Facing Our Fears Together

Join us for our last evening of revels at the Night of Dread Festival Pageant on Saturday, October 25th.

Starting at 5:00 pm in Dufferin Grove Park on the Basketball Court, we have live music and a participatory warm-up dance with our favourite witches. Then the Magpie Club, our youth stilt walking ensemble, opens the event with their incantation and performance.

Audience members can sign-out and carry Clay and Paper Theatre puppets as part of the park procession of our fears and lead us into the pageant. Puppet sign-out begins at 3:30 PM to 5:30 PM at Puppet Central (Dufferin Grove Rinkhouse).

During the pageant, spectators are treated to a community theatrical display in which the Fear of the Year for 2025 is announced and confronted (Soccer Field). The pageant is followed by a journey through the Forest of Shadows (Park Grove), leading the audience to the final concert in the Valley of Resistance and Rejoicing (Park Valley).

The evening ends with our audience members slipping back into the darkness of the night, hopefully, less fearful of what lies ahead of them.

It’s Almost Here!

See Schedule

Schedule for Saturday, October 25th

Please note that all times are approximate

Community members ARE the Night of Dread event! Clay and Paper Theatre makes available for sign-out all of our NOD Big Fear and Small Fear puppets, plus our Character masks and costumes.
For Puppet and Character Role visual catalogues and more info on sign-out please see the Volunteering section.
The Dufferin Groove is a New Orleans style jazz trio that will entertain you as you arrive and get your puppets from Puppet Central. Or just relax and take in the atmosphere while waiting for the NOD Witches and Magpies to begin their performances.
They’re back! The Witchy Women are a fabulous group of volunteer Witches ready to get their groove on with you! They’ll get you moving and casting dance spells.
The Magpie Club, in its third thriving year, has been made possible with the generous support of the Kiwanis Club of Toronto. Over six weeks, youth 12 to 18, have explored themes around the environment through craft making and stilt walking training. The Magpie Club has created a special vision and message for a better future for themselves and their community through performance and play. Will you get a special message and visitation from a Magpie during their performance?
The Magpie Club has grown under the incredible leadership of Toronto circus artists, Zita Nyrady and this year’s lead teacher Vanita Butrsingkorn.
For more info about the Magpie Club please check out the website Magpie Club section.
Accompanying the Magpies during their performance will be Canadian jazz legend, saxophonist Richard Underhill, the conductor of the Echo Women’s Choir, Alan Gasser, along with singer Emma Whitla of the band, Harmonious Accord.
Please check out our Parade Route.
As we return from the Parade and re-enter Dufferin Grove Park from the Havelock Street entrance, you will see before you a circle of light on the soccer field. Please find your viewing spot in the circle, behind the candles.
Parade Puppets (Big Fears and Small Fears), please find your way to the SouthWest corner of the circle. Production Assistants will also be present and will help flag you down and bring you to your waiting spot for the Pageant.
The fire spinners of the New Model Circus Army will continue to animate the space with their dazzling manipulation off flames, as the audience settles and the performers take their places.
Finally, the two Wildmen (masked dancers) will dance in frenzied ecstasy in the middle of the field, as the bands bring the movement to a climactic end. All the lights will go out… And then, your two MC’s, Co-Artistic Director Tamara Romanchuk and David Anderson, will begin the narration of the evening and scenario.
During the pageant, spectators are treated to a community theatrical display in which the Fear of the Year for 2025 is announced and confronted and this year, burned.
At the conclusion of the burning of the Fear of the Year for 2025, your guides will appear at the south end of the scenario circle - three glowing clouds and the moon. The MCs will invite the audience to follow their guides to the Forest of Shadows, a short walk south from the soccer field.
The Forest of Shadows was created by participants of our NOD 2025 Shadow Puppetry workshop, led by shadow puppetry artist Kristine White. Inspired by the theme, Hopes and Fears, the five hanging screens explore images that reflect fears for the world that Clay and Paper Theatre collected from community members across Davenport during our September NOD outreach. To counter our overwhelming fears in these dark and confusing times, you will also hear messages of hope that community members have also shared with us. These will play as a soundtrack as you walk through the corridor of shadow screens we have set up through the Forest.
Please note that after the Concert in the Valley of Resistance and Rejoicing, the Forest of Shadows installation will continue to run for another 30 minutes, until approximately 8:45. Please return and explore this profoundly moving community installation.
For more information on the Shadow Puppetry workshop, please check out the website Workshop section.
Your guides, the three clouds and the moon will lead you slowly through Forest of Shadows and westward towards the Valley of Resistance and Rejoicing.
In this natural valley setting of Dufferin Grove Park (just south of the Basketball Court), you will experience the haunting and visceral voices of the Georgian singing group, Ori Shalva. Led by virtuoso traditional singer and multi-instrumentalist Shalva Makharashvili, Ori Shalva, is Canada’s foremost Georgian polyphonic vocal ensemble, performing one of the world’s oldest and most complex vocal traditions.
Please note that after the Concert in the Valley of Resistance and Rejoicing, the Forest of Shadows installation will continue to run for another 30 minutes, until approximately 8:45. Please return and explore this profoundly moving community installation.

Are You on Our Parade Route?

On Saturday, October 25th we’ll be parading down your street with an incredible array of musicians, giant puppets, fire spinners, stilt walkers and all manner of spectacle for Night of Dread 2025!

We’ll set out from Dufferin Grove Park at approximately 6:00pm and we’ll pass by your house sometime between 6:15and 7pm.

We encourage revelers to greet us with noisemakers of all kinds. Raise a ruckus! Make sure your fears know that Night of Dread is here to name them, mock them and banish them!

You’re invited to join our procession as we wind our way back to Dufferin Grove Park for the Pageant where we’ll present our theatrical scenario for the Fear of the Year for 2025. Then we’ll guide you on a journey through the Forest of Shadows’ community shadow show installation, towards our final performance for the evening, a concert in the Valley of Resistance and Rejoicing.

Where’s Everythng Happening?

Dufferin Grove Park Rinkhouse is Clay and Paper Theatre’s HQ throughout October. It is located at 875 Dufferin St.
On the day of Night of Dread, we will be set up to receive volunteers and artists to pick up their puppets, masks, and costumes and to answer any other questions from the public. Wheelchair-accessible washrooms are available in the Rinkhouse.
This is where Death Dancers will offer audience members a ‘dance with death’. This is also where the Dufferin Groove, the Witchy Women and the youth Magpie Club of performers will open the show with a movement piece and invocation. Spectators will gather around the space to watch these short pre-parade performances.
The path running north and south through the middle of Dufferin Grove Park is called the Gladstone Path (It is a continuation of Gladstone Ave that runs north and south of the park.)
This procession line up is along the Gladstone path, pointed north.
This is the starting point for the Parade and where all volunteer puppeteers, artists, and character performers, guests, delegates and community members/spectators will line up before we head north and to the east for a short parade along residential streets in the neighbourhood.
When the procession returns it enters the park through the southern park gates on Havelock and proceeds to the soccer field. The main pageant takes place on the soccer field and it is where the main theatrical scenario will be brought to life with volunteers and other performers. The performance space is set up as an oval and is marked by lights placed in bags on the ground. The audience stands around this oval for the performance.
After the pageant performance, the audience is led south to a grove of tall trees where The Forest of Shadows installation is set up like a long corridor of shadow screen images. This audio-visual experience is inspired by the theme Fear and Hope.
In this natural valley setting of Dufferin Grove Park (just south of the Basketball Court), you will experience the haunting and visceral voices of the Georgian singing group, Ori Shalva.
Th park path to the Valley is accessible.