Redbone Coonhound
Directed by Micheline Chevrier with Kwaku Okyere
Out for a walk in their West End neighbourhood, Mike and Marissa—an interracial couple—meet a dog with an unfortunate breed name: Redbone Coonhound. This small detail unleashes a cascading debate between them about race and their relationship that manifests as a series of micro-plays, each satirizing contemporary perspectives on modern culture. Through its hard-hitting comedic elements, Redbone Coonhound explores the intricacies of subtle and overt polemics of race, systemic power and privilege in remarkable, surprising and hilarious ways.
A wild and subversive journey back through history and into the future. Redbone Coonhound reveals deep fears, rage, insecurities and, ultimately, hope.
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Behind the Moon
Directed by Richard Rose
In a Mughlai restaurant in Toronto, a late night visit from a mysterious stranger rattles the cage and shatters the peace. Now Ayub must face reality, the family he’s left behind, and the dreams he’s abandoned, all while keeping the restaurant clean to a mirror shine.
From award-winning playwright and author Anosh Irani, Behind the Moon is an achingly beautiful story of love and loss, freedom and faith, the meaning of brotherhood, and how we begin a new life.
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The Hooves Belonged to the Deer
Directed by Peter Hinton-Davis
When Izzy’s family immigrates to a small rural town, the young queer Muslim boy becomes the salvation pet project to the local Pastor Isaac. In his attempt to reconcile his sexuality and faith, Izzy invents an imagined Garden of Eden, where Adam and Hawa’s (Eve in Arabic) relationship is turned upside down by the arrival of Steve, a beautiful, blue-eyed, white-skinned northerner.
An emotionally-charged and ritualistic journey of two universes colliding, The Hooves Belonged to the Deer offers an epic story of life, discovery and belonging where small town Canada meets the Garden of Eden.
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Cockroach
Directed by Mike Payette
A cockroach smoking catnip. A bard lamenting over immortality. A boy stuck in a sticky situation. Three splinters caught in a collision of language, longing, and lobsters (who sometimes burst, and who sometimes burp).
From Toronto Theatre Critics award-winning playwright
Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho), Cockroach is a coming-of-age play about the stories we tell ourselves to comfort, to survive, to resist, to overcome, and to be.
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Post-Democracy
Directed by Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu
Welcome to the world of the 1%, the corporate elite, the
“C-suite” – the “king-makers” whose influence flows through every aspect of our lives virtually unnoticed. When a CEO and his top executives are on a business trip for a major deal, a damaging sex scandal at the company is unearthed back home. As the pressure to complete the deal mounts, more secrets come to the surface, endangering the CEO’s company, his family, and his legacy. What happens to morality when human beings have limitless power?
Biting and unabashedly oozing with the condition of greed, Post-Democracy asks what is the price of silence envisioned through the remarkable lens of Director Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu.
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The Last Epistle of Tightrope Time
Directed by Peter Hinton-Davis
From legendary Canadian artist Walter Border, The Last Epistle of Tightrope Time is a deeply personal reflection on Walter’s journey of life.
An invigorating autobiographical performance Walter re-visits the show, initially written and performed in 1986 as Tightrope Time Ain’t Nuthin’ More Than Some Itty Bitty Madness Between Your Twilight & Your Dawn. Through a solo performance featuring 10 characters, Walter explores homosexuality from a Black perspective and offers an experience of the resiliency of the human spirit.
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A Poem for Rabia
Directed by Clare Pruess, Donna Michelle St. Bernard
An epic journey across time, oceans, and tectonic shifts in political history.
A Poem for Rabia weaves the stories of three queer women from the same bloodline: Zahra, a disillusioned activist in 2053, navigating a Canada that has just abolished prisons; Betty, in 1953 British Guiana, caught between her new secretarial job at the Governor’s office and the growing national independence movement; and Rabia, an Indian domestic worker in 1853, abducted by colonial ‘recruiters’ and sent sailing from Calcutta to the Caribbean on an indentured labour ship.
