Theatre Communications Group

In this meta-theatrical satire, an ensemble of queer, trans, and nonbinary performers reckon with how the forces of power, privilege, and colonization play upon their lives as the playwright offers a central provocation: what if queer people dared to imagine a future monarch having a life that resembled their own?

A new political party has swept into office, promising big changes to curb the impending climate crisis—changes that could put the nail in the coffin for a tiny carbon-economy town in the heart of Northern BC. When an elected representative who grew up in the town arrives to appease the residents, her urban idealism clashes with the hard-hitting realities faced by her family and childhood friends. How will pulling the plug on fossil-fuel dependency play out for this resilient northern community? And does it even matter when a forest fire is encroaching on the town’s borders?

Inspired by playwright Pedro Chamale's own experiences growing up in Chetwynd, BC, Peace Country is a poignant plea for dialogue in a time marked by profound division. Teetering between progress and preservation, this very human drama invites readers to contemplate the fate of communities standing on the precipice of ruin.

A fascinating investigation of class, trauma, wealth, poverty, and the agonizing need to confront one's past. —BroadwayWorld

The lives of two women from very different worlds collide in the illusionary paradise of a Mexican resort. Sarah, a Canadian wedding guest, is a shot glass half empty. Adriana, a fastidious and vivacious hotel floor manager, finds solace in establishing order. At first glance, they’re simply animated, but looking closer reveals the anxieties they’re trying to hide. When their worlds collide, everything they’ve kept hidden comes into sharp focus.

A bilingual play in English and Spanish, each woman speaks in her own language and shares her unique experiences directly with the audience. Their vastly different realities are reflected in parallel, coming together to mirror and magnify a mutual pain. Through nuanced and surprisingly funny monologues, Quintana and Zelaya-Cervantes focus an attentive microscope on female strength and solidarity to stunning effect.

Winner of the 2015 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play

Winner of the 2015 Carol Bolt Award

Finalist for the 2016 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama

The Decameron meets I Know What You Did Last Summer in this suburban thriller in which ten teenagers flee a plague of their own making.

Concord Floral is a one-million-square-foot abandoned greenhouse and a refuge for neighborhood kids; a place all to themselves in which to dream, dare, and come of age. But hidden there is a secret no one wants to confront, and when two friends stumble upon it they set off an unstoppable chain of events, from shadows in parking lots to phone calls from the grave. It's time for the teens of Concord Floral to start talking.

After nearly a decade of the Trojan War, the women of Greece are growing restless. Led by the indomitable Penelope and the fierce Clytemnestra, a band of Grecian women defy the odds and bravely set sail for the shores of Troy, determined to end the conflict themselves. The journey is fraught with danger—bloodthirsty warriors, mythical beasts, and the capricious will of the gods. But these women are no mere bystanders in the tales of men. Get ready to embark on the greatest adventure that Homer and Virgil never told.

A radical retelling of the ancient Greco-Roman epics, Ransacking Troy is a bold and brilliant reimagining of the most famous war story of all time, where women take centre stage as the rightful heroes. In her signature revisionist style, award-winning playwright Erin Shields brings a refreshing feminist twist to this thrilling odyssey, confronting the habitual violence and disregard for women's lives that persist during times of war. A mythical tale for modern times, Ransacking Troy envisions what happens when women band together to build a better world.

It’s Carlos and Marta’s twelfth wedding anniversary, yet while Marta yearns to tango, Carlos insists on the comfort of routine. As their story unfolds through a mosaic of memories, we see what began as a blissful courtship quickly descend into a pas de deux of possession, control, and resentment orchestrated by Carlos. But like a dancer ensnared in an unyielding abrazo, Marta must battle with herself to finally break free.

A story about many women told by many voices, Happy Anniversary is an unflinching portrayal of the insidious violence that can infiltrate relationships disguised as love. It sheds light on the silent battles waged at home, giving voice to the countless women who endure the painful dance of domestic abuse.

A poetic, heartbreaking story of intergenerational queer history in Lebanon, The Green Line weaves together civil war Beirut with a contemporary nightclub, following one family’s journey to discover their past.

In the present day, Rami, a twentysomething queer Lebanese Canadian, has returned to the Lebanese mountains to bury his father. To cope with the weight of his grief, Rami, carrying a necklace in the shape of a phoenix left to him by his father, finds himself in a queer Beirut nightclub, where he catches the attention of a powerful drag queen named Fifi, who just so happens to be dressed as a phoenix.

In 1978, in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War, Naseeb is attempting to get himself and his sister Mona out of Beirut and into the safety of the mountains. Mona, however, is secretly in love with her classmate, a woman named Yara, and refuses to leave the city. When Naseeb becomes swept up with the descending political culture of the war around him, he creates a rift between himself and Mona greater than the line that divides the country itself.

In Sunday in Sodom, Lot's wife Edith tells of the Biblical destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but set in the present day. American troops obliterate her surroundings with drone strikes and villagers turn against each other, but Edith's still focused on protecting her family, finally giving an answer as to why, when told to run and never look back, she looked back.

Set seven years before King Lear, Queen Goneril centres the struggles of Lear’s daughters as they negotiate patriarchal systems built to keep them relegated to the sidelines. In Goneril, we find a natural-born leader. In Regan, a boundary pusher. And in Cordelia, a reluctant peacekeeper. As the three work to dismantle their individual constraints, a storm of inner reckoning begins to brew that reflects their deepest yearnings and mirrors our contemporary world.

Whip smart and wide awake, Queen Goneril is another deliciously disruptive adaptation from Erin Shields. In her signature revisionist style, Shields investigates some of our most urgent feminist issues by reimagining the roles of women in classic texts—shifting them from subjects, objects, or witnesses to central figures of both their own lives and the story’s narrative. Queen Goneril lays bare the challenges of maintaining authenticity while achieving authority—how we retain a strong sense of self while twisting around systems meant to make us play small. A compelling story about complicated characters struggling—the way we all struggle—to find their place in this world.

Fourteen-year-old Simone is caught between cultures: Canadian, Québécois, and Trinidadian. She’s also torn between friends and the projects they want her to take part in. Her best friend Sarah wants them to compete in the talent show with a dance routine, but her new friend Jay has introduced her to the Black History and Culture Committee’s activism and its organizer, tenth-grader Vanessa. Though Sarah represents the comfort of what she knew growing up, Jay and Vanessa offer Simone an opportunity to get to know part of herself that she hasn’t explored yet. As pressure mounts on seeing both projects through, her friendships start to feel the strain and her loyalties are tested. Can Simone find the courage to stand up for what she believes in? Will her friends accept the choices she makes? And will she finally learn to be more comfortable with herself? Simone, Half and Half is a touching story about finding one’s place between identities and communities.

After the Black Lives Matter protest at the 2016 Toronto Pride Parade, two friends find their racial and queer politics aren’t as aligned as they thought, and the playwrights behind them must figure out how to write about the fallout.

Cathy Ann, a straight Black woman, and her roommate Mark, a gay white man, came home from the parade with such differing views of what happened and how it affected their own communities. Cathy Ann agrees with the protest that the police presence at the parade doesn’t make her feel safe, while Mark felt safer with them there, especially in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Frustrated he can’t see the bigger issue, Cathy Ann questions if she can continue living with Mark. Simultaneously, playwrights Andrea and Nick—who share the same identities as their characters—pause throughout the show to figure out how to work together to tell the story of a significant turning point in a friendship.

Through both sets of dialogue, Every Day She Rose is a powerful exploration of white supremacy, privilege, and patriarchy in supposed safe spaces.

She’s more than just a wicked old witch. Baba Yaga is a legend, usually known as that elderly woman who lives alone in the woods and grinds the bones of the wicked. But what if she was actually a sexy, smart, modern woman operating off of morally ambiguous motives?

A detective finds himself in a small, isolated town asking, what does the disappearance of a young heir to a yogurt empire have to do with some random lore about an old witch? Matched by an apprehensive local sheriff, a university professor with a taste for younger men, and a whole cast of curious characters, the Slavic myth of Baba Yaga twists into a new labyrinth of secret lives, ancient magic, and multiple suspects.

