In the nowhere town of Peplum, Ontario, three days before prom, two teenagers steal a wedding dress and unleash a frightful force. Staged in a laundry room at Barrie’s Hampton Inn, this short play by festival curator Nathaniel Hanula-James is a claustrophobic horror-comedy about the meaning of marriage, and the desire to keep your loved ones close. 

The first Telephone of the Wind (風の電話) was created by the Japanese artist Itaru Sasaki, in 2010, in response to the death of his cousin from cancer. Sasaki purchased a derelict phone booth, installed a disconnected rotary phone, and set it up in his garden. In 2011, after a tsunami in Japan left over 15,000 dead and over 2,500 missing, Sasaki relocated the phone booth to a hill near the town of Otsuchi: the place with the highest number of recorded missing persons. It has become a place where people from Otsuchi, Japan, and all over the world can come to “call” people they have lost. 

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Over the years, different people and organizations have created new Wind Phones in many different locations around the globe. 

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During the festival, Talk is Free Theatre invites you to find the Wind Phone we’ve installed in a solitary corner of Memorial Square, and make a call to a lost loved one.

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Talk is Free Theatre has asked four intrepid designers to create wedding dress installations around a theme of their choice. We’ll place them around the downtown core of Barrie in top-secret locations for you to find! 

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Closer to the festival, we’ll post a series of clues on our website to lead you to each of the dresses. During your scavenger hunt, you might find yourself writing a letter to a dress — and who knows? A celebrity from the festival may just write you back!

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Everyone is, in some way, committed to something. Inspired by Mammalian Diving Reflex's internationally acclaimed social acupuncture workshops and performances, Everyone is Interesting: The Committed Edition is a community walking project that aims to explore, play with, and unite the individuals who call Barrie home.

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This presentation of Everyone is Interesting: The Committed Edition is made possible in part thanks to the Ontario Arts Council, the Government of Ontario & grants from the Canada Council for the Arts touring programs.

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About Mammalian Diving Reflex: Mammalian creates performances by looking for contradictions to whip into aesthetically scintillating experiences. They create site and social-specific performance events, theatre productions, participatory gallery installations, videos, art objects and theoretical texts to foster dialogue and dismantle barriers between individuals of all backgrounds by bringing people together in new and unusual ways.

Still Life is a reflection on the ephemeral nature of human culture. Drawing on the histories of Western art, this series of performances reflects on the opulence and rich symbolic language of still life painting, while considering how these images (and the cultures they communicate) may be interpreted after our disappearance. This is the second in an ongoing series of works by Other Hearts that re-contextualizes our key moments of ceremony and community through the lens of a post-human world, rendering these familiar moments both strange and strangely beautiful.

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At the end of the performance, glasses are filled, and time stands still as the audience is invited onto the stage, for the last wedding.

In this cabaret set in bonnie Scotland, an Ojibwe man in his early twenties heads to Glasgow to find himself again — only to find himself swept up in a Gaelic romance. Hear Dillan share the story that changed his life, told with humor, song, and a wee bit of Scottish charm! 

A cornucopia of performers will deliver exciting micro-performances: a series of brief manifestos and hot takes on marriage, relationships, and the nature of love. 

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Have you ever considered counselling for you and your partner, best friend, or beloved houseplant? Do you need advice about love, relationships, or life in general? Sign-up to talk to The Marriage Council: a panel of historical figures who should absolutely not be giving advice. In fact, the only thing they're qualified to do is make you laugh!

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Calling all people with a special someone with whom you want to renew your vows. Whether your promise is days or decades-old, spend a summer day with xLq, your hosts, renewing oaths made across partnerships, friendships, and kinship in the company of fellow renewers. You don’t need to be married to take part! Bring your special someone (or just bring yourself) to experience a participatory event that unearths the beauty in commitments old and new. Tunes will be provided by a DJ, along with a spread of light snacks.

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xLq is a performance art drag duo that sprung from a decade-old friendship between Maddie Bautista and Jordan Campbell–who have their own vow to renew!

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You are cordially invited to hear a reading of a new play-in-development by a dynamic young playwright. This play is still growing: it needs plenty of sun and fresh air. It’s only natural, then, that this reading should take place outdoors, in Springwater Provincial Park!

Bring a picnic, sit back, and enjoy a brand new script brought to life by a team of incredible actors. In keeping with the outdoor setting, it is suggested that audience members come dressed as woodland creatures, or in their most fashionable foliage.

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Something Old

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Lily Chan is getting married. Her mother, Stephanie, is excited to begin the wedding planning and embark on this once-in-a-lifetime journey with her only daughter. Lily, too, is excited, but has a slightly different vision for her wedding: Lily is biracial, and wants to throw a Chinese wedding to celebrate her Chinese heritage. When Lily asks her beloved Pau Pau to help her plan the wedding, Stephanie — who is white — feels more and more alienated. When tragedy strikes, Lily’s family must rally to help Lily pull off a wedding that, while it may not end up being the most traditional, is one that honours where their family has come from and who they are today.

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You are cordially invited to hear a reading of a new play-in-development by a dynamic young playwright. This play is still growing: it needs plenty of sun and fresh air. It’s only natural, then, that this reading should take place outdoors, in Springwater Provincial Park!

Bring a picnic, sit back, and enjoy a brand new script brought to life by a team of incredible actors. In keeping with the outdoor setting, it is suggested that audience members come dressed as woodland creatures, or in their most fashionable foliage.

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Baby

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Starring TIFT darlings Jake Epstein and Vanessa Smythe with more to be announced, Baby features Baby, a precocious twelve-year old on the cusp of womanhood (the beginning of her menstrual cycle). Unable to get her period, and fearing the worst (infertility), Baby navigates bewildering misinformation latent in the doctrine taught by the fundamentalist cult where she resides. When the cult’s leader abandons his disciples, and Baby becomes impregnated through mysterious means, she must divest her conscience from God, and her extremist community, to forge her own path toward redemption.