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Withrow Park
Directed by Jackie Maxwell
Three people gaze out their living room window as the days pass. Across the street in Withrow Park life goes on – or is it a dream?
Then a knock at the door. Time has found them, hiding in plain sight. Or possibly it’s just a man in a wrinkled suit. But they must act, now, or forever be devoured by their own indifference. Logan Avenue awaits, and beyond it, heaven, perhaps. They can no longer live on the periphery of their own lives. They must invite the young man to dinner.
With direction from Jackie Maxwell, and from the mind of Morris Panych, Withrow Park asks what we see in the darkness, and who is watching us from the light.
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Guilt (A Love Story)
Directed by Alisa Palmer
An all-new play about pathos; the “unshakable monster that is guilt,” and the things we’re not supposed to talk about.
Guilt (A Love Story) is a deep dive into a complex, uncomfortable, and highly human feeling. A state of being that most of us, especially parents, wrestle with inelegantly. Focusing on Flacks’ personal odyssey Guilt brings the perspective of a self-sacrificing Jewish mother who becomes the instigator of a family’s dissolution. Societal effects, causes and casualties and the feeling that we have when we’ve profoundly hurt others. This exploration may not pull punches, but don’t worry, it’s accompanied by laughs – because how else do we get through anything?
Diane Flack’s returns to Tarragon Theatre with GUILT (A Love Story) her 5th one-woman show.
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3 Fingers Back
Directed by Cole Alvis, Yvette Nolan
Where stakes are high and kindness is in short supply.
3 Fingers Back is a double bill with a panoramic view of how we choose to treat each other: the captive, their captors and those who bear witness.
When we run out of options, we find out who we really are. In Give It Up, two women strategize to survive interrogation, and the cost of freedom. In The Smell of Horses, three soldiers plot to extract information through their humanity and the confines of duty.
From celebrated artist Donna-Michelle St. Bernard this double bill of plays from her 54ology occupies different vantages on the same world.
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El Terremoto
Directed by Christine Quintana
Twenty years have passed since the three Jurado sisters lost their parents, and life just seems to continue on in their East Vancouver home.
A birthday party, a failed proposal, and a missed connection fill the days and months until an earthquake nearly destroys the city, and brings forward a shocking turn of events that splits their world wide open.
From Dora-Award winning playwright Christine Quintana El Terremoto is a dramatic comedy about how nothing matters, so everything matters.
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Come Home - The Legend of Daddy Hall
Directed by Mike Payette
When John Hall is confronted by his ancestors, he is forced to revisit his entire life.
Worlds collide as he travels back through time rediscovering life as a
husband, father, son, war scout and freedom fighter. As he relives his dangerous past,
John must decide – continue life as the oldest man, abandon everything and serve
those on the earthly plane or exist in the Unknown.
Based on true events, Come Home – The Legend of Daddy Hall is told through poetic text, music and song.
A play about the afterlife, love, legacy and being legendary. Come Home asks where we come from, where we’re headed and what we may be asked to do when we get there.
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She’s Not Special
Directed by Fatuma Adar and Graham Isador
“Leave expectations at the door. We are not putting on a play, we are throwing a party. This is a concert, comedy show, and confessional all in one. Come celebrate your mediocrity with us!“
Tarragon Theatre and Nightwood Theatre are thrilled to present the live stage premiere of Fatuma Adar’s unforgettable show She’s Not Special.
Co-directed by Adar (Playback’s Artist to Watch) and Graham Isador (The Beaverton, VICE), She’s Not Special combines musical theatre and comedic storytelling to explore the pressures of Black Excellence.
As a Black Muslim Woman (a triple threat!) Fatuma is on a mission to free you from the clutches of exceptionalism and teach you how to relish in the joys of mediocrity. After a critically acclaimed digital run at the Next Stage Theatre Festival, She’s Not Special returns to the stage LIVE! (Still, Adar hopes that you come with only moderate expectations… thanks.)
