MY OWN PRIVATE SHAKESPEARE to Return to Toronto Fringe

Modern Classic Theatre will present My Own Private Shakespeare, written and performed by Justin Hay and directed by Mona Zaidi, as part of the 2026 Toronto Fringe Festival.

The production will run June 30 to July 12 at Soulpepper Theatre's Kevin & Roger Garland Cabaret, 50 Tank House Lane in Toronto's Distillery Historic District.

Tickets are $15.25 and are available for advance purchase at: https://www.fringetoronto.com/fringe/show/my-own-private-shakespeare

The performance will run approximately 55 minutes.

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

• Tuesday, June 30 — 4:00 pm
• Friday, July 3 — 6:45 pm
• Sunday, July 5 — 12:30 pm
• Monday, July 6 — 3:00 pm
• Wednesday, July 8 — 8:15 pm
• Friday, July 10 — 3:00 pm
• Saturday, July 11 — 10:30 pm
• Sunday, July 12 — 5:30 pm

After a critically acclaimed run at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a sold-out three-week run in Toronto, and its warmly received U.S. engagement at New York's Little Shakespeare Festival, the award-winning Canadian play My Own Private Shakespeare comes to the 2026 Toronto Fringe Festival.

Winner of “Best Play” and “Best Director” at the BroadwayWorld.com 2022 Awards (Toronto), My Own Private Shakespeare draws on some of the greatest and most powerful passages from Shakespeare to ask: Is it possible to find peace with the impossible paradoxes of life?

From a single fateful phone call taken reluctantly from the toilet, a Shakespearean actor finds his world collapsing around him. As the story unfolds, the unforgiving realities of his shattered life intertwine with Shakespeare's radiant, immortal text, while the man teeters dangerously close to the brink.

The play will be performed by actor/playwright Justin Hay, who has previously worked with Mona Zaidi in the 2017 filmed adaptations Julius Caesar: In Shallows and Richard III: Unto the Kingdom of Perpetual Night, winner of “Best Film” at the 2017 Shakespeare Film Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon, U.K.

Justin Hay (Writer/Performer) is a veteran Canadian actor of the stage and screen. Justin studied at Glasgow University and the Royal National Theatre Conservatory in London. He is known to Toronto Fringe audiences for 2024's Saskatchewan: An Aspirational Polyamorous Adventure, which he wrote and directed, and his performance in 2023 of Tricia Williams' Hymns and Hearse. Other recent theatre work includes Three Ships' production of A Christmas Carol at Campbell House Museum, Plosive Theatre's Private Fears in Public Places in Ottawa, and Miracle Theatre's The Garage Sale in Prince George, BC. Justin also recently appeared in Hallmark's The Perfect Setting.

Mona Zaidi (Director) is an award-winning South Asian Canadian director known for her ground-breaking modern adaptations of classical theatre and world literature for stage and screen.

Modern Classic Theatre is known for presenting intimate, exciting, modern adaptations of classics. The Toronto-based company has presented internationally critically acclaimed works since 2016.