Taking over 16 stages throughout its 12-day run, the 2023 edition of the Toronto Fringe Festival brought 101 unique shows to the city. This non-juried festival held a wide variety of productions, including a number of immersive, and immersive-adjacent performances.
Though only four productions fit the “immersive” bill, a number of shows drew from immersive-type engagement. Whether it be the audience throwing balls at a juggler (Are You Catching What I’m Throwing?), seeing a show about a band within an actual concert venue (Retrograde), utilization of non-critical yet amusing audience interaction (The Family Crow, Insert Clown Here, Amor de Cosmos), or potent breaking of the fourth wall (James & Jamesy: Easy As Pie — and I mean potent… they literally crawled onto the seats in the theater) — immersive practices helped keep many of this year’s productions fresh.