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My Sister's Rage
Directed by Yolanda Bonnell
When their Matriarch ends up in a coma, a ma’iingan-wolf clan family gathers together to work through their collective grief and begin to heal from an incident in the past. While the Aunties camp out in the hospital room, the younger cousins spend their time at the Grandmother’s house by the backyard firepit; all while being circled by a cackling crow jokester.
As the veil between the ancestral plane and the earthly realm gets thinner, tensions and emotions are high and vulnerabilities are exposed, revealing the true strength and resilience of the ma’iingan kwe.
Yolanda Bonnell’s My Sister’s Rage is a story about the nuances of holding trauma and joy at the same time and how laughter is medicine.
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Paint Me This House of Love
Directed by Mike Payette
“Why shouldn’t a dream be just as much a truth? A fantasy be just as deep a reality?”
After twenty-five years estranged, Cecelia and her father, Jules, are attempting reconciliation. Unable to communicate past shames and shortcomings, the pair become dependent on increasingly dramatic fairy tales to explain away their pain.
Paint Me this House of Love is a rhythmic, yearning, experimentation of language, exploring the threads that stitch together our shared family narratives, and asks how we communicate, “I Love You”, when the words alone are not enough.
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Hypothetical Baby
Directed by Courtney Ch'ng Lancaster
An unintended pregnancy, followed by an unhelpful doctor’s appointment, leads to a Christmas Eve abortion and one woman’s reckoning with the practical and existential considerations in deciding to become a parent… or not.
Hypothetical Baby is a time-travelling exploration that grapples with the personal and societal factors that shape our reproductive lives and the intricate relationship between choice, change, and loss.
From the creator of the award-winning Aborsh podcast, Rachel Cairns mixes data and drama in this autobiographical work to publicly talk about abortion the way we do privately — with neurotic vulnerability, unflinching honesty, and frank irreverence.
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Greenhouse Festival
Directed by Artists in Residence
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Performance at the Creative School
Directed by Rinchen Dolma & Christina Pastor
Performance at The Creative School and Tarragon Theatre collaborate on two workshop projects which support the development of new work, featuring the graduating class of Performance Acting students.
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Four Minutes Twelve Seconds
Di and David have devoted their lives to giving their son, Jack, every opportunity they never had. But a startling incident outside the school grounds threatens to ruin everything they’re striving for.
As events begin to accelerate, Di and David begin to question whether they can trust Jack, his closest friends, or even themselves.
Studio 180 Theatre (The Chinese Lady, Indecent, Oslo, You Will Remember Me) returns to Tarragon with the Canadian premiere of James Fritz’s taut darkly comic, and deeply provocative Olivier Award-nominated drama. A thrilling exploration of issues of consent, privilege and the insidious opportunities new technology offers.
UP TO 30% OFF FOR TARRAGON SUBSCRIBERS!
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The Sally Stavro Family Series
Directed by Various
The Sally Stavro Family Series
Supported by The Steve and Sally Stavro Foundation
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Dark Tales - an Evening with Shirley Jackson
We all have the capacity for evil. Most people show restraint, but history shows harm will more likely come from those closest to us rather than from strangers.
Dark Tales explores our shadowed thoughts and desires through several tales by writer Shirley Jackson, herself an inspiration for Stephen King. In this sinister series of stories, what appears at the start is not what appears later; each story twists and turns in unexpected ways.
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Friendly Fire
Directed by Eli Pasic
Shots fired! A new satirical comedy comes to the Tarragon Theatre with all guns blazing!
Elly and ThreebyZero in association with Larry Silverberg presents the WORLD PREMIERE of
Eli Pasic’s FRIENDLY FIRE: AN EVENING OF SEVEN POCKET-SIZED COMEDIES.
This gut-busting potpourri of madness, reproach, and frivolity is being presented at the Tarragon Theatre for a limited run of 5 performances, April 11-14, 2024.
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GOBLIN:MACBETH
When three Goblins come across a copy of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, they’re eager to take over a theatre and take a stab at Macbeth. A unique blend of comedy and tragedy, with a spatter of improvisation, Goblin:Macbeth is a fresh-blood take on a Shakespearean classic.