This genre-bending comedic fairy tale meets thrilling whodunit gives voice to an antihero of epic proportions while interrogating how her story has historically been told by men. From now on, you’ll remember the name Baba Yaga for the right reasons.

Welcome to “The New Now,” a time in which written language has been forbidden and forgotten. Those who desire to have their love letters written and read must make a dangerous journey to the secret and illegal camp of She, the Keeper of the Lost Hand. Aided by the mysterious showman Me, She recounts how her past led her to be one of the last people able to read and write in cursive. The tandem tale of Zako Budaydos and His Dancing Bear illuminates the time of “The Before,” when the carnival performer had to rely on wit, love, and a secret coded language in order to survive.

Shields’s wickedly smart and funny script questions the reasons of the universe, the slow process of evolution, and the freedom of knowledge. The debate over right and wrong has never been so satisfying.

A young woman is missing. The prime suspect is an affluent member of the secretive Luminia organization. Enter Asha Ray, a deprogrammer who specializes in extracting people from dangerous cults. With no business card or office, Asha is known only by reputation—a last resort for desperate loved ones willing to work outside the law. Teaming up with retired detective Reuben Medina, she descends into a treacherous world of hidden motives and elite corruption. Together, Asha and Reuben must work to outsmart a powerful predator and uncover the truth before time runs out.

A razor-sharp, neon-noir thriller, Jeffery’s contemporary crime drama is a cry for justice for women on the wrong side of a system built to protect the wealthy and powerful. This gritty, suspenseful play will keep you guessing until the very end.

It’s summertime on the rez, the frybread is sizzling, and the local radio station plays bluegrass, Anishinaabemowin lessons, and Friday-night bingo numbers. Lenna, the youngest of the Little family, is preparing to leave home for her first year at college, with little enthusiasm or help from her stubborn father and reckless brother. Amidst lingering doubts about departing the family flock, Lenna collides into a meet-cute with the charming and awkward Sam Thomas, who is returning to the reserve after many years away. With the promise of a romance budding between them, Lenna is caught in a whirlwind of uncertainty, wondering if she’s ready to bid farewell just as she's about to take flight.

Filled with Indigenous humour, small-town seasoning, and dream-world interludes, this heartwarming love story captures the bittersweet highs and lows of a rural teenage upbringing. A love letter to community, Niizh is a refreshing coming-of-age rom-com about two young lovebirds leaving the nest.

David has written a play for himself and a gathering of friends and strangers to read together out loud. It tells the story of the rise and fall of an imaginary civilization in an imaginary land. Some of it is fact, some fiction. But at any point you may be part of a Greek chorus, playing a main character, or collectively confronting your fears about a world on the verge of collapse. Are you ready to take a leap of faith? It’s okay if you feel nervous. David is nervous too. With so much to be fearful of these days, it’s best to brave this thing together.

An ingenious exercise in interactive storytelling, This Is The Story of the Child Ruled by Fear is a poetic and participatory fable about how to live with the slowly unfolding emergencies of our time. Playwright David Gagnon Walker guides us through an enchanting performance ritual that provides a communal, cathartic release for those prone to anxiety, fear, and depression. It’s an invitation to share the joys of creating a story together so that maybe we can all feel less alone.

In this rapid moment of expansion in queer theatre, when everything is exposed, interrogated, and investigated, This is Beyond is a time capsule of where we are now and a map for where we might go next. Co-editors Evan Tsitsias and Bilal Baig strike out to capture the magnitude of this seismic shift, asking: How far have we come? What’s changed? What’s stayed the same? What do we need to do to continue to change things? An anthology that moves like a satellite in the sky, This is Beyond confronts and expands our current perceptions so that we may continue to explore the new and unknown.

Monologues, essays, poetry, and opinion pieces speak to the transformation of queer theatre through a myriad of diverse experiences, using stories, myths, and magic to unveil the intersections of queerness and cultures. Each piece gives voice to what it means to be a member of the queer community in an ever-evolving society, offering actors of every age, colour, culture, and generation empowered queer stories to play with, ponder over, learn from, and embody within our current cultural moment.

Grocery-store clerk Beth has had a hell of a week. A hell of a life, actually, full of people squashing her soul. And after pushing back at life—stabbing a steak to her boss’s desk and lighting a magazine rack on fire, for instance—freshly unemployed Beth regroups at her mom’s suburban home. Just when Beth starts to think she’s to blame for systemic limits, the gift of a bird feeder sparks a relationship with a talking Crow who reconnects her with her true power.

This sly chamber piece from new voice Caleigh Crow turns post-capitalism ennui on its head with a righteous fury. It unearths the subtle (and not so subtle) ways we gaslight the marginalized, especially Indigenous women, people living with mental-health afflictions, and anyone struggling to make ends meet in low-income service jobs. There Is Violence captures the vivacity and humour of one truly remarkable woman not meant for this earth, and brings her to her own glorious transcendence.

In 2017, when the public agency Waterfront Toronto decided to put up a parcel of land for development, Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Google’s Alphabet Inc., swept in with a proposal to create the city of the future. Waterfront Toronto jumped at the opportunity to advance housing sustainability and affordability by exploring Alphabet’s innovative technology and data-driven techniques. But the project quickly started to fall apart from uneasy partnerships, sclerotic local politics, and an overwhelmingly negative public response.

In this biting comedy about the failure to build a smart city in Toronto, Michael Healey lampoons the corporate drama, epic personalities, and iconic Canadian figures involved in the messy affair between Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto. Based on the bestselling exposé, Sideways: The City Google Couldn't Buy by Josh O’Kane, The Master Plan exposes the hubris of big tech, the feebleness of government, and the dangers of public consultation with sharp wit and insightful commentary.

What happened last night on the dance floor? Gary knows he went to the club with his friend Desiree, but now all he has is a fuzzy memory and a text saying, “We’re done.” Desiree has known something’s been up with Gary, but she always kept her thoughts to herself. Until last night ended in an explosive fight. As Gary and Desiree retrace their steps to figure out the chain of events, perspectives shift from self to alter-ego to untangle the facts. And after the dust settles, can their friendship be rebuilt? Body So Fluorescent is an electrifying exploration that asks difficult questions about Blackness, otherness, and appropriation.

Emergency rooms, scans, tests, blood work, and more blood work . . . Robert’s had a wide range of concerning symptoms checked. Multiple times. And yet he still has no answers as to why everything hurts. So he wonders, is he Tennessee Williams or Dorothy Zbornak? Could all of it be in his head?

Everybody Just C@lm the F#ck Down is a multi-layered story of anxiety in which Robert explores the shifting planes of middle age, mortality, grief, and creativity while learning how to embrace a lack of control.

Peter is putting on a show. He’s a bit stressed. In the show, he will read from a manuscript. It’s a large manuscript, but don’t worry, he’s only going to read the parts about him, and there aren’t many. It’s a memoir written by someone who abandoned him twice—once as a baby and once when he was a young man of thirteen. This person has figured prominently in Peter’s life for over fifty years now, but judging by the memoir, he has not figured so much in theirs. So perhaps it’s going to be a very short show? Again, don’t worry, Peter has other skills which he will share. And if Peter can keep his cool, and if the people who work at the theatre can help him set everything up, and if the audience can just give him a little bit of their time and their attention and their silence, maybe he can tell everyone something about who we really are and who we are to others and who we might be to ourselves when we’re alone. And maybe that can make it all a little bit easier.

Three generations of a family argue over current events, finances, and culture, with everyone looking to blame someone else for society’s ills in this satirical examination of how judgment can both divide and unite people.

Elizabeth, the matriarch, has invited her children and grandchildren over for dinner. Instead of a nice family meal, it quickly slides into the adults arguing in the dining room and the kids fighting in the living room. Rapid-fire dialogue fuses and overlaps, but no one listens to each other. A blistering take on the family drama, Public Enemy asks, who’s really responsible for all our suffering?

Voices of a Generation collects three Canadian plays that speak to millennials’ complex and varied experiences and the challenges and stereotypes they often face.

zahgidiwin/love by Frances Koncan follows Namid through multiple generations: as a victim of abuse in a residential school in the 1960s, as a missing woman held in a suburban basement in the 1990s, and as the rebellious daughter of a tyrannical queen in a post-apocalyptic, matriarchal society. A comedy about loss in the era of truth and reconciliation, zahgidiwin/love uses a mash-up of theatrical styles to embody the millennial creative impulse to remix and remake while presenting a vital perspective on what decolonization might look like both on and off stage.

