2022 Nanaimo Fringe
Tickets available NOW!
Festival at a Glance
Fringe Festival Hub
Fitzwilliam Gate in Nanaimo’s Old City Quarter
- Tickets & Festival Passes
- Festival Info
- 50/50 raffle
- Merch
August 11-21st | Hours: 11am-5pm
Fringe Beer Garden
Gallery Row in Nanaimo’s Old City Quarter | 19+
- A selection of Longwood craft beverages available
- 50/50 raffle
- Patrons must respect Fringe performances taking place on the Gallery Row outdoor stage during beer garden hours.
Each Friday – Sunday | Hours: 4-9pm
Fringe Ticketing
- ALL PATRONS ARE REQUIRED TO PURCHASE A ONE-TIME $5.00 FRINGE FESTIVAL BUTTON TO SEE ANY SHOWS (available at the Fringe Hub and at the door). Proceeds support the operating costs of the festival
- In-person shows: $12.00^
- Festival Pass: Save big and see any 5 Fringe shows for just $50.00^. Pass can be used for yourself, or bring along a friend!
- Artists receive 100% of their box office revenues; to protect artist income, all ticket sales are final.
^plus applicable fees.
Festival Kick-Off Silent Disco
Gallery Row, Old City Quarter (the corner of Fitzwilliam St. and Wallace St).
Hosted by Cirque Ambulant in partnership with Collective Groove Silent Dance Co.
Get your groove on and join the silent disco party at the Fringe Stage-Craft Beer Garden. Headsets available for a suggested $10 donation.
Cirque Ambulant is a free form circus and dance collective based on the shores of the Salish Sea. Rooted in the realm of play and improvisation they present spectacles of movement and skill with an invitation to play. The eclectic troupe comes with a century of combined circus, dance, athletic and movement experience. There are stilts, juggling, contact improv, ensemble dancing and unpredictable shenanigans in their arsenal of instruments of mass joy and inspiration. The Ambulant are always fun, it’s their mission!
| Friday, August 12th | 8:30-10:30pm |
Shows at the Port Theatre
125 Front Street, Nanaimo
2022 Nanaimo Fringe Festival Preview Night
Hosted by Ammar Alfakosh & Paris Healey | Port Theatre Mainstage | 90 mins
Let’s kick off the festivities with this FREE event, compiling 5 minute teasers from each Festival show!
| Thursday, August 11th | 7:00pm |
The Last Frontier
Roaring Heart Theatre, Nanaimo
Port Theatre Mainstage | 60 mins | 15+ Strong language & adult situations
The Last Frontier is a new original musical with book by Michael Armstrong and music and lyrics by Beth DeVolder. A new doctor and his young wife arrive in a remote logging camp in northern Minnesota in 1910 where the last great stand of white pine is being cut. Their adventures in the frontier among the towering trees, the rowdy lumberjacks, and the local suffragettes couldn’t be more different. This will be a showcase presentation of the first act.
| Fri, August 12th | 3:45pm | ||
| Sat, August 13th | 8:30pm | ||
| Wed, August 17th | 8:30pm | ||
| Fri, August 19th | 5:45pm | ||
| Sat, August 20th | 5:45pm | ||
| Sun, August 21st | 3pm |
Randii Andii – Going Deep
Randii Andii, Nanaimo
Port Theatre Mainstage | 60 mins | 18+ nudity, sexuality, LGBTQ+, language
The show consists of comedy, burlesque, a wide variety of musical numbers and fabulous show-stopping costumes. Randii will take you on a musical journey of her life.
| Sat, August 13th | 5:45pm |
| Tues, August 16th | 5:45pm |
| Wed, August 17th | 3:45pm |
| Thurs, August 18th | 8:30pm |
| Fri, August 19th | 3:45pm |
| Sun, August 21st | 5:45pm |
Seven for a Secret
Child of a Hoodlum Productions, Nanaimo
Port Theatre Mainstage | 60 mins | 12+
Seven for a Secret, an original work by Bill Miner, is a 1940s style sci-fi thriller, and will be performed as a live radio drama, complete with period costumes and eerie sound effects, transporting the audience back to the golden age of radio.
| Sat, August 13th | 3:45pm |
| Sun, August 14th | 5:45pm |
| Wed, August 17th | 5:45pm |
| Thurs, August 18th | 3:45pm |
| Fri, August 19th | 8:30pm |
| Sat, August 20th | 3:45pm |
My First Miracle – adventures in bipolar disorder
Bennet Caffee, San Fransisco
Port Theatre Mainstage | 60 mins | 14+ mild profanity
My First Miracle celebrates Bennet Caffee’s bipolar experience from his first manic episode when he was twenty-one to his final episode when he finally accepted treatment. His show highlights the “fun part” of his outrageous manic experiences, but also touches on the depressive side of BPD.
| Fri, August 12th | 5:45pm |
| Fri, August 12th | 8:30pm |
| Sun, August 14th | 3pm |
| Tues, August 16th | 8:30pm |
| Thurs, August 18th | 5:45pm |
| Sat, August 20th | 8:30pm |
Sadec 1965: A Love Story
Flora Le, Washington DC, USA
Port Theatre Lobby | 65 mins | PG13+
How can we find true, sustained love when we failed to receive it? This is the question Sadec 1965 attempts to answer. After finding out that her estranged father has cancer, Flora goes on a 6-week solo motorcycle trip through Vietnam, her father’s homeland, to make sense of her difficult relationship with him. Her search for answers will take her on an incredible journey through time and space, allowing her memories to take on a new meaning.
