After the Victoria Fringe Festival, I’m debating if I want more compact shows to see. As for my favourite performers, usually there is a lot of overlap. With only Solovela: An Improvised Solo Telenovela being the only overlap between events, I can either stay home or do a day trip over for a show or two before heading home. But with Fringe, that is never a good idea. Vancouver Fringe Festival has a lot to offer
And as I build my list for this year’s neard’s gjuide, here are my top picks for locals and tourists who happen to be in Terminal City from September 10 to 20, 2026.
Canon Fire:
The Improvised Musical
Arts Umbrella (Theatre)
Why travel abroad when Vancouver already has a Broadway AND a West End? Watch six improvisors and two musicians create a brand-new musical right before your eyes with no script, no pre-written music, and no safety net, solely inspired by audience suggestions and the stories you may have missed from your very own hometown newspaper. From local jaywalking scandals to bizarre community board disputes, no local story is too small to be given the grand, show-stopping musical treatment.
MIA
Revue Stage
Annually, Mia asks the internet to hunt her down, running a complex online game based on riddles and puzzles. The winner decodes her posts to find her in person, and once they have, she disappears again until the next year. The problem is that this year, she hasn’t left any clues. Eva, a longtime fan and current recluse, accidentally stumbles into Mia’s private life in her attempt to find a lead.
In a moment of unexpected curiosity, Mia invites Eva to help her run the game. Over the course of three months, Eva and Mia’s relationship develops through phone calls, emails, and texts. Eva’s perceived reality warps as the game runs its course, and Mia opens up to reveal she’s more than her mysterious digital persona. Yet the game has to end, and the only way to win is to find MIA. A show about parasocial online relationships, projected hyper-realities, and the isolation of loving someone you’ve never met, MIA is inspired by post-modern philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s work Simulacra and Simulation, ARGs, and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair by Jane Schoenbrun. For those yearning for digital affection, and selfishly wishing the world worked the way it did in their heads.
Soul Maker
Waterfront Theatre
Unable to accept her brother’s impending death, Florentine, or “TingTing,” tries to sew a doll that can serve as a vessel for his soul. Framed through the folklore of Singapore and Malaysia, the one-act play explores grief, love and spirituality with surreal humour and tender supernatural mischief.
Behind The Wall:
A Thriller Musical
Waterfront Theatre
In this new thriller musical by Vancouver writers Kay Snell and Landon Dueck, a journalist spends a week investigating Oracle Homes, a housing development that claims it can predict its owner’s needs. Four original songs drive a fast-paced mystery about surveillance, technology and empathy as the smart home fails and something more troubling appears to be hidden behind closed doors.
Snatched
Ron Basford Park (Amphitheatre)
In Edinburgh in 1829, Agnes Gillies turns to grave robbing when an anatomical school needs fresh cadavers. At 32, with no husband or prospects, she finds an unexpected confidant in a gentlemanly corpse. He may be the perfect companion for a woman society ignores, but death has already complicated the relationship.
One Man Home Alone
Little Mountain Gallery (Salazar Stage)
Duran Cruickshank returns after a sold-out debut to perform his take on the Christmas classic Home Alone. Alone onstage for 35 minutes, he tears through 33 characters, 29 scenes, 11 pizzas, 10 booby traps and two burglars in a physical-comedy adaptation inspired by a couple’s Christmas tradition.
Doctor Faustus
Picnic Pavilion
Christopher Marlowe’s tragedy follows brilliant scholar John Faustus, who finds all human knowledge meaningless and bargains away his soul for 24 years of magic and power. Rough Magic Theatre stages the rarely performed classic as a darkly funny, modern morality fable about a man who gains an extraordinary opportunity but lacks the imagination to use it well.
The Lucky Life of a Black Cat
Performance Works
Lucky, a senior black cat who has completed his mission with his humans, arrives in a sanctuary between worlds. Before he can move on, he must give an inspiring “CAT Talk” to a group of kittens seeking their future humans while learning to let go of the family he loved. The magical-realist story blends humour and heartache into a warm tale about grief, pets and helping others begin their journey.
MoonSwine: To-Dance-To-Dream
Studio 16
Guided by quirky beings from alternate universes, Moosie, a socially anxious human-pig hybrid, tries to save her only friend, a stuffed animal, and her future self from perpetual loneliness as an ominous presence threatens their light. The surreal solo show blends absurdism, spoken-word poetry, children’s theatre and existentialism into a playful exploration of authenticity, connection and the need to be understood.
LIVE IN HELL
Performance Works
A self-obsessed She-Devil welcomes the audience to a personal hell built from objects pulled from an oversized Amazon box. Through practical magic, crowd work, puppet therapy, original songs and her attachment to a pet rat, she unravels while confronting her status as the ultimate scapegoat. The comic tragedy takes aim at moralism and the everyday evils accepted as business as usual.