The Millennial Malcontent by Erin Shields is a gender-swapped adaptation of Sir John Vanbrugh’s Restoration Comedy The Provoked Wife, following a group of millennials during a night out as they romantically and sexually pursue each other with comical results. Satirizing every trope from social media stardom to economic precarity to slacktivism, Shields reveals the loneliness lurking under every smiling profile photo.

In Smoke by Elena Eli Belyea, Aiden’s ex Jordan arrives at Aiden’s door to confront her about the allegation that Jordan sexually assaulted her two years ago, forcing them to discuss their conflicting memories of their last night together and whether and how they’re going to move forward. With Jordan meant to be performed by either a cis-male or cis-female actor, Smoke is a nuanced examination of issues and perceptions surrounding sexual assault and consent.

Interdependent Magic: Disability Performance in Canada is a collection of plays and interviews by, for, and about Disabled theatre artists that invites readers into the magical worlds of Disability arts culture.

The book features four plays as well as interviews with artists Justin Manyfingers and Niall McNeill. In Smudge by Alex Bulmer, a woman details her journey toward Blindness, mourning what she loses and discovering what her other senses provide. Access Me by Boys in Chairs Collective is a celebration of sex and Disability, providing an all-access safe space to spin around. Antarctica by Syrus Marcus Ware imagines a world where racialized people have survived multiple catastrophes and must begin terraforming a new colony. And in Deafy by Chris Dodd, a Deaf public speaker takes the audience on an unexpected journey of discovering what it really means to belong.

Nam, a procrastination-prone Vietnamese Canadian university student, sets out with the vague ambition to write a musical about his diaspora as embodied by food, particularly the world-famous noodle soup pho. What follows is pure meta musical, genre-bending through thousands of years of history, featuring rapping ancient kings, communist spies, dancing sharks and refugees, and awkward first dates in suburbia. However, Nam eventually finds himself caught between his different characters as each argues what pho (the food and the show) truly represents, and he struggles to find an answer that will satisfy everyone—in the end, isn’t this just a bunch of silly soup songs?

A new year of high school is full of excitement and potential—but three teens didn’t expect it to bring such a dark change to their lives. After spending a summer reinventing herself in Paris, Emma is ready for her new life to start, while her best friend Lily is eager for them to reconnect. Lily throws a last-minute party fuelled by alcohol and Instagram, which leads to a long-awaited encounter between Emma and Lily’s older brother Chris. But the next day Emma feels that something went terribly wrong. When a doctor’s appointment and a visit from police confirm that there was a sexual assault at the party, and the whole school turns against Emma, the three friends grapple with what actually happened between Emma and Chris. This smart and intense play about the complexities of relationships and community opens up a much-needed conversation about the nature of consent.

The Blunt Playwright won’t tell you everything there is to know about playwriting. It won’t even try. What it will do is examine process, structure, dialogue, and character; provide classic and contemporary scenes to study; outline clever exercises to strengthen writing skills; and so much more. Highly regarded and used in schools everywhere, this updated edition cements its place as one of the best resources for playwrights.

From organizing the structure of a script to developing characters’ voices, from employing visual effects on stage to writing comedy, or from self-promotion to getting produced and published, this guide has something for everyone, no matter the stage of their career.

After spending ten years in international Directors Lab programs—first in New York and Chicago, then co-founding Directors Lab North in Toronto—Evan Tsitsias has amassed an extensive amount of advice, examples, and notes that prove essential reading for theatre creators and artists across disciplines. Combined with masterclasses and interviews with
established, emerging, and mid-career directors, this manual is an artistic, logistic, and pedagogical exploration into the mechanics of theatre creation through the perspective of a director. With so much useful material, readers become honorary “labbies,” ready to leave their own mark on the theatrical landscape.

Sorrel enters college as a self-proclaimed loser with no female friends, but then she meets Maggie. Maggie's unwavering friendship helps her shed her inhibitions and become more truly herself. The two women grow older, but when Maggie is diagnosed with cancer, Sorrel must choose between raw feeling and devotion.

In Instant, three teens find out how far they’ll go in their quest to be seen and heard. Meredith is a singer-songwriter who makes YouTube videos of covers in an attempt to gain Internet fame. But her friend Jay, a rising hockey star, can’t understand why she won’t post her original songs. When their classmate Rosie suddenly goes viral after a video is posted of her singing to raise money for her father’s medical bills, Meredith’s jealousy takes over, and pushes Rosie too far, triggering a near-deadly response.

A wealthy businessman wakes up bound and gagged in a utility shed, kidnapped by his own employees—brothers and icemen Joe and Rennie. In the midst of the Great Depression, the brothers’ ice harvesting livelihood in Kempenfelt Bay is melting away due to the advent of refrigeration, only to further line the pockets of their employers. Desperate to claim what is rightfully theirs, these honest workers turned reluctant captors will stop at nothing to bring their greedy boss to a final reckoning.

ICEMEN by Governor General’s Literary Award–winning playwright Vern Thiessen is an edge-of-your-seat thriller that exposes the human cost of capitalism and asks, when the wealthy exploit the working class, who are the real criminals?

Isidor, a half-coyote, half-wolf coywolf, has always struggled to find his place as a half-breed. After the untimely death of his mother, he leaves his community to roam across prairies, forests, and mountains, sharing stories in his search for kinship and belonging. But as Sharp-Tooths are increasingly policed, tagged, or killed to make way for insatiable human expansion, Isidor and his pack are forced to make impossible decisions. Do they retreat to better their chances of survival, or risk everything by joining a resistance of rogue animals to protect what’s left of their homeland?

In this gripping drama, Colin Wolf weaves a powerful allegory through the lives of animals, paralleling the displacement of Métis people and the enduring struggle for Indigenous land rights on Turtle Island. CoyWolf is a hope-punk thriller and a roadmap for young revolutionaries navigating the realities of resistance, doing your best, and learning the wisdom of those who have walked the path before.

In boxing terms, it’s a knockout.—Lynn Saxberg, Ottawa Citizen

Sam Langford was a fighter his whole life—inside and outside of the ring. Born in the small town of Weymouth Falls, Nova Scotia, he rose from humble beginnings to become one of the greatest boxers of all time to never hold a world title—not by a lack of drive or talent but from the harsh realities of systemic racism and the notorious color line that segregated Black athletes during the early twentieth century. Denied the opportunities he deserved, Sam’s incredible true story is defined by a relentless pursuit of glory, justice, and survival—often at great personal cost, not just to himself but to those who loved him.

From the roaring crowds of fight nights to the quiet reckonings of his twilight years, Chasing Champions: The Sam Langford Story is a gripping biographical drama that reveals the man behind the legend, reclaiming his rightful place in history. More than a story about boxing, it’s a celebration of resilience, humanity, and the unbreakable bonds that endure through sacrifice and redemption.

An expert forensic search into the most ungraspable truths of womanhood. —Divine Angubua, NEXT Magazine

Meet Lauren, a journalist in the midst of covering a high-profile domestic violence case while a growing sense of unease pervades her thoughts. Now meet Luke, who Lauren has asked to tell her story to the audience. Through Luke’s voice, Lauren reflects on buried memories of sexual experiences from her adolescence. Are these experiences just a part of being a woman, or are they trauma? And does Luke have the authority to help her understand her own life?

From the Governor General’s Literary Award–winning playwright of Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, Hannah Moscovitch is at the height of her dramatic powers in this masterful provocation about the role men’s voices play in women's stories. Through an ingenious metatheatrical device, Red Like Fruit courageously interrogates the messy contradictions and complexities of complicity, consent, power, and truth in the post #MeToo era.

Winner, Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Award for Outstanding New Play 2024

Sisters Billie, Ava, and Scarlet start a new tradition of family dinners every second Sunday, rain or shine. But when Billie doesn’t show up one night, her sisters have every reason to worry. With a history of self-harm and regularly being on and off her medication, they’ve become all too familiar with Billie’s unpredictable behavior. Now that Billie has disappeared—leaving behind her disastrous apartment, her phone, and a mysterious message—a frantic chase ensues, pushing their unshakable bond to its limits.

