From Thursday, July 3 – Sunday, July 13, 2025: JACK’d Up Productions presents JACK’d, a Thief, a Murder, some Sex and a BEANSTALK! at the 2025 Toronto Fringe Festival. Using naughty inuendoes, ribald humour and puppets, JACK’d asks us to question the stories we’ve been told and, more importantly, the stories we tell ourselves.
Why is Jack a hero after break & enter, theft & murder?
JACK’d comes with a two-story community-knitted beanstalk, a magic harp who likes to imagine her audiences naked, a frustrated wife who’s discovered “bigger isn’t better”, two giant puppets and a fabulously fluid narrator who just wants to keep the show from falling off the stage.
JACK’d is playwright/director Rob Corbett’s latest play. It was inspired by a question at story-time, with his daughters asking why Jack was the hero: “He breaks into the Giant’s home, steals his stuff and then kills him”. Since then, the play has been through seven drafts, five readings (including a staged reading at the Attic Theatre in October 2023), a minor breakdown, and a complete abandonment followed by one more draft — it’s ready for the Toronto Fringe.
The JACK’d team
Rob Corbett teaches scriptwriting at Seneca Polytechnic and Acting in the Animation departments at Seneca and Humber Polytechnics. Previous productions include Vinnie’s Cabaret… a Night at the Speakeasy (Limelight Dinner Theatre), Dating Myself (Red Sandcastle/Toronto, Ottawa and Hamilton Fringe Festivals) and a sold out run of Man Cave at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre. Corbett also designed and created the puppets for this production.
The cast features Henry Oswald Peirson as the Narrator, Nabeel El Khafif as the Giant, Carmen Gillespie as his wife, Ashley Hughson as Jack’s Mom and Brandon Kulic as Jack.
(Photo credits: JACK’d Up Productions. Rob Corbett and Carmen Gillespie. Photo by Aestus Rogers.)
Event details
Hosted by: JACK’d Up Productions, in co-ordination with the Neighbourhood Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Type of event: theatre performance with puppets
Written & directed, with puppets designed/created by: Rob Corbett, with stage management by Victoria Stark
Cast: Carmen Gillespie, Ashley Hughson, Nabeel El Khafif, Brandon Kulic & Henry Oswald Peirson
Dates & times: Performances take place throughout the Toronto Fringe Festival – which runs from Wednesday, July 2 to Sunday, July 13, 2025 – at various times and dates:
- Thursday, July 3 @7:00 PM ET
- Friday, July 4 @ 4:00 PM ET
- Sunday, July 6 @ 4:00 PM ET
- Wednesday, July 9 @ 8:00 PM ET
- Thursday, July 10 @ 8:00 PM ET
- Friday, July 11 @ 6:00 PM ET
- Saturday, July 12 @ 8:00 PM ET
- Sunday, July 13 @ 7:00 PM ET
Duration: just under 1 hour (no intermission)
Cost: C$15.00 plus fees, with discounts for kids and pass holders
Location: Rafos Hall, 310 Danforth Ave., Toronto, ON, M4K 1N6, Canada (one block west of the Chester Subway station, entrance off of Jackman Ave.)
Booking link: Book your tickets here.
Contact details: JACK’d Up Productions, Rob Corbett rob.c.writes@gmail.com
Content warning: For audiences 16+. Portrayals of alcohol and cannabis use, verbal violence, physical violence and death, depictions of sex, sexual references/innuendo and potentially offensive language.
Accessibility: Please contact the organizer or contact the venue at (416) 686-6809.