The Toronto Fringe Review: Taylor Trowbridge’s interactive solo show opens a generous conversation about fathers and family

By Ross

The second stop on my journey through TO Live‘s Best of Fringe celebration could not have been more different from the youthful exuberance of CAMP!, yet it arrived at exactly the right moment. Knowing that my own father had passed away only recently, and that our relationship had reached a place of peace long before then, I found myself entering DADS carrying memories I hadn’t expected to revisit. Yet, Taylor Trowbridge’s remarkable solo creation found its way in, never asking its audience to surrender to grief or pain. Instead, she invites us into something far gentler: an honest conversation about the complicated, imperfect, funny, frustrating, loving men who shaped our lives. By the end of the evening, it felt as though an entire room full of strangers had quietly become collaborators in telling one enormous family story together.

Created and performed by Trowbridge and sensitively directed by her brother Dylan Trowbridge (Talk Is Free’s Cock), DADS succeeds because it refuses easy sentimentality. House lights rise and fall throughout the performance as Trowbridge signals a change by ringing a small bell, posing simple questions, and encouraging audience members to raise their hands or share stories of their own fathers, whose names she also wants to know. Those conversations become the heartbeat of the evening. We hear tales of admiration, estrangement, laughter, disappointment, forgiveness, and loss, each one gently woven into Trowbridge’s own deeply personal account of growing up with her father, who was only twenty-three when she was born, the youngest of four children. Rather than judging him through the eyes of a daughter, she gradually arrives at something far richer: an understanding of him as a young man trying to navigate early adulthood while raising quite a large family. Even the show’s playful interruptions, including a revolving guest stand-up comedian whose affectionate routine about fathers changes with every performance, become part of a larger meditation on how humour often helps us approach emotions that feel too large to confront directly.

Trowbridge (Studio 180’s Tool for Rebellion) possesses the rare ability to guide audience participation with extraordinary warmth and care. Even when contributors become lost inside their own memories, she gently steers them forward without ever diminishing what they have shared. That generosity creates an atmosphere where vulnerability feels remarkably safe. Erik Richards‘ sound design and Harmony Trowbridge’s original music quietly support the shifting emotional rhythms without ever announcing themselves, while Chin Palipane’s lighting helps preserve the feeling of an open conversation rather than a formal theatrical presentation. Although originally conceived for an in-the-round venue, the Best of Fringe presentation at the Jane Mallett Theatre beautifully retained that same sense of intimacy, making the audience feel as though we had gathered together in someone’s living room to exchange stories instead of sitting inside a theatre.

There is a willingness to embrace contradiction in Trowbridge’s DADS, where fathers can be loving and exasperating, generous and flawed, present and absent, chasing mischief and life, all while battling silent demons within the same lifetime. Trowbridge never asks us to excuse the difficult parts of those relationships, nor does she allow painful memories to eclipse moments of joy, humour, or unexpected grace. Instead, she offers something increasingly rare: permission to see our parents as people still trying to figure life out, just as we are. I found myself thinking less about the stories told than about the conversations still waiting to be had, and feeling unexpectedly grateful for the ones I was fortunate enough to have before my own father was gone. I thought about my own father, his fears, his gentleness, his extreme passivity, and also the countless moments of pride we shared before he was gone. That quiet generosity gives DADS its remarkable emotional power. It also sparked a post-show conversation with my friend about our own families that never would have happened otherwise, making it one of the most compassionate and vulnerable experiences to emerge from this year’s Toronto Fringe Festival.