
3 shows from the Toronto Fringe Festival that could be the next big thing
The 37th Annual Toronto Fringe Festival, which took place July 2-13, 2025, marked a record high for the festival. With 48,655 tickets issued, more than $577,500 in revenue was returned to artists — the most in the festival's history.
One thing that stood out about this year's festival was the sheer quality of the productions, says the Globe and Mail's theatre reporter Aisling Murphy.
Today on Commotion, she joins host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to talk about the new fringe shows that she thinks have what it takes to make their way to bigger stages in the near future.
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A$AP Rocky, left, and Denzel Washington pose for a portrait to promote "Highest 2 Lowest" on Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Drew Gurian/Invision/AP) NEW YORK — A$AP Rocky had no idea Denzel Washington was going to throw Nas at him. Midway through Spike Lee's 'Highest 2 Lowest,' a New York riff on Akira Kurosawa's 'High to Low,' wealthy music executive David King (Washington) has cornered aspiring rapper Yung Felon (Rocky) after he tried to kidnap King's son. They meet in a music studio. A rap battle ensues. While the scene was scripted, much of what Washington freestyled — mixing in lines from Nas, Tupac, DMX and others — startled his professional rapper co-star. 'I'm like: How does this man know who Moneybagg Yo is?' Rocky says, sitting alongside Washington. 'And I'm 70,' Washington says with a grin. 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Rocky, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, shot 'Highest 2 Lowest' in the run-up to his recent trial over a 2021 incident in which Rocky was accused of firing a gun at Terell Ephron, a former friend and collaborator known as A$AP Relli. Rocky was found not guilty in February on two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. The verdict gave Rocky a new lease on life just as his film career might be taking off. He also co-stars in the upcoming 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You,' a hit at Sundance. Meanwhile, he's preparing his long-awaited fourth album, 'Don't Be Dumb.' Who are 'the new rappers'? For Rocky, the music industry backdrop of 'Highest 2 Lowest' rings true. Music sales, he notes, are way down. Artificial intelligence is taking over. 'They've got to figure out how to regulate it,' Rocky says. 'People in music are already doing it. Not to put nobody on the spot, there are people with No. 1 records and it's not even them. It's not even their voice on the track.' 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