The Barrie Theatre Festival at Five Points Theatre | June 4 to June 13, 2026
This June, downtown Barrie becomes something rare. Not just a place you visit, but a place you experience through stories, movement, laughter, and shared imagination.
The Barrie Theatre Festival, presented by Theatre By the Bay, returns to the intimate Five Points Theatre with ten days of carefully curated professional theatre.
Every production is chosen with intention. Not to overwhelm, but to invite. Not to compete, but to converse. These are works that linger, that spark discussion on the walk home, and that remind you why live performance still matters.
Each show runs under an hour, making it easy to shape your own festival journey. One show or many. Afternoon light or evening glow. A single moment or a full weekend of discovery.
Turn Your Visit Into a Full Arts Getaway
The Festival is not just something you attend. It is something you step into.
Make it a getaway by:
- Staying overnight at a downtown hotel where the city lights echo the energy of the stage
- Dining at locally owned restaurants where every meal feels like part of the experience
- Walking the waterfront along Kempenfelt Bay, where the horizon stretches like a quiet intermission
- Exploring downtown cafés, patios, and hidden corners between performances
2026 Festival Lineup
Milk Milk Lemonade
Mallowmarsh Productions
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June 4 to June 13, 2026 - 7:00 p.m.
Somewhere between childhood memory and chaotic imagination, Milk Milk Lemonade unfolds like a fever dream of elementary school.
Two performers become an entire world of children, teachers, and parents, shifting characters with breathless speed and comedic precision. The classroom becomes a universe where snack-time is currency, science experiments have emotional consequences, and recess feels like survival.
This is theatre as play in its purest form. Joyful, unhinged, and deeply inventive, it captures the strange logic of growing up and the way memory bends itself into myth.
π Tickets available here.
SwordPlay: A Play of Swords
Sex T-Rex
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June 4 to June 13, 2026 - 8:30 p.m.
A sword is never just a sword. A fight is never just a fight.
SwordPlay is a whirlwind of adventure comedy where theatrical imagination meets the energy of retro gaming and cinematic fantasy. Heroes leap through danger, villains revel in melodrama, and every moment feels like it was designed for maximum exhilaration.
Inspired by swashbuckling classics and video game epics, the production moves with relentless pace and joyful absurdity. It is both parody and celebration, inviting audiences to remember the thrill of stories where anything feels possible.
π Tickets available here.
Village Idiots
By Ben Anderson
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June 4 to June 8, 2026 - 4:00 p.m.
In Village Idiots, bureaucracy becomes performance art. Three council members attempt to avoid responsibility while a panicked citizen brings news that, in theory, should change everything.
This is satire with teeth, asking what happens when institutions choose comfort over truth.
π Tickets available here.
You, Me, and the Big Screen
Performed by Danny Cannis
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June 4 to June 8, 2026 - 5:00 p.m.
You, Me, and the Big Screen is a 45-minute musical journey through the songs that shaped film history. From high-octane anthems to animated nostalgia, each moment is reimagined live on stage with warmth, humour, and vocal brilliance.
This is not just a tribute. It is a revival of feeling. The rush of a chase scene, the comfort of a familiar melody, the shared recognition of a song that belongs to everyone in the room.
π Tickets available here.
There Are Enemies
By Michael Whyte
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June 9 to June 13, 2026 - 4:00 p.m.
Set in 1940 Northern Ontario, There Are Enemies follows a community caught between rumour and responsibility. A belief in hidden spies transforms into a mission, and one woman’s determination to be taken seriously becomes the driving force of an increasingly fragile truth.
This is historical theatre shaped by humour and unease, where the line between protection and paranoia slowly dissolves. At its core, it is about what communities choose to believe when certainty feels more comforting than clarity.
π Tickets available here.
How Do You Live?
Simcoe Contemporary Dancers
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June 9 to June 13, 2026 - 5:00 p.m.
How Do You Live? is a contemporary dance work that moves through grief, joy, transition, and the invisible threads that connect people to one another. Through physical language and spoken word, bodies become storytellers of change.
It is not simply watched. It is felt.
π Tickets available here.
A City That Becomes Part of the Story
During the Festival, downtown Barrie shifts. Not loudly, but unmistakably. Sidewalks hold post-show reflections. Restaurants become extensions of the theatre. The waterfront offers space to breathe between performances, where the light on Kempenfelt Bay feels like its own kind of staging.
Plan Your Festival Escape. Choose your shows. Build your journey. Stay a little longer than you planned. The Barrie Theatre Festival is an invitation into something rare: a city experiencing itself through art, and an audience invited to be part of it.