| Fri, August 12th | 7pm |
| Sat, August 13th | 7pm |
| Sun, August 14th | 4:15pm |
| Sun, August 14th | 7pm |
| Tues, August 16th | 4:15pm |
| Tues, August 16th | 7pm |
When We Gather: a loopy musical
Sing for No Reason Productions, Victoria
Port Theatre Lobby | 55 mins | 10+
Susan is up in the attic all alone, singing harmonies with herself on a vocal looper. Aching for a time when we’ll be able to gather together again, she dreams of singing with friends around a picnic table, by a campfire, and in some happening little bistro. Imagination blurs into reality as the audience begins to realize they’re truly welcome to join in the deliciousness of voices intertwining. When We Gather is a dream collage of original songs, spoken word, movement and memoir.
“Susan Ellenton is the songwriting Queen of the Universe!” – Chris Mann
| Wed, August 17th | 7pm |
| Thurs, August 18th | 7pm |
| Fri, August 19th | 7pm |
| Sat, August 20th | 7pm |
| Sun, August 21st | 4:15pm |
| Sun August 21st | 7pm |
Shows at the OV Arts Centre
25 Victoria Road, Nanaimo
Strange Danger
Herbert Henries – Comedy Dangerist, Winnipeg
OV Arts Centre Mainstage | 45 mins | 16+
A comedy show like no other. Herbert Henries has come all the way from Canada’s Got Talent to your hearts, and he is on a quest to find work one show at a time. A 45-minute roller coaster of comedy, stunts, and a few extra surprises. Every stunt/act he performs is strangely unique and exciting. He loves involving the audience in his show as he can’t afford to hire an assistant. People don’t just watch Herbert Henries; they experience him.
| Fri, August 12th | 7pm | |||
| Sat, August 13th | 7pm | |||
| Tues, August 16th | 5pm | |||
| Thurs, August 18th | 7pm | |||
| Fri, August 19th | 5pm | |||
| Sun, August 21st | 7pm |
A Staged Reading: an Intentional Comedy
Live Works, Nanaimo
OV Arts Centre Mainstage | 60 mins | All ages
The first staged reading of the murder mystery, “Macabre Park.” It all goes fantastically wrong as the writer shows up at the last moment with the scripts and their changes…
| Sat, August 13th | 5pm |
| Sun, August 14th | 5pm |
| Tues, August 16th | 7pm |
| Wed, August 17th | 7pm |
| Fri, August 19th | 7pm |
| Sat, August 20th | 5pm |
Out of the Flock
Nabil Sayes, Nanaimo
OV Arts Centre Mainstage
An original work by local theatre artist, Nabil Sayes. Recipient of the Pacific Coast Stage Co. cultural artist bursary.
| Fri, August 12th | 5pm |
| Sun, August 14th | 7pm |
| Wed, August 17th | 5pm |
| Thurs, August 18th | 5pm |
| Sat, August 20th | 7pm |
| Sun, August 21st | 5pm |
Outdoor Shows in the Old City Quarter
The Reason I Perish | performed at Gallery Row
Alina Blackett, Vancouver
60 mins | 16+ (please be advised that any minor patrons must be seated outside of the licensed Beverage Garden, as directed by Festival ushers.)
A meditation on how life experiences can affect one’s health, the potentially devastating impact of trauma, and the isolating and distorting nature of certain diagnoses, this one-person show follows a character who is trapped in an unknown, liminal space. In an attempt to discover where they are, why they are there, and who they’re with, they search through a journal that has been left behind. Selections from the journal come to life through the character, providing a poetic roadmap to the possible meaning of their tragic situation.
| Fri, August 12th | 4:30pm |
| Sat, August 13th | 6:30pm |
| Sun, August 14th | 4:30pm |
| Fri, August 19th | 6:30pm |
| Sat, August 20th | 4:30pm |
| Sun, August 21st | 6:30pm |
LESBIHONEST | performed at Gallery Row
Laura Piccinin, Toronto
55 mins | 13+ Mature language and themes regarding Queer identities. (Please be advised that any minor patrons must be seated outside of the licensed Beverage Garden, as directed by Festival ushers.)
A hilarious autobiography of some gay girl in Toronto.
| Fri, August 12th | 6:30pm |
| Sat, August 13th | 4:30pm |
| Sun, August 14th | 6:30pm |
| Fri, August 19th | 4:30pm |
| Sat, August 20th | 6:30pm |
| Sun, August 21st | 4:30pm |
Festival Wrap Karaoke Night | Gallery Row
Hosted by Paris Healey | FREE
Vote for your favourite 2022 Fringe show and celebrate alongside the ‘Pick of the Fringe’ winner at our Festival Wrap Karaoke event in Gallery Row.
| Sunday, August 21st | 8:00pm |
Roaming Outdoor Performances
Nanaimo Fringe Festival 