A Hands-on Festival!
Bring out your fears to Clay and Paper Theatre’s 26th Annual Night of Dread Festival, from October 2nd to the 25th. At this much loved, family-friendly, multi-arts festival, Clay and Paper Theatre invites you to call on, mock, and banish your fears - big and small, for your community and the world.
Join us for the month of October for free, public, hands-on workshops, culminating in a theatrical park pageant, with giant puppets, fire spinners, stilt walkers & live music. Through engaging art-making opportunities, pageantry, puppetry, music, and ritual, we invite you all to face your darkest fears together with Clay and Paper Theatre.
Here’s our Night of Dread 2025 poster for download.
You’re Invited!
Exciting Ways to Participate
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Volunteer Opportunities
As always, the Night of Dread Festival eagerly welcomes Volunteers for the final Festival night's procession, pageant and other park activities. Be a Park Guide, Event Assistant or a Puppeteer, Character Performer or Scenario Animator.
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Workshops for Everyone
Join us for free hands-on creative adventures at the Dufferin Grove Park Rinkhouse. This year’s Festival offers workshops in Giant Puppetry, Shadow Puppetry and the Youth Magpie stilting club for 12 to 18 year olds.
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Join the Community Studio
Explore different puppet building, print and art making techniques with the Clay and Paper Theatre artist team. Help us build the Fear of the Year image, make and repair puppets, masks and props. Adults and teens are welcome.
“I used to be that sour puss who hated dressing up for Halloween until I went to @clayandpaper’s Night of Dread. It’s free and most magnificent. Dress up and join in or watch from the sidelines. Best Toronto. Kids-to-zombie friendly.”
Finally, join us for our last evening of revels at the Night of Dread Festival Pageant on Saturday, October 25th, starting at 5:15 pm in Dufferin Grove Park. Audience members sign-out and carry Clay and Paper Theatre puppets as part of the park procession of our fears and lead us into the pageant. Spectators are treated to a community theatrical display in which the Fear of the Year for 2025 is announced and confronted. The pageant is followed by a concert in the Valley of Remembrance (in the park valley) and a bonfire where the Fire Keeper will name our fears and burn them for us. The evening ends with our audience members slipping back into the darkness of the night, hopefully, less fearful of what lies ahead of them.
Be sure to check out our Park Maps and Artist line-up for this final spectacular night of giant puppets, fire spinners, stilters & live music.
Parade & Pageant
