Lee-Anne Poole in How to Knit
The beginning of September is a busy time in Halifax: the students are headed back to school, the summer theatre shows are still winding down, and many of the theatre community members are still finishing up their contracts in different places around the province. Prospective audience members are relishing the last couple weeks of beachy weather, making Labour Day weekend plans, and getting in all their patio and picnic time before the Fall rolls in. It can be hard to catch all the Halifax Fringe shows even with the very best of intentions.
I have some good news for you. Halifax Fringe’s new leadership team, Jake Planinc (Festival Director) and Blaze Fraser (Managing Director) are bringing back the ReFringed Festival, which kicks off tonight, January 15th, at the Bus Stop Theatre. “Blaze and I are very excited to be bringing back ReFRINGED. The 2025 [Fringe] Festival was full of incredible work by local artists and ReFRINGED gives us an opportunity to highlight a small selection of it, offering Halifax audiences a second chance to encounter these incredible, new pieces of theatre.”
There are three shows from last year’s festival being remounted this week. Two are new plays by emerging playwrights: Kaitlyn Thompkins’ What Will You Be? And Emma Lamont’s Dead Man Walking, as well as a new work from Lee-Anne Poole, former Executive Director of the Fringe, How to Knit, starring Poole and directed by Stephanie MacDonald.
Starring Mae Rafuse and Michael Kamras What Will You Be? follows 21 year old Ava, who gets signed up for a meeting at TruePath, a company that pairs you with a consultant to help you find your future… and all does not at all go as she expects. During the Fringe Festival I wrote, “This play explores the pressures that young folks are under as they exit University and are suddenly thrust into the world- expected to know immediately what career path they want to take, and to seamlessly be able to meld right in to society’s workforce. Of course things are often not that simple, and for decades our expectations have been based on the political and societal conditions that worked, in general, so well for the Boomer and Gen X generations, that have since mostly evaporated into a pool of despair and confusion for Millennials and Gen Zs. What Will You Be is insightful, poignant, and I think very easy for folks to relate to.”
Lamont’s play features a tour de force performance by one of Halifax’s youngest stars, Daniel Nwobi. The story centres on Scott, an adrenaline seeking storm chaser pursuing something he has never witnessed before barrelling toward Jarrell, Texas. I couldn’t believe how good this show was when I saw it at the Fringe Festival. There is absolutely nothing ‘Fringe’ about it. Lamont and Nwobi brought a professionalism to this production that you’d expect from folks with multiple decades in the business. Back in September I wrote this to make my case, “All you really need to know about Dead Man Walking is that the script is ready to be published, and Nwobi is ready to be cast at the Stratford Festival.” I may have written those words at 3:00am, but I stand by them.
Of Lee-Anne Poole’s new work I wrote the following back in September, “This is a beautifully written, gently told story from Poole that completely captivated the whole audience I was with at an 11pm show. I found there were elements in this story that were so different from my own experience, and then there were some that I could relate to viscerally. In both it’s very easy to empathize with Poole’s protagonist and to love and care about her.”
Each of these three plays have five performances between tonight, January 15th, 2026, and January 18th. Tickets are just $15.00 and they are available at this website, where you can also get more information. All performances are at the Bus Stop Theatre (2203 Gottingen Street, Halifax).
The Bus Stop Theatre Co-op is a multi-use performance venue located on Gottingen Street in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. The theatre has been in operation since 2003 and operating as a co-op since 2012. It hosts over 100 different groups and shows annually and is booked for performances, rehearsals and gatherings of all kinds for 250+ days of the year. The Bus Stop Theatre Co-op’s goal is to operate theatrical facilities that serve both artists and audiences. It does this by operating the only independent, affordable, accessible and professionally equipped black-box space in Halifax. Not only that, it is owned and operated by those who use it and benefit from it! The theatre also includes a welcoming lobby with a licensed bar. The Bus Stop is an all ages venue and welcomes youth whether or not the bar is operating. A dry bar is also possible on demand. Furthermore, the theatre is one of the few physically accessible venues in the area with level access and front row seating for chair users.
Take advantage of the slower, sleepier (read: colder) days of January by stopping by the always cozy Bus Stop and pretending that it’s sunny and the Fringe!