From the celebrated author of The Gravitational Pull of Bernice Trimble and co-author of The Drowning Girls, Beth Graham’s Mermaid Legs tells the story of a precarious life fluctuating between calm and chaos, and those on the sidelines desperately trying to catch up. A deep dive into the stigmas, challenges, and mysteries of mental illness, this compassionate family saga illuminates the beauty of neurodiversity and the unyielding strength of sisterhood.

Nick wears a soldier’s uniform, but wields only a paintbrush. As a Canadian embedded artist during the second world war, he is tasked with an impossible mission: to capture the chaos and carnage of battle on canvas. With soldiers, beggars, and showgirls as muses, Nick embarks on a surreal odyssey of self-discovery to understand the purpose and power of his art. What he witnesses—and what he paints—will change him forever and help shape the vision of a young nation.

In The Art of War, Yvette Nolan offers a poignant meditation on the role of artists in times of war and peace. Finding humour and insight in the challenges of expressing the inexpressible, it is an exaltation of those who steadfastly seek truth amidst great turmoil.

No one remembers why it started—
What the first stone was for—
And so no one can think of a reason to stop.

Can something torn apart by war be put together again? From the award-winning author of Gas Girls and Sound of the Beast, Donna-Michelle St. Bernard’s The First Stone is an epic-yet-intimate exploration of the harrowing path from violence to forgiveness. In an unnamed village in a country modeled after Uganda, two children are captured by an army and forced to commit unimaginable atrocities while their family longs for their return. Through poetry and song, this insightful drama sheds light on the exploitation of child abductees, the communities from which they are stolen, the determination to bring them home, and the hard road to reconciliation that follows.

Expansive in its scope, The First Stone is a profound parable that traces ancestral cycles of violence and the imperatives of transformative justice with staggering clarity. This merciful call for humanity follows one family’s struggle to reunite, measuring the cost of holding on and the grace of letting go.

The map of the land is in our blood.

A woman trawls the bottom of a riverbed with a makeshift plough, hoping to dislodge something—anything. The world has drastically changed: rivers run dry, rampant bushfires leave little left to burn. Still she persists searching for the stories of her loved ones, maybe even her own. She is not alone—an ancestor watches nearby. This desolate landscape is about to unearth its long-held secrets.

Inspired by the grassroots organization Drag the Red, which searches for evidence of missing Indigenous women, girls, and 2 Spirit people in the Red River of Treaty One Territory, this ethereal and engrossing drama is a profound offering to those who persevere in spite of sorrow. Told in Anishinaabemowin, English, and French, Tara Beagan’s prophetic play draws a direct connection between the treatment of Indigenous peoples and the abuse inflicted on the land. Fluid and majestic like the river itself, Rise, Red River is an invocation, a revelation, and a call to action.

As the young newlywed of King Henry II of France, Catherine de Medici thought her life at court would be a fascinating forum of political discourse. Instead, the palace is a cruel and disturbing place where her singular function is to be a baby-making machine for male heirs. Even the other women at her side, a scheming lady-in-waiting and the king’s power-hungry mistress, seem to mostly fend for themselves. The only kinship she finds is with the paperback-romance hot, head-to-toe hairy wildman kept in the dungeon as one of the king’s collection of caged oddities. His friendly and feral presence gradually awakens Catherine’s own wild side, and once she unleashes it, no one is safe from her vengeful wrath.

Based on the shocking true story that inspired Beauty and the Beast, Kat Sandler brings her trademark rapid-fire wit to this salacious saga of an infamous bad girl who could not be tamed. A viciously funny and sexy thrill ride, WILDWOMAN is about what happens when we let the monster out. Being bad never felt so good.

In their suburban Canadian home, Sue and Emir's marriage is a battlefield of bitterness and constant bickering. Their past as Muslims living in Sarajevo haunts them, with flourishing careers lost to war and genocide. But, proud of their life in Canada, they choose to leave these painful memories behind them. When a birthday celebration brings their three daughters home again after eight years, bombshell after revealing bombshell is dropped, and an epic clash of wills erupts, awakening the family's darkest secrets.

Blissful State of Surrender is a poignant dramatic comedy that delves into the lives of a Bosnian Canadian family grappling with trauma, social-class limbo, and intergenerational differences, challenging Canada's self-image as a haven for refugees and revealing how internalized oppression breeds lateral violence. For immigrants fleeing the horrors of genocide, even the act of remembering can be dangerous, yet the cycle of violence can only be broken when the truth is finally set free.

In the vibrant heart of Toronto’s Gerrard India Bazaar, Dilpreet and his daughters, Jasmeet and Simran, are frantically preparing to open their new sari shop in time for Canada Day. If dealing with their overprotective father isn’t enough stress, these young women face their own personal pressures. Pretty Jasmeet must get her hair done just right to be voted prom queen at school. Meanwhile, the exceptionally smart Simran anxiously awaits her LSAT scores that will grant her access to the best law schools in the country. Amidst the flurry of activity, no one seems to notice that Simran’s erratic behaviour and mounting stress threatens to derail not only her future but the family’s shared dream. As she spirals into a dangerous breakdown, the family's dedication to their shop and to each other is put to the ultimate test.

Little Pretty and The Exceptional is a candid and compassionate portrait of a family haunted by a traumatic past, exposing the stigmas surrounding mental health in the South Asian community. This heartfelt tale reveals what it truly means to support and care for our loved ones during their darkest times.

Kris, a young diasporic Chinese woman, attempts to reconcile her upbringing between Canada and Singapore. In doing so, she comes face to face with herself as she pulls apart the tactics she uses in an attempt to fit into two wildly different cultures. Weaving in and out of English, Mandarin, and Singlish, Kris uses storytelling to navigate beauty standards, body image, family, food, and an unexpected friendship with a Chicken Rice Uncle.

Deftly unraveling stereotypes and addressing the universal through Kris’s determined persistence and heartwarming sense of humour, 我的名是张欣恩 (Gimme chance leh) is about celebrating difference and existing in the in-between.

Matt and Masha hit it off during a theatre research trip in Ukraine. At first they seem like opposites: Masha loves the sea, Matt loves mountains. Masha is Ukrainian, Matt is Métis. But the passionate spark ignited between them cannot be denied. Despite the improbabilities of a cross-continental relationship, a few fairy-tale visits overseas solidifies their bond. But when it seems distance could be the only obstacle in their path, a series of extreme circumstances put their commitment to the ultimate test.

Based on actual events, First Métis Man of Odesa is the extraordinary true story of a whirlwind romance that withstands a global pandemic, a surprise pregnancy, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Transcending the usual tropes of documentary theatre, this heartwarming how-we-got-together tale turns art of the here and now into a catalyst for action and a hopeful ode for a better future.

In eighteen hundred and something something, somewhere upon the banks of a Reddish River in Treaty One Territory, three very different women with a preference for twenty-first century slang sit in a fort sharing their views on life, love, and the hot nerd Louis Riel. Marie-Angelique, a Métis Taurus, is determined to woo Louis (a Métis Libra)—who will be arriving soon—by sending him boldly flirtatious letters. Eugenia, an Ojibwe Sagittarius, brings news of rebellion back to the fort after trading, but isn’t impressed by Louis’s true mediocre nature. And Cecilia, a pregnant British Virgo, is anxiously waiting on her husband’s return from an expedition, but can’t resist pining over the heartthrob Thomas Scott (Irish Capricorn), who is actually the one secretly responding to Marie-Angelique’s letters. This will all go smoothly, right?

Updated after its sold-out run at the Stratford Festival and with a brand-new study guide, this lively historical satire of survival and cultural inheritance shifts perspectives from the male gaze onto women’s power in the past and present through the lens of the rapidly changing world of the Canadian fur trade.

