MANY HAPPY RETURNS to Make Toronto Fringe Festival Debut
The immersive speakeasy experience blends escape room, murder mystery, and Queer love story elements.
BEARS! In The City! will continue its hit run of the one-of-a-kind show Many Happy Returns, a group-based, interactive, immersive performance with artifacts to find, intriguing guests to meet, and mysteries to unravel. Performances will run June 30 - July 12.
This interactive show encourages audiences to work together while mingling with The People from the Past at a swinging New Year's Eve party, December 31, 1926. The audience must learn the characters' desires, help them achieve their goals, and manipulate the events of the party to retrieve the 10 artifacts! Will they succeed? Or will they find themselves trapped in an endless loop in this race against the clock?!
Many Happy Returns was honoured to win the 2025 No Proscenium “Immie” Audience Award for Outstanding Immersive Work, and has delighted audiences at multiple downtown Toronto venues since 2024. This standout show is the third collaboration of Toronto-based director, immersive designer, and actor, Julie Cohn; and U.S. immersive behemoth, IntrigueX. Many Happy Returns follows pre-production work on (Un)remembering, a show about familial estrangement and reconciliation (opening soon), and Stepping into the (Un)known, an exploration of knowing oneself, for Nuit Blanche '23.
“When we say ‘the 20s', we immediately call to mind speakeasies, jazz, flappers, black and white photos, ridiculous hats; HISTORY. Then we realize we're in the 20s again. What has changed? What hasn't? What will and won't change in the next 100 years? We think about war, financial crises, fighting for equity, pandemics – hard times, and they are still here,” said Cohn.
The play also gives the audience a much-needed reprieve: “Despite our current societal challenges, we are still finding ways to be bold and brave: rebelling, celebrating our successes, finding reasons to get dolled up and sneak some gin. It's great to be proud of how far we've come, and important to recognize where we still have work to do. In the meantime, let's cut a rug, and maybe even do some scheming,” Cohn adds.
Julie Cohn has over 35 years' experience in theatre, film, television, voiceover, and radio. She has served as Artistic Director to two multidisciplinary production companies, BEARS! In The City! and Palette Collective, and is the Creative Director for IntrigueX in Toronto. Julie is a celebrated veteran of Fringe festivals.
Other recent credits include: Zombie Apocalypse for Secret City (Direction); and What We Do in the Shadows for FX (Acting). Stay tuned for Julie's upcoming detective comedy TV series, Whomst've?! (Writing, Acting). Julie also runs the largest escape room meetup in the world, in conjunction with Morty.
Videos
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