Minnesota Fringe Festival 2026: Wrap-Up and Favorites

The 33rd annual Minnesota Fringe Festival, my 16th, flew by in a whirlwind of shows, friends, snacks in place of meals, parking, cold brew, traipsing across Cedar-Riverside, getting tokens, giving tokens, and standing in lines. I saw 39 shows this year and there are probably as many more I wish I could have seen, but such is life, and such is Fringe. It's not possible to see every show, but I saw some great ones, which I've listed below. Don't forget to follow Minnesota Fringe for their events and programming throughout the year, and follow your favorite Fringe artists to see what else they're up to. The 2026-2027 #TCTheater season is full of plenty of adventurous art, it's just usually longer than an hour and not all located in the same place.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2026: "Silent Movie!"

Day: 8

Show: 26

Title: Silent Movie!

Category: Clowning / Comedy / Drama / Improv / Original Music / Physical Theater / Non-verbal

By: The Improv Movement Project

Directed by: Sean Dillon and Mark Benzel

Location: Barker Center

Summary: An entirely improvised silent movie, created by the troupe based on the result of three spinning wheels.

Highlights: This show is a delight, and kind of miraculous how this troupe of silent physical theater improvisors (Sean Dillon, Mark Benzel, Elizabeth Dunn, Erin Sheppard, Evie Digirolamo, Gregory Parks, Luke Fanning, Mandi Bedbury, Rachel Buhman, and Victoria Pyan) are able to create a complete and cohesive story without speaking. At the start of the show, co-director Sean Dillon spins three wheels to determine the genre (bump in the night at the show I attended), plot (long-lost treasure), and star (Elizabeth). Once they have done one of these items, they cross it off so that each of the five shows is a totally different combinations. While I didn't always complete understand what was happening, it was always entertaining, and I got the general gist of the story which was some sort of evil growing plant, a little like The Last of Us, or "don't feed the plant" (or in this case don't eat the plant. The performers would clap and use a hand signal to call for different types of scenes - slow motion, close up, wide shot (with one performer's fingers walking across the others shoulders and outstretched arms), or thoughts. And occasionally they'd make a motion to bring the lights down, and start a new scene. It's really clever storytelling, with the performers communicating in some silent language (or telepathy) what's coming next in the story. They're all talented improvisors and physical theater actors, with apparently no sense of personal space because they literally climb all over each other, like they're one body telling the story. Final show Sunday at 7!

 

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here. 

2026 Minnesota Fringe Festival Must-See List

We've reached the dog days of summer, with a string of 90+ degree days, and devastating wildfires in Northern Minnesota and Canada that at times make our air quality here in the Twin Cities dangerous. But #TCTheater has not taken a summer hiatus; I'm busier this summer than any summer I can remember. And that will continue into early August when I attend my 16th MN Fringe. The 33rd Annual Minnesota Fringe Festival runs from August 6th through the 16th, with some 100+ shows having five performances each at venues around Minneapolis, most of them clustered around the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. After 33 years, the Festival runs like clockwork (thanks to the hard-working staff and volunteers), so it's easy to get out and see one, or a handful, or dozens of shows, those that fit your interests, and those that expand your comfort zone. Visit the Fringe website to peruse the schedule and make your plans, or keep reading for a dozen or so shows that I recommend (most of them from artists I know and love), as well as some helpful tips for Fringe newbies. See you at the Fringe!

2025 Twin Cities Horror Festival at the Crane Theater

The leaves are turning and the weather is finally cooler, which means it's time for the 14th Twin Cities Horror Festival! And even though October is notoriously the busiest month in #TCTheater, I managed to carve out a couple of days to see almost half of this year's 14 shows in the 15-day festival. I'm not in general a fan of horror or even Halloween (except for the candy), but I am a fan of the talented artists behind these shows, whom you will know from the Minnesota Fringe Festival or other theaters around town. In fact, TCHF is like a mini-Fringe, except that all of the less-than-an-hour shows are all horror-themed and presented in one venue, which makes scheduling easier. For full coverage of the festival, please visit fellow Twin Cities Theater Bloggers and horror fanatics The Stages of MN and Minnesota Theater Love. For my reviews, scroll down. I saw three very strong shows yesterday, with a few more scheduled for this week, so check back. You can find the full schedule of events and show details here, with the festival continuing through October 30.

Update October 26: I've added reviews of the shows I saw yesterday, bringing my total up to six. All of them are great, so either I chose well, or it's a strong year at TCHF. You still have a few more days to catch some great shows!

Twin Cities Improv Festival at the Phoenix Theatre

With the closure of HUGE Theater last year, the Twin Cities Improv Festival has a new home - Phoenix Theater in Uptown. For four days, you can watch improv troupes from here in the Twin Cities (and we have a lot of great ones) as well as troupes from around the country and even some from other countries. I attended the first, all-local, night of the festival and had a great time watching some beloved familiar improvisors and some new-to-me improvisors. Each had their own spin on the artform, most started with a suggestion or two from the audience and they took that somewhere unexpected. The Phoenix is a great welcoming location (despite the never-ending construction on Hennepin), with snacks and drinks (including espresso drinks) sold in the cozy lobby. Keep reading for my thoughts on the eight improv troupes I saw (two or three troupes are grouped together in each set, with up to four sets a night), and click here for the schedule of shows continuing through Sunday.

"Afterlife: The Experience" by Sparkle Theatricals at the Wabasha Street Caves

I know Sparkle Theatricals for their dance and movement-based shows, but they also produce more immersive, experiential work. My first experience with the latter is their current production, Afterlife: The Experience, running for one more night only at the Wabasha Street Caves. I'll admit, part of the draw was to see the Caves, built into the sandstone bluffs on the Mississippi River across from St. Paul originally as storage, and later turned into a speakeasy during Prohibition with rumored visits from some of the era's most notorious gangsters. Now it's an event center, and a very cool theater venue. The conceit of Afterlife is that we're all (recently) dead, and our souls have arrived at the Caves on our way to somewhere else. A number of previously departed souls are there to guide us on our way. I found it to be overall a unique, interesting, and fun experience, although parts of it were a little too interactive and participatory for this introvert (I don't want to be part of the storytelling, I want to be a witness to it). A mix of theater, storytelling, party games, food and drinks, and dance, you have one more chance to enter the Afterlife on October 25.