Freedom: A Mixtape is a soulful artistic response to recent and historical violence on Black bodies, presented through a collection of original songs, stories, poems, anecdotes, spoken-word pieces, and musical instrumentation from folks living in the Niagara Region. A community conversation about our complicated relationship with emancipation and the human right to be free, Freedom: A Mixtape is a compilation album that is part protest and part celebration. It is history and the present moment all at once, a reminder that this moment is part of a larger, ongoing movement. Familiar pains are felt deeply in moments both bygone and bitingly present, setting the tone—and stage—for action.

Analog field recordings and soothing talk-radio energy give voice to the residue of intergenerational trauma, the depths of colonialism, resilience amidst oppressive conditions, and a clarion call that joy is a birthright for everyone. With emotional precision and softness, Freedom: A Mixtape offers a radical reminder that in our bleakest moments, we rise up through love of self and community.

From escape rooms to TikTok to Tim Horton’s “Roll Up the Rim to Win” to DIY everything, participatory performance is ingrained in the very fabric of our contemporary society. Written in a series of alphabetical, standalone mini essays that activate the reader as a participant who chooses their own path, PLAY: Dramaturgies of Participation collects, describes, and analyzes live performances in which the audience become participants in the piece itself.

Jenn Stephenson and Mariah Horner explore the parallels between participatory theatre and the interactive phenomenon where the passive consumer is now engaging with their content. In a world where participation is key to our social interaction, Stephenson and Horner find a unique approach to understanding our relationship with theatre, and by extension, each other.

Revived from a coma after a traumatic event, Megan’s injuries leave her capable of great violence, forcing her desperate physician Cassandra to recruit Alison, an Indigenous clinician, as her consultant. Alison uses an innovative form of technologically enhanced expressive arts therapy to augment the rehabilitative effects of speaking Lenape, their shared (and almost extinct) language. However, this reminder of cultural expression and identity triggers Megan, putting herself into a life-threatening situation. With Megan’s safety in jeopardy, Alison must internalize a life-changing lesson to save her: pain is often unjust, but it also reminds us that we’re alive.

Everything I Couldn’t Tell You is a potent reminder of the healing and rehabilitative power within Indigenous languages.

Hailed as the world’s first Deaf musical—told entirely in American Sign Language and Signed Music—The Black Drum revolves around Joan and her journey to healing after the death of her wife, Karen. Since Karen’s passing, Joan has been unable to share her music with the world, anguish snatching her desire to perform. Joan’s grief pulls her into a bizarre, black-and-white world where her two beautiful tattoos come to life as guides and together they confront a monster called the Minister. But the only way to defeat the Minister and begin to heal is for Joan to embrace her own voice.

An epic fantasy about grief and healing, The Black Drum questions the concept of music we are conditioned to believe, suggesting that music is not just something you hear, it is something you see and feel.

In October 2013, Scott Jones was leaving a bar in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, when he was attacked, stabbed in the back, and left paralyzed from the waist down. In the months following his attack, Scott Jones’s story garnered international attention, not only for its brutality, but also for his uncommonly early decision to forgive his attacker. Furiously researching restorative justice practices and success stories, Jones sits down to ask himself the hardest question he’s ever had to answer: Does he have it in him to not just forgive his attacker, but to accept his new life as a disabled man?

Based on the incredible true story, I Forgive You explores the complexities of forgiveness, privilege, recovery, and self-love in Scott’s own words backed by a live children’s choir performing the music of legendary Icelandic band Sigur Rós.

Exploring reconciliation and connection through a story that spans seven generations, Frozen River (nîkwatin sîpiy) tells the story of two eleven-year-olds through the eyes of Grandmother Moon. Eilidh and Wâpam are born under the same blood moon, but Eilidh was born in Scotland and Wâpam in Kihci-Manito kâ ayapit, now known as Manitoba. After sailing across the ocean in hopes of a more prosperous life, Eilidh meets Wâpam deep in the forest, and the two become instant friends. Coming from vastly different worlds, Eilidh and Wâpam decide to teach each other about their ways of life. But when a sacred promise between them is broken, the relationship among cultures becomes jeopardized for generations to come.

Frozen River (nîkwatin sîpiy) shows audiences that an openness to learn from those who have protected and honoured the waterways for centuries can lead to healing and reconciliation.

You can call him Cockroach, or Roach for short. He’s a catnip-smoking city slicker living in the dark corners behind the toilet. After diving into the diaper of a Chinese baby, Cockroach watches the boy grow up to lose his sense of identity. Understanding what it means to live in a world not built for outsiders, he attempts to help the boy reclaim his culture. But when the Bard himself makes a surprise appearance in hopes of influencing the boy with the “superior” English language, Cockroach finds himself caught in a collision of linguistics, longing, and lobsters (who sometimes burp).

A unique exploration of xenophobia and the dangers of language erosion, cockroach (曱甴) is a coming-of-age play about the stories we tell ourselves to comfort, to survive, to resist, to overcome, and to be.

In 2019, a group of scholar-artists led by Jill Carter stood with their audience in a liminal space at the edge of the woods—a space between now and then, a space between now and later. Together, they engaged in a survivance intervention: an Indigenous reclamation of territory, using Storyweaving practices rooted in personal connections to the land as a method of restor(y)ing treaty relationships.

Retreating to Re-Treat documents both their artistic offering and creation process, offered in the spirit of knowledge-sharing and enriching scholarship around collaborative practices. By revealing their unique and still-developing method for addressing a fraught and tangled (hi)story, the Collective Encounter invites readers to join them as we mediate those sites of profound experiences and renewal—sites in which the project of conciliation might truly begin.

A small military-occupied community sits, waiting, parched of natural water while nearby levees hold the rising global shoreline. Seventeen-year-old twins Alix and Evan pass the time in an empty, abandoned pool with what they are able to scavenge from the abandoned houses, while government official Portia returns to familiar places, her past colliding with the present. The planned evacuation notice that eventually reaches all cities has finally come, but the twins learn that survival is not guaranteed. As they rush to reach their grandmother, a retired journalist now living with dementia, her snippets of memories flow like humanity’s record player, skipping tracks before the final flood.

A non-linear poetic play that acts like a postcard from the future, Shorelines is about family and community in a world ravaged by climate change. It also speaks to the inevitable inequality of disaster response and how poorer communities are disproportionately affected by it. Mishka Lavigne’s message within her lyrical piece is urgent and multi-dimensional: it is a reminder that all things are connected and hope can only lie in the relationships we form with the people around us.

It’s 1970s Winnipeg—a time of revolution and radical possibilities—and an apartment building of Indian immigrant friends is about to be transformed by their latest arrival. A young Bengali Muslim woman, Nuzha, has just married Qasim over the phone at his mother’s insistence, and can’t wait to start her new life with him. But Qasim struggles to let go of his true love, a Canadian nurse named Abby, making him an emotionally and physically distant husband. Broken-hearted but full of pluck, Nuzha finds comfort and adventures on her own terms by exploring everything her new community has to offer. From braving the bus schedule to building close relationships with Qasim’s friends, Nuzha’s discoveries are thrilling, enriching, and crack open new possibilities for everyone.

From the creator of the powerful solo show Crash, Pamela Sinha’s New is an evocative, emotionally-astute comedy about the complex nature of love and sacrifice, joyful togetherness and piercing loneliness, and what it means to create entirely new ways of life through our willingness to tread uncharted territory.

On the twentieth anniversary of its first volume, Staging Coyote’s Dream Volume 3 is a curated collection of new works rooted in Indigenous values, aesthetics, and narrative structures. Inspired by their own dramaturgical practices and current conversations in contemporary theatre creation, co-editors Monique Mojica and Lindsay Lachance identify the invaluable and understudied ways that many Indigenous theatre artists are creating culturally specific dramaturgical processes and shifting the paradigm for what is considered “text.” By presenting models for relational theatre-making and land-based explorations outside the traditional “well-made-play” structure, Staging Coyote’s Dream Volume 3 is more than just a collection of plays; it offers some strategies and tools for how Indigenous artists can reimagine the structures of new-play development and performance on Turtle Island.

An anthology that identifies and highlights a vast array of anti-colonial performing arts processes, including reclamation, embodiment, and community-engaged work—to name only a few—Mojica and Lachance gather the works of artists leading these practices to not only honour how their plays are expanding dramaturgy, but to build Indigenous performance literacies for all practitioners creating on Turtle Island.

