It’s that time again – time for Edmonton’s world renowned Fringe Festival to play host to a barrage of exciting and boundary-testing works brought to you by a gaggle of globe dispersed artists.

This year sees a slew of these productions LGBTQ relevant. GayCalgary Magazine is proud to once again be a sponsor at the Edmonton Fringe, and offers you up a sampling of the shows for seeing here.

Dykeoplolis: Queer Tales and Travels for our Time! – Kimberley Dark

Controversial, comedic and best of all true, Dark brings to stage her views on gender and female sexuality in a unique blend of poetry and dynamic story telling.

The writer/mom/sociologist/performer has already toured the show across North America and Australia, raking in rave reviews.

"Dark doesn’t shy away from provocative, incendiary statements, but don’t expect a rant. Her shows, leavened with humor, are more likely to explore how small everyday moments can inform the arc of our lives," says the Salt Lake Tribune.

Dark will perform six shows ranging from matinee to late evening at Acacia Hall.

CIRCLE – John Montgomery Theatre Company

Wrapping up a successful seven-city tour, the award winning CIRCLE promises audiences a performance rife with sex, power, intimacy and desire.

Christel Bartelse and Bob Brader play eight gay, straight and bi characters linked in ‘a hilarious daisy chain of sexual encounters from NY to LA and back’.  This includes an in the closet country singer trying to conceive a child with his lesbian best friend, and a bisexual married man.

CIRCLE won the Most Daring Show Award at the London Fringe, sold out its run in Winnipeg, and is touted an "absolute must-see" by the Montreal Gazette.

If there’s one show you watch this Fringe, with rolling on the ground in laughter your aim, CIRCLE may just be it. The show plays at The TACOS Space presented by Punctuate! Theatre.

exHOTic other – Una Aya Osato

Brace yourself for an evening of sexy burlesque and storytelling from queer sensation Una Osato of the Brown Girls Burlesque troupe.

exHOTic other is making its Canadian premier in Edmonton, from a performer who has raked in Best of Fest at Winnipeg Fringe, Best Female Solo Show at the San Francisco Fringe and the Audience Choice, among others, at Frigid NY.

Join whom the Montreal Gazzette deems a "tour-de-force" as she takes on the world while taking off her clothes. How many feathery layers must she shed until she reaches her core? Find out at the Walterdale Playhouse.

Girls! Girls! Girls! and Waiting for Bardot – Guys in Disguise

Always a crowd hit and pleaser, the famous drag troupe based out of Edmonton, Guys in Disguise, is back at Fringe with not one but two musical performances featuring a knock out male cast as stunning femmes.

In Waiting for Bardot the former sex kitten turned senile Brigitte Bardot becomes the target of a down and out paparazzo. Shows will be performed at BYOV 12: Varscona Theatre.

Meanwhile Girls! Girls! Girls...Well Not Really brings impersonators Justine Tyme and Mr. Terri Stevens to the stage presenting ‘the most sparkling, sassy, bedazzled, bejeweled, fabulous, feathered, sequined comedy impersonation revue ever assembled’. These performances will be put on at BYOV 30: Mixx Dance Club.

God is a Scottish Drag Queen – Mike Delamont

Prompted by a sold out run at last year’s Fringe, comedian Delamont is back in E-Town with his raucous comedy featuring God in a floral power suit skewering the likes of Justin Bieber and the Mayans.

In addition to putting on nine shows of this return hit at La Cite Francophone, Delamont will also be performing Husky Panda, a standup routine on the topics of gyms, childhood, pandas, and growing up husky.

Delamont is named one of the fastest rising comedians in Canada and has played on the stages of the Rio in Las Vegas and the Upright Citizens Brigade in NYC.  He hails from Victoria, BC.

Amusement – Nobody’s Business Theatre

That fiery red head Johnnie Walker (Redheaded Stepchild) is back in Alberta once again, teaming with actress Morgan Norwich to perform the brand new work Amusement.

The play follows Rose and Sebastian, two friends who "become embroiled in a series of hijinks, conspiracies, and musical numbers" at a certain Orlando theme park.

"Discover a whole new world of secrets at the happiest place on earth, in this darkly comic fairy tale for grownups."

Directed by Tom Arthur Davies, Amusement will receive nine show times in the aptly fitting Loonatic Fringe Tent venue situated behind the Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre.

You Killed Hamlet or Guilty Creatures Sitting at a Play – Naked Empire Bouffon Company

San Francisco artist Nathaniel Justiniano brings to Edmonton his ‘one of a kind’ show, a form aggressive physical theatre coined bouffon.

"I wanted a means of examining how I contribute to my own oppression while getting a room full of strangers to laugh about difficult issues we're all avoiding," says the gay actor. "Our debut production, Shame!, skewered the hypocrisies within the queer community. Now we're traveling ...with a new show all about coping with death that Mr. Gay Toronto calls, ‘hilarious’."

