My shortlist for this post was initially a total of 37 performances that I wanted to feature. So for the past two weeks, I’ve been sitting here looking at my list, arranging, then re-arranging it with a Winnie-the-Pooh look on my face:
This has been a banner year for me getting to experience arts and culture (maybe too much of a banner year – I need to see my family and friends more in 2026. And maybe get some sleep).
I’ve seen some shows that stuck with me, some that made me laugh, and many that made me feel deeply and cry freely. Living, live art is precious and important, even more so as the AI slop machine churns out hackneyed reproductions of representations of what it means to be human (ask me what I really think about AI “art”).
As I think back over everything I saw this year, I love the scope of human-ness, of telling stories and connecting in new ways, of finding ways to make the old new again. And I love the creativity that comes with connecting through art.
I’m truly so grateful to get to experience everything that I did!
Honorable Mentions
Picture this: you walk into an old government building, and instead of cubicles and stale coffee, there’s artists set up in every nook and cranny. And the place is packed!
Art. Everywhere. Sound mixing, visual art, physical installations, just every possible thing everywhere you look. It takes a few hours to go through and you surely will miss parts of it, because there’s just so, so much to see. It’s the best way to spend an afternoon!
In their first ever stadium show (and I might guess it’ll be their last in Victoria, no way are we ever going to be lucky enough to see them here again), The Beaches put on a full throttle girl power night of music that had us rocking out to their newest album, and also their older music. SUCH a good time!
Joany, The Hawk Lover (One Act Play Festival)
I caught both of these at the One Act Play Festival, and both brought so much to the table. I’m so pleased Bragi theatre will be bringing The Hawk Lover back to the stage in 2026!
Hawk Lover based its roots in medieval poetry and presets a series of mostly unrelated vignettes. These run the gamut of storylines, and were brought to life with almost every theatrical convention you could think of.
I was thinking about Joany the other day, and the concept of taking a biblical story and giving it such a living, breathing overhaul was absolutely brilliant. Joan had never felt so real to me before, and I look forward to seeing what playwright Molly Jamin has on offer for us next!
Sneaking in as the very last show I saw in 2025 was this new, delightful little gem from Hapax Theatre. This show was funny, contemporary but had a timelessness to it that I loved. It balanced the practical of the now with the mystical realm and power of Icelandic elves. There was a bit of stage magic that I especially loved!
High Moon: A Werewolf Western (31 Iguanas)
High Moon brought us all out into the woods of Heritage Acres for a howling good time. Not very spooky, but using clever theatrical devices to help tell the story, this delightful Halloween treat was such a fun way to get into the spirit – and in a space I had never been to before!
Meryl McMaster: Bloodline (Art Gallery of Greater Victoria)
Meryl McMaster’s work is so detailed, but is often in scale (and scope) so massively profound. Her work was described to me as “something you feel like you can walk into” and that was absolutely correct. There is a deep connection to storytelling, family, and personal narrative that runs throughout these pieces. The artists statements are so helpful to understanding the pieces more deeply, but the pieces fully stand on their own.
McMaster’s works tell stories of both her indigenous heritage, and herself as a person. These works were at times intimate and vulnerable, and powerfully based in history.
Thank you to the AGGV for bringing this collection to Victoria!
The Zawose Queens (Caravan World Rhythms)
Caravan World Rhythms offers so much to our community in terms of access to international music acts and getting to see the Zowose Queens was one of the highlights of the year. Everyone was dancing and having the most fun with these two high energy performers who truly gave the impression that they were having at least as much fun as we were!
I promise you, you’ve never heard a better kalimba performance anywhere else!
During our trip to Calgary this summer, we diverted up to catch a bit of the Edmonton Fringe, and boy was it worth it. Not only is Edmonton Fringe a certified blast (it is), but catching Rat Academy 2 was a highlight of the trip. If you have seen Rat Academy, you’ll know that Fingers and Shrimp are the last two outlaw rats in Alberta. Fingers and Shrimp are back for another round of fighting the good fight, and somehow manage to avoid the traps that often come with part 2 – you can get in on the fun regardless of if you have seen the first, and there isn’t endless recapping and nods to the first show. Just a hilarious and touching clown show about your favourite rats!
A Waste of Stage Time (SKAM Theatre)
This locally sourced piece of theatre brought us to our feet, laughing and singing with our favourite pieces of not-trash. This is a joyful love letter to recycling and being a bit greener every day, I would love to see this show at local schools in the future!
The Little Prince (Pacific Opera Victoria)
There was such a magic to this piece! Playful, sweet (without being saccharine), and a joyful rendition of a book that is well beloved by many.
I will agree with the criticism that the music in this opera was somewhat light and repetitive, but the visual spectacles of this work was so delightful, I was utterly captivated by the magic.
Little Dickens by Ronnie Burkett (Belfry)
We were cackling throughout this whole show, and it was a special bit of holiday magic to get to join Ronnie up on stage!
Burkett’s marionettes are so immediately infused with life, and so quickly you get to know who they are!
A word to the wise: this isn’t a show for everyone, yes there are naughty jokes and R-rated language, but it ends with a little more love for these characters and everyone in the audience with us.
