directed by Carla Melo
Company: CorpOluz Theatre
Venue: Tank House Theatre
A multimedia, multilingual one-woman show that explores the writer/performer’s desire to dig deeper into her cultural roots through a reimagining of Siranoush, a 19th-century ethnic Armenian actress who was a trailblazer both on and off the stage. Tapping into ancestral knowledge and diasporic memory, the performance takes us across time and space to explore the power of theatre as a way of cultural survival and female empowerment.
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