Watch ‘profound pranksters, shreds and patches become a funhouse mirror of your discomfort with death for an hour of high impact, satirical sport’ at the Yardbird Suite August 16-25.

Hot Thespian Action

Twice nominated ‘Best Sketch Comedy Troupe in Canada’, Hot Thespian Action is making their Edmonton debut at Fringe with a 55-minute set broken into 12 comedic stories.

The group performs on a bare bones set, driving their laughs not with costume or props but by intelligent script and finely choreographed physical and musical movement.

"We couldn’t be happier about the success we’ve had in our past, but we’re really looking forward to our Edmonton debut," says troupe member Shannon Guile. "We’ve created a ‘Best Of’ show that features all of the fan-favourite sketches from our seven years of performing."

This means plenty of gay comedy content. The troupe will perform in the Rutherford School Gym.

Promise and Promiscuity: A New Musical by Jane Austen and Penny Ashton

Following a five-year Fringe hiatus performer Penny Ashton returns to E-Town with a show that, since its open run in Winnipeg, has received a five star review from the CBC and four stars from the Free Press.

Promise and Promiscuity includes roughly 30 lines of dialogue taken from the works of Jane Austen, perfectly in time to commemorate the 200^th Anniversary of the original publish date of Pride and Prejudice the novel.

Somehow Ashton has managed to mash up Austen, Bon Jovi and handmade bonnets into this fresh musical, which won the New Zealander the award for Best Performance in a Comedy at the Auckland Fringe.

In between writing scripts the kiwi officiates weddings, which, thanks to New Zealand finally legalizing gay marriage, will include several gay unions this year. She also boasts a relation to Jane Austen’s real-life Darcy, the man the writer was rumoured to have flirtations with.

The show will be performed on six dates at the King Edward School.

Little Pussy – John Grady

A tough but unfortunately relevant topic, Little Pussy, ‘chronicles the life of a man subjected to bullying since grade school’.

John Grady’s true story takes us from California, where he encountered his first bully in junior high school, to the streets of Toronto where he was beaten by a young punk.

Grady, of New York City, has performed off Broadway, for the original production of the Blue Man Group, as a soloist with the Ballet British Columbia, and has broadcasted his raw stories on both the airwaves of the NPR and the CBC Radio.

Little Pussy has already taken home the Best Solo Show at the Orlando Fringe and the Best Solo Performance at the Frigid NY Festival. Grady plays seven shows at Acacia Hall.

Making Love with Espresso – Lorenzo Pagnotta

Sort of like the plot of Mambo Italiano, this ‘dark sexual roast’ follows a man who must simultaneously navigate ‘the rules of dating in the gay community and the rituals of his Italian heritage’ while coming out on the Prairies.

"The play is about a guy who is trying hard to discover who he is by forming himself around the other gay men he meets online," Pagnotta says. "Eventually, he realizes that to know who he is he must search much deeper within himself – and not in others."

Pagnotta plays six characters including some taken from the classic Italian literature that the narrator says helped him to develop his views on masculinity.

"I wanted to speak about my unique experience as a gay Italian-Canadian from western Canada – far from the milieu of the large Little Italys," Pagnotta says.

Performances take place at Acacia Hall.

Divinely Bette – Kim Sheard

Ten years after a move to the UK, performer Kim Sheard returns to her hometown with this one-woman show based on the life and work of Bette Midler.

Livio Salvi, choreographer for G-Nome, dictated the moves in this heartfelt performance, which will include all of the Middler favourites: Wind Beneath My Wings, The Glory of Love, Stuff Like That There, and The Rose.

Graham Robson for gscene says the show boasts "enough brass to make even The Divine M blush".

The show received high praise at the Camden Fringe and will be performed at the Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre in Edmonton.

Duets – Peter Quilter

Duets offers a 90 minute play in four acts featuring four distinct love, or lack there of, stories.

Joanathan and Wendy are both failures at first dates and are on one together. Shelley and Bobby are finalizing their divorce amid cocktails in Spain. Janet is trying for Barrie even though Barrie has no interest in women. Angela is getting married for the third time, and in the worst dress.

A cast of four will play out these scenarios at the Walterdale Playhouse for six show times.

Magical Mystery Detour – Gemma Wilcox

Ten-time ‘best of fest’ award winner Gemma Wilcox of London, UK returns for her third Edmonton Fringe Fest performance to play a whopping 23 characters in the Magical Mystery Detour_ – a ride to remember.

This woman can do anything, it seems, and she does...she shows you what theater can be," says Elizabeth Maupin for the Orlando Sentinel.

Wilcox will resurrect stage favourite Sandra as the central character, with dog Solar alongside her, as the protagonist who after receiving a letter from her deceased mother heads from London to Land’s End by car. Along the way she encounters the magical, the mysterious and the archetypal characters and themes of the English countryside.

Wilcox will play seven shows at the Catalyst Theatre.