My Top 10 for 2025:
This delightful one-hander was one of my favourites from Fringe this year. This was a flawlessly executed piece of theatre, snappy, and well-polished. Balancing a story that felt familiar while throwing us curveballs, there was something so wholly engaging from moment one.
The show was stripped down to very basic parts, but the show was engaging, and Hannah Ockenden’s pacing and tone brought us right along on the journey and had us rapt from the first moment.
9. The Knitting Pilgrim by Kirk Dunn (Mary Winspear)
Kind of on a lark, I got tickets to this for my husband (who knits) and I (who is decidedly not a knitter). I didn’t know what to expect, and I didn’t read much about Dunn’s work before we checked out the show.
Suffice to say, I didn’t expect to embark on a journey through an artist’s process, a thoughtful and considered look at the roots of the three Abrahamic religions, and knitting as a profound mediation tying them together. And describing all that, I didn’t expect it to be so dang funny!
Dunn is a natural performer, welcoming us into his journey with openhearted warmth, sharing thoughts on married life and being a parent all the way through.
It’s a huge number of topics but somehow it never feels unfocused, and you’ll see in what Dunn has created, the knitted artwork mirrors the vastness of what the show is trying to achieve.
As I said in my summary post:
Pisuwin is a ballet set to the music of Jeremy Dutcher and features interpretations of Wolastoq legends. Sure I’m a certified Jeremy Dutcher fan, but this piece was incredibly strong from every conceivable angle. It’s a beautifully choreographed ballet performance with world class performers. The soundscapes are new and exciting and the stage itself is so cleverly created. The costume designer even used traditional beading techniques. This was such a thoughtful production, and the care and attention to every aspect showed through in this striking production.
This show had everything going for it, and there wasn’t a moment of wasted time or movement lacking purpose. This was a meticulously crafted ballet and we’re so lucky we got a chance to experience this moving and beautiful piece of art.
7. The Queen in Me (Pacific Opera)
Teiya Kasahara is spectacular, an utterly engaging performer, who, from moment one truly knows what they want to convey, and with a set of incredible heart-stopping pipes still manages to pull us in with their vulnerability.
This profound meditation on the role of gender in the opera space is often surprisingly funny, and fills the stage with their theatrical presence while also lifting the curtain on what goes on backstage. It is a truthful show that calls us all in to ask more and want better, and is helmed by two artists at the top of their respective crafts.
Amazing.
6. Blood Wedding: Great Works Play Festival (Puente Theatre)
Coming out of the gate in full force for their first ever great works play festival, both offerings were incredibly strong. Blood Wedding, however, was a masterwork.
The physical choreography will stick with me for years, there was such a precision and thoughtfulness to how the physical storytelling was used to convey the play. There is such a lyrical, haunting moodiness to this piece that seems to chase and engulf each of the characters on stage.
For being an older piece set in an older time, this show absolutely felt fresh and contemporary. This show was so viscerally raw and unyielding, and was rooted in the emotional connection between characters and the lore that defines their world.
This ranks among my favourite all-time shows by the Belfry. This exquisitely told story is dark, but finds moments of connection and a bullied form of hope to shine through. Incredibly handled by three actors with superb commitment and nuance that left me unsure throughout the entire show.
This show presented a truthful element to an immigrant’s narrative, and the script was spectacularly crafted by playwright Anosh Irani.
Of everything I saw at Fringe this year, this was my top pick, and I’m still not sure I can effectively articulate why.
Cserepy’s character is grotesque and brash, and as intimidated I thought I would be to see this show, as audience members, we were looked after from moment one. A friend asked me later “but what was the show about?” – and I really couldn’t tell her. It’s a little raunchy, and very playful. Cserepy’s character takes us right to the edge of things that we fear, but it’s all just a game. Sort of.
Whatever it is, it defies obvious labels in the best way. You may be confused, but you’ll have a good time.
3. Children of God (Urban Ink/Intrepid Theatre)
This work is incredibly moving, and it is a beautiful tribute to all the young people who never made it home from residential schools, or those who did come home with invisible scars.
I wrote after I initially saw this piece:
There is a power to song, to lifting voices together, from an openhearted lament to the joyful, unrestricted happiness that is simply too big to be contained by spoken words. To reclaim a language that was banned and called evil. To be in the room to witness, and to physically feel the reverberations, I do not say it lightly when I say I am honoured to have experienced this show.
What sticks with me from this show is the ending, to join together in song and remember a part of our history that was hidden for too long.
Dance Victoria continues to bring some of the most amazing dance numbers to Victoria, and I am so incredibly grateful for this organization’s commitment to featuring artists I might never get to see otherwise.
Hung Dance’s Birdy examines both the personal and the political, in a tense interplay between tradition and politics. The troupe’s movements are at times, lyrical and beautiful, and in the next, sharp and jagged, but stunningly precise.
The visual settings of the red backdrop, single pheasant feather, and bamboo sticks created visually stunning narrative backdrops, but nothing was ever static.
There is no one like Ben Caplan.
No one can sing a raucous musical number one minute, then switch to an earth-shaking ballad that resonates through every bone in your body, then to a sweet lullaby the next. There is no performer like Ben Caplan, and even though I didn’t know what to expect when I saw his show, I’m in awe of what I got to experience.
He’s incredibly funny, and political, and then just casually throws you some raunchy-but-sweet lyrics just for the hell of it.
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