What is the future of Blackness? Obsidian Theatre presents twenty-one versions of it.

In 2021, Obsidian Theatre engaged twenty-one writers to create twenty-one new stories about imagined Black futures. Twenty-one to celebrate Obsidian’s twenty-first anniversary in 2021. Each playwright was tasked with scripting a ten-minute monodrama in response to the question “What is the future of Blackness?” To counter the intense early-pandemic isolation and the trauma of witnessing heightened violence toward Black bodies, Obsidian’s goal was to give as many opportunities to as many diverse Black artists as possible and to bring new voices together from both theatre and film. It was a grand experiment to create a rich tapestry of possibilities and to uplift Black artists in the process.

A radical offering in unprecedented times, newly appointed Obsidian artistic director Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu’s curatorial aim was joyful, aspirational, and empowering: come together in this moment and create something communal, unapologetically Black, and with the Black gaze at its centre—art as the architecture for creating those futures.

In these two entwined, fast-paced plays, the hilarious goings-on behind the scenes of a controversial election chaotically unfold first at the fundraiser that will decide the party’s nominee and then months later at a debate the night before the election.

The top candidates for the Left are Bill Biszy, a gay Black man who’s also the star of the Sharkman film franchise, and Heather Straughan, the tough woman who’s still hampered by the public knowledge that her husband cheated on her many years ago. Both are the guests of honour at Butch Buchanan’s fundraiser—whomever he decides to donate to will get the party’s nomination, and will run against his brother, the leader of the Right. But so many things stand in Bill and Heather’s way before the night ends. Many months later, when the final debate ends in the need for extreme damage control, it’s clearly the worst time for everyone’s secrets to be revealed, but what fun would it be without some election-day drama?

With a large cast of frenzied characters and piercing dialogue, The Party and The Candidate will make sure you never look at politics the same way again.

From the Ashes collects solo plays by Black Canadian women and womxn that together celebrate the hope, humour, and healing that can come after devastation and loss. From lighthearted comedies to heavy dramas, this anthology contains a multitude of stories on Blackness, love, motherhood, sexuality, trauma, racism, mythology, and more.

In Georgeena by Djanet Sears, a bride speeds down the highway, struggling to make sense of what led her to that moment. In benu by d’bi.young anitafrika, a young woman faces motherhood while still coming to terms with her own motherlessness. Makambe K Simamba’s A Chitenge Story follows a young woman who travels to her native Zambia to find and confront the man who abused her as a child. Ngozi Paul’s The Emancipation of Ms. Lovely chronicles a woman throughout different stages of her life that relate to her sexual awakening. In The Sender by Cheryl Foggo, a woman working for a global racism-elimination project encounters some technical difficulties when someone unexpectedly objects to the project’s restrictions. And in Kalale Dalton-Lutale’s Cry Baby, a young woman falls in love for the first time, which opens a well of questions about her identity.

Can Jack and Veronyka ever get ahead? In this all-too-relatable love story in a city suffocating under late-stage capitalism, a young couple is pitted against odd after odd in a way that isn’t about testing one’s character anymore—it’s simply reality.

Jack, a second-generation Chinese Canadian cab driver meets Veronyka, an undocumented factory worker and waitress from Moldova, as he’s bringing her from one job to the other. Their
chance encounter blooms into an unlikely romance, stolen in moments between shifts, and then a hasty marriage, which solves migration issues but brings the pair even deeper into the challenges of providing for themselves and their families. The painful death of both of Jack’s parents and the sense of helplessness that has dogged both of their families leads Jack and Veronkya to desperate measures to escape. Some hard work mixed with some political blackmail brings them to a new life, but at what cost?

After nearly a year of mourning her husband’s death, sixtysomething Dorothy needs to feel alive. So she pitches a road-trip idea to her family—attending Burning Man, the massive arts festival known for its carefree nature that draws half a million people, and she wants to drive there in the RV she had purchased with her husband before he died. After she learns how to drive the RV and her family gets over their shock, Dorothy’s son and his friend join her for her journey, sleeping in parking lots along the way, visiting a sex shop for costumes, and showing her around the massive, dusty grounds in Nevada. But once Dorothy starts to explore alone, whether its finding hilarious chaos in the middle of a naked bike ride parade or experiencing sweet solace and acceptance through art, she learns that she can do more in life than she ever imagined.

This comical play, which is based on author Mieko Ouchi’s mother’s own experiences, shows that the search for courage and independence can be lighthearted even when rooted in grief.

1959, Ameliasburgh, Prince Edward County, Canada. On the edge of spring, two men are finishing an A-frame cabin on Roblin Lake. In the coming decade all three of them—Al, Milt, and the A-frame—will become famous and change the face of Canadian poetry. But now all they have is the stench of sweat, whiskey, and words. From Governor General’s Literary Award–winner David Yee, among men is a poetic and charged portrait of male friendship in uncertain times, and a story of how Canadian literature was changed forever.

Julie, a young Jamaican Canadian screenwriter, is passionately working on an adaptation of one of the most beloved American novels of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird, telling the story from the perspective of the Finch family’s Black maid, Calpurnia. But within the safe confines of her wealthy father’s home, and besides all the encouragement from their Filipina housekeeper Precy, Julie struggles with writer’s block and numerous distractions as her family prepares for an important dinner party. When her brother challenges her, saying she’s appropriating a culture she doesn’t belong to, she goes to dramatic lengths to prove her point, only to find she has much to learn.

Calpurnia is a witty and highly charged look at the complicated entanglements of intersectionality and allyship, exposing motives and biases that are clear as a bell one moment, and drowning in ambiguity the next.

Mitsue Sakamoto and Ralph MacLean both suffered tremendous loss during WWII: Mitsue as a survivor of a Japanese Canadian internment camp, and Ralph as a prisoner in a Japanese POW camp. In order to rebuild their lives and their families after the war, Ralph and Mitsue must find the grace and generosity necessary to forgive those who have wronged them. Their paths eventually cross in 1968 when Mitsue’s son and Ralph’s daughter begin dating, and Ralph is invited to Mitsue’s home for dinner.

This soaring adaptation of Mark Sakamoto’s award-winning memoir affirms the power of forgiveness and shows us that in our challenging times characterized by political divisiveness, xenophobia, and race hatred, the story of Mitsue and Ralph’s personal triumphs over hatred, injustice, violence, and bigotry remains vitally relevant and urgently necessary.

In February 1969, hundreds of students occupied a computer centre at what is now Montréal’s Concordia University to protest the mismanagement of a racism complaint lodged by Caribbean students against their biology professor. When an agreement to end the occupation fell through, riot police were called in, resulting in widespread damage, a mysterious fire, and nearly a hundred arrests. Created and devised by some of Montréal’s most prolific artists, Blackout re-examines the events that led to the occupation and protests, asking how race relations have changed in Québec and Canada.

Winner of the 2019 Governor-General’s Award for French-language Drama

Strangers Elsie and Matt are both feeling great voids in their lives. Elsie, a literature professor, is grieving her famous novelist mother’s tragic death. Matt, a city engineer, is trying to regain childhood memories from living in war-torn Yugoslavia. When a sudden sinkhole in front of Elsie’s apartment building swallows a car that happens to contain a copy of Elsie’s mother’s novel, their paths cross, and the two are quickly drawn to each other’s search for fulfillment.

Haven is a beautiful portrait of how certain life events can be incredibly isolating, and what happens when people come into our lives when we need them most.

A new apartment should be a warm and welcoming signal to a fresh chapter of life. It shouldn’t be where a family waits in the dark, surrounded by unpacked boxes, as missiles rain down around them.

Already eight years into the Iran–Iraq war, Nasrin and her two adult children—daughter Nahid and son Mahyar—just want to feel safe and settled. Tensions are already high, from bickering over who gets what room and what goes where to why Nahid’s husband left her. Mahyar leaves the apartment in a heated moment, leaving Nasrin wracked with fear. As the missiles start to strike and the power goes out, Nahid tries to hold everything together. From that moment on, it’s about survival.

This heart-wrenching meta-autobiographical play, presented in both English and Farsi, is a window into days when death was practically a neighbour in war-torn Tehran. It’s a dedication to those who are left behind with the trauma of war and survivors’ guilt. Author Mohammad Yaghoubi survived it, so he had to write about it.

In an adaptation of the classic Canadian novel, this epic play follows three generations of a Cape Breton Island family in a tale of forbidden love, inescapable bonds, and devastating betrayals, all while harbouring secrets that threaten to shatter the family entirely.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, a young piano tuner named James Piper and thirteen-year-old Materia Mahmoud fall into a whirlwind romance. As their family grows, the couple is strained by dark revelations that lead to dangerous consequences. Their headstrong daughters Kathleen, Frances, Mercedes, and Lily grow up haunted but fiercely connected in ways they must learn to fully understand. A richly layered story by turns both heartbreaking and joyous, Fall On Your Knees is a vivid portrayal of love, desire, and the quest for truth and redemption.

Winner of the 2017 Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd'hui’s People’s Choice Dramatic Author of the Year

Winner of the 2019 Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards Outstanding Original Script

With spark and spunk, these two dark yet absurdly charming comedies offer a kaleidoscopic perspective of those who are destined to go down a lonely path and those who choose to share the weight of others’ journeys.

In Wildfire, three odd triplets, two misfits, and one misunderstood woman are all burning with solitude and desire. Through an exploration of heredity and fate, these seemingly ordinary characters choose to struggle against their isolation in extraordinary yet relatable ways.

In The Shoe, a weary mother, her perplexing son, their shy dentist, and his cocktail-sipping receptionist find themselves drawn together to face problems too daunting to deal with alone. From meltdowns to moments of tenderness, each of them are called on to find reserves of strength and empathy they never knew they had.

Étaples, France, 1918. Nurses Christy, Maggie, and Bab have crossed oceans to care for wounded Canadian soldiers in the Great War. Despite the terrible injuries they must deal with, they manage to stay hopeful as the dangers of the front draw closer to their hospital.

As each woman becomes accustomed to her duties and patients, they reveal more personal details to one another and through letters to loved ones. Maggie misses her close friend she lived with back home and worries for their future together. Christy writes to her soldier husband, but she knows there’s a difference between the life she should lead with him and the one she wants. Bab longs for what she can’t have: her beloved grandpa, a married soldier, a child. Through it all, the three women find friendship, independence, power, and influence in a place where men, once again, are trying to destroy the world.

From the author of Bears comes two dark comedies that expose the effects of disturbing the natural order and what we’re capable of when pushed to our breaking point.

Set in the aftermath of the disaster that nearly destroyed Fort McMurray in 2016, After the Fire centres around two couples whose lives have been deeply affected by the ruin. Sisters Laura and Carmell have been channelling their devastation after the disaster into their daughters’ hockey team . . . maybe a little too much. Their Indigenous oil-worker husbands Barry and Ty are fighting their own demons as they try to sort out how to move on, while digging a very big hole.

In The Particulars, a week’s worth of daily routines for an insomniac is disrupted by a mysterious home invasion. Gordon battles his invaders on two main fronts—in his home, where he believes he is dealing with vermin, and in his yard, where insects have taken over his garden. By day, Gordon forges ahead, in control of every aspect of his life. But by night, the scratching he has begun to hear in his walls is unravelling him, driving him to the edge of cosmic desperation.

The sharp commentary in these two plays will shock and satisfy the temptation of taking matters into your own hands.

Winner of the Contra Guys Award for New Performance Text 2018

In this unapologetic and sharp-witted perspective about the evolving Black experience in Canada and around the world, a rhythmic fusion of spoken word, satire, and soulful dialect emerges steady as a heartbeat through a journey of raw truths and deep-rooted questions. How does a racialized group teach their future generations to unlearn internalized self-hatred? What is the essence of Blackness beyond skin colour? Is it possible to be free living in present-day systemic racism? Designed to ignite necessary conversations, this powerful collection of engaging scenes that range from church to Black Twitter to Africville aims to construct an understanding of what it means to be Black.

Sisters Sissy and Yewina have been on their own for who knows how long exactly. It’s just them (and their hens) in a weathered farmhouse miles from town. Their rural, woodsy East Coast community has been losing residents for years, but the almost-forgotten stories have lived on for the sisters in different ways. While Yewina is more guarded and level-headed, dreamer Sissy has a flair for twisting fact with fantasy. When Scott, a folklorist from Scottsdale, Arizona, shows up at their door in hopes of chronicling whispers, he’s in for much more of a story than he expected. This unique and quirky ode to folklore storytelling illuminates how we can enjoy living with our own truths in order to leave a memorable legacy behind.

Reenie wants to dance, following in her mother’s footsteps. Just like the rest of her ensemble, she believes she has what it takes to earn the coveted solo at the year-end recital. But when she notices that their strict maestra is not holding everyone to the same “traditional” standard—particularly Maia, the other Black girl in the class—Reenie is determined to stop her friend from being counted out of the competition. Frustrated with not being understood by her mother and filled with a new-found passion to fight a broken system, Reenie hatches a plan with her classmates but doesn’t realize where her quick journey towards justice missed the mark with her friend.

Reaching for Starlight is a compassionate story about the way we are told to move through a world not made for us, whether together or alone.

Young people cannot avoid the consequences of climate change. In this urgent and lyrical play, they reckon with the generations who have come before them. They hold the audience to account for the broken world they have inherited, questioning the choices that have been made, and the ones that they will yet be forced to make. Is My Microphone On? is both a declaration of war and a declaration of love, a play in the form of a protest song, in which a chorus of young performers offer us an invitation to experience the world together anew.

An immersive experience, Eraser delves into the memories and fantasies of a classroom of students as they figure out who they want to be. Six students guide readers through their different journeys, taking them along to the cafeteria, change rooms, and playground, to the places where they feel safest and the most brave, vulnerable, and afraid.

Afroze just moved to Canada from Pakistan and is struggling to fit in as a white-skinned gender-questioning convert to Islam. All Jihad wants is to be cool, but he struggles with the appearance of this new student who doesn’t look like any of the Muslims he knows. Noah’s brother just died, and he’s been avoiding processing his grief, which makes him lash out at his best friend, Eli. Eli doesn’t know how to support Noah, who he also harbours questioning feelings for. Whitney wants to live by her own rules in her own imaginary world, but she’s forced to deal with annoying kids like Tara. Tara loves school and getting straight As, but all the pressure she feels eventually adds up and she crumbles.

Finding a balance between tough realities and honest fantasies, Eraser is an energetic and sentimental look at what it’s like to navigate differences and connections as a kid.

This collection of essays focuses how dance and movement engage and enact political questions around agency, mobility, pedagogy, and resistance. Committed to crossing disciplinary boundaries, Power Moves looks to movement knowledge for its radical insights and critical forms of public intervention and pedagogy.

The writers of this collection examine cultural and social patterns in action in the studio, on the stage, and from the street, and in doing so give voice to fresh perspectives from Canadian dance and performance studies on social, political, and cultural values in the twenty-first century. Contributors include Evadne Kelly, Karyn Recollet and Emily Johnson, Angélique Willkie, Christine Mazumdar, Natalie Alvarez, Gabe Levine, and Mary Fogarty, with an introduction and individual contributions from editors Seika Boye and MJ Thompson.

Winner of the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama.

The title of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It holds a double meaning that teasingly suggests the play can please all tastes. But is that possible? With his subversive updating of the Bard’s classic, Indigenous creator and cultural provocateur Cliff Cardinal seeks to find out. The show exults in bawdy humour, difficult subject matter, and raw emotion; Cardinal is not one to hold back when it comes to challenging delicate sensibilities.

Most of us, when faced with death, wish we could just have a little more time. But what if this is the little more time that we wished for? What are you going to do with it?

Grieving siblings Natalie and Bart have differing views on how we die. Natalie, a palliative care nurse, knows how drugs can help ease someone’s pain, and do so on their own terms; Bart, a minister, believes that surrendering to what may come can bring peace and wisdom. Through this immersive show about end-of-life choices, Natalie and Bart are guided by a disabled angel who helps them address their mother’s final decision and understand their own hopes and fears about death.

Packed with relatable existential questions, this joyously engaging and reflective play offers a welcoming space to think about what comes next.

The one thing everyone knows is that we’re all going to die. Which means our loved ones are going to die. So how can we prepare for, experience, and honour their deaths? And does that look different if we have to make the decision to end their lives for them if they’re suffering? Dividing Lines | Líneas Divisorias is one woman’s story that offers a space for communal grieving through a celebration of life.

Traced by the historic world events that coincide with her memories of independence and immigration, Beatriz reflects on how she spent over a decade caring for her mother—the one person she promised she’d be there for all the way until the end—as she lost her more and more to Alzheimer’s, and ultimately had to make the tough call to end her mother’s pain.

A meditation full of light that doesn’t shy away from fear of the unknown, Beatriz’s narrative comes from a vulnerable and recognizable place of love that will invite our memories and choices in to heal.

Estranged teenage cousins Eli and Kat have recently met online and bonded over their queer identities, but they have a limited understanding of each other’s very different realities. In Italy, soft-spoken Eli is trying to find a way to come out as trans to his conservative Roman Catholic family. In Canada, strong-headed Kat is desperate for connection to a culture and place she’s never known.

Kat and her friend Hannah are the only ones who know that Eli is trans—not even his brother Matteo knows. And while her intentions are good, Kat’s decision to crowdfund a flight for Eli to attend Toronto Pride unknowingly outs him to the public, setting off a chain of events that leave the cousins and their loved ones reeling.

Full of poetry, laughter, and big questions, this touching story paints a portrait of what it’s like for young people wanting to reconcile what they’ve inherited with what feels right.

After the unexpected death of their parents, two second-generation Italian Canadian brothers must come together to decide whether to hold on to the family home, which is full of secrets and hoarded junk, or save what’s left of their strained relationship.

When Anthony, an uptight lawyer running for office, arrives with his former actor turned campaign manager wife Cristina, they’re set on signing away the house and everything that comes with it. But Enzo, a disorganized plumber, and his much younger, pregnant girlfriend Nat have other plans. The pleasantries quickly turn to tense deliberations that unearth dramatically differing views of the group’s past experiences and present values.

This clever family dramedy takes a close look at issues that affect modern second-generation immigrant families in Canada—class differences, antiquated old-world beliefs, and a crumbling Canadian dream.

A significant moment in Canadian history is portrayed in this documentary musical about race relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Weaving hundreds of real interviews conducted with Saskatchewan residents and the court transcripts surrounding the killing of Colten Boushie and trial of Gerald Stanley, a kaleidoscopic picture is formed of the views of the incident, the province, and Indigenous people in Canada.

Reasonable Doubt—with interviews by Joel Bernbaum, music by Lancelot Knight, and dramaturgy by Yvette Nolan—provides a space to honestly talk to each other about what has happened on this land and how we can live together.

After years of running from her dysfunctional past, Sarah returns home to the family farm in Saskatchewan to find her mom Kathleen yelling into the wind, setting off a turbulent new chapter in her life. Instead of finding comfort in “home,” Sarah learns nothing is how she remembers it, and with Kathleen’s growing dementia, nothing will ever be the same again.

Two of Sarah’s older siblings, Jolene and Steven, are more focused on the future ownership of the farm and are planning a supper that could help influence that decision. But Sarah turns her attention to Kathleen, who keeps chasing things that aren’t there: a fox, a hill, the answers to questions only Sarah’s adopted brother Tom holds the key to. When an unexpected outcome shocks the family at the supper, much more than the farm is at stake. 

Blow Wind is a beautiful portrait—with musical accompaniment—of a family that together must build new paths forward while learning how to love, let go, and forgive.

Welcome to the world of the one per cent, the corporate elite, the C-suite, the kingmakers. A world managed by payoffs, press releases, NDAs, and company policies. What happens to morality in this world when its people have limitless power?

When a CEO and his highest executives are on an international business trip to secure a major deal, a sex scandal between employees is unearthed on the news. As the pressure to complete the deal mounts, more damaging secrets come to the surface, endangering the CEO’s company, family, and legacy.

In this searing look at upper-class privilege, Post-Democracy asks, what does it take to confront corruption?

From the glittering high-rise condos to the desperate streets of Vancouver, powerful stories told by women reveal the fraying social fabric among the wealthy and hangers-on in the city’s Asian Canadian community.

Lady Sunrise introduces us to six women who are risking everything, all motivated by the need for more money and the freedom it could buy, whether it’s the allure of expensive items and real estate to substitute what’s been lost or the safety of not being in abusive debt to anyone else just to survive. This heartbreaking examination of the effects of today’s hyper-consumerist society will challenge perspectives of strength and power, exposing painfully raw consequences.

It’s time to make every moment count.

Sixteen-year-olds Pria and Theo—or as they know each other online, the aspiring opera singer PriaSoprano and outer-space aficionado Eagle19—have decided to have sex. There’s just one catch… they both have life-threatening genetic disorders that may cause them to explode from one another’s touch. But they won’t know what will happen until they try. Sick of being told what to do their whole lives, they rebel against their reality and meet at a motel. But while Pria is more or less accepting of her fate, Theo has hopes for the future, and what was planned as a simple meeting becomes much more intimate as they open up about their experiences. The fate of their lives comes down to one decision…

This teen romance space opera explores our willingness to live, what it means to belong, and the necessity of emotional and physical relationships.

A woman runs into her former abuser and is surprised by the power he still holds over her. In an attempt to uncover the truth of what happened between them, she recalls her adolescent self: a fourteen-year-old synchronized swimmer struggling to make sense of the world around her.

Explore a world on the edge of change through three epic stories spanning five hundred years of imagined history, unpacking systems of power and what we are capable of in the pursuit of freedom.

The story starts in The Philosopher’s Wife. Deep in the North, a philosopher exiled for promoting his atheist work amidst a bloody religious war yearns to ignite a revolution, but his personal life has collapsed into chaos. What begins as a desperate attempt to cure his wife’s animalistic behaviour erupts into a power struggle between the sexes, unleashing violent reckonings while the world outside hurtles towards an epoch-changing revolution.

Over twenty years later, The Scavenger’s Daughter examines the true face of empire as Northern forces continue to march against the South, “liberating” all who stand in their way. In a landscape blown apart by war, we follow Jack and Ash, orphan soldiers belonging to the Black Swan army, trying to survive the camp, toxic masculinity, and each other until they can be free. When Jack returns to camp, his freedom having been bought for him by a mysterious philosopher, he believes his new life is just around the corner. But as rations wear thin and the king seizes the opium trails, the camp is thrown into chaos, putting everything Jack and Ash have known—including Jack’s first love, Sarah—at risk.

Centuries later, in Four Sisters, we meet Sarah again as a woman and former Madam who has survived death, the toppling of regimes, and centuries of war. When a mysterious plague breaks out, she is forced to relocate to a quarantined zone called “The Skirts” with four young girls who were orphaned by the women she once employed. But when a strange doctor arrives and discovers the girls are plague-positive, Sarah must decide whether to go ahead with an experimental treatment or none at all. As time itself begins to erode, this found family of women must face loss, love, and their individual struggles for power in a violent world.

For fans of Game of Thrones, The Handmaid’s Tale, and The Mists of Avalon, The Empire is both foreign and shockingly familiar, leaving you asking, how did we get here, and where are we going?

Winner of the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Drama.

From the author of trace comes two adaptations that transport mythological stories from Ancient Greece to modern-day civilizations. Led by people of colour, these darkly comedic plays depict recognizable plights for justice.

Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land) highlights the repetition of hate and colonialism that occur in ancient myths through a mischievous lens. Since Iphigenia was rescued from the sacrificial altar, she has served as a high priestess to the goddess Artemis on Tauros, where she in turn is to sacrifice any foreigners who try to enter. When she discovers that an exiled prisoner is her brother, they together plot their escape, but are soon confronted by a force beyond their control.

Antigone: 方is set against the backdrop of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement and Tiananmen Square Massacre protests. When citizens challenge a state’s traditional doctrine, the ruling family is divided between their own interests and those of its citizens. After brothers Neikes and Teo kill each other in the protests, their sister Antigone defies her father’s orders to retrieve Neikes’s body, causing the government—and what’s left of their family—to reach a reckoning.