Created by Spontaneous Theatre, who brought you Blind Date, and Undercover, this is like no Macbeth you’ve ever seen.
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Interior Design
Directed by Kat Sandler
INTERIOR DESIGN (World Premiere)
A Tarragon Theatre Production
Written by Rosa Laborde
Directed by Kat Sandler
October 15 – November 10, 2024
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Tarragon commissioned
True friends stab you in the front. – Oscar Wilde
An attempted intervention between a group of girlfriends backfires spectacularly in this new play from award-winning playwright Rosa Laborde (Léo, Light), directed by Tarragon favourite Kat Sandler (Mustard, Yaga) Interior Design is a comedy of messy renovations and even messier truths.
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Craze
Directed by Mike Payette
CRAZE (World Premiere)
A Tarragon Theatre and Modern Times Stage Company Co-Production
In Association with Theatre ARTaud
Written by Rouvan Silogix and Rafeh Mahmud
Directed by Mike Payette
Nov 19 – Dec 15, 2024
Mainspace
Out of the storm and straight into the inferno.
Two couples shelter from an epic storm for a late night drinking session where technological mayhem and sexual frivolity may turn into something more… At times surrealist, dangerous, and laugh-out-loud outrageous, Craze is sure to keep you right on the knife’s edge.
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The Wolf in the Voice
Directed by Martin Julien & Brian Quirt
THE WOLF IN THE VOICE (World Premiere)
A Tarragon Theatre production in association with Nightswimming
Created by Martin Julien & Brian Quirt
February 4 – February 23, 2025
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An exploration of the very first musical instrument…the singer’s voice.
From Nightswimming (These Are The Songs I Sing When I’m Sad, Tarragon Greenhouse Festival) comes a trio about trios. Join Neema Bickersteth, Jane Miller and Taurian Teelucksingh for an intimate and uplifting evening as they swap stories and songs about their struggles and triumphs as singers, and the mystery of The Wolf in the Voice.
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Feast
Directed by Soheil Parsa
FEAST
Toronto Premiere
A Tarragon Theatre Production
Written by Guillermo Verdecchia
Directed by Soheil Parsa
April 1 – April 27, 2025
Mainspace
A culinary tour, a global crisis, and yet, still always hungry. Can one ever be truly full? From celebrated artist Guillermo Verdecchia, Feast is a biting look at a world where some are movers and some are moved, chaos, and how long we can last when your family is falling apart.
Mermaid or siren? Paradise or dystopia? Travel the globe, just don’t forget your loved ones…or your soul.
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Benevolence
Directed by Mike Payette
BENEVOLENCE (World Premiere)
A Tarragon Theatre Production
Created and Performed by Kevin Matthew Wong
Directed by Mike Payette
April 8 – May 4, 2025
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Kevin is a theatre creator. Kevin is Hakka (客家)…he thinks. Out of the blue, he gets a phone call asking him to write a play about Hakka identity. For seniors. In Markham.
From creator and performer Kevin Matthew Wong (The Chemical Valley Project) comes a charming and intimate story that transforms into a layered Chinese-Canadian tale spanning continents, migrations, and generations.
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After The Rain
Directed by Marie Farsi
AFTER THE RAIN (World Premiere)
A Tarragon Theatre & The Musical Stage Company Co-production
Book by Rose Napoli
Music & Lyrics by Suzy Wilde
Directed by Marie Farsi
May 27 – June 22, 2025
Mainspace
Tarragon and Musical Stage Company co-commission
Her parents are famous. Her boyfriend is stupid. And Suzie is a mess.
When she accepts a mature piano student obsessed with mastering only one song, Erik Satie’s “Gymnopedie No. 1”, struggling songwriter Suzie’s life takes an unforeseen turn. Full of family turmoil, life’s complexities, and centred around a devastating discovery, After the Rain is a musical based on a true story about the healing power of music.
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Vibrant Waveforms
Directed by Eli Pasic
Beneath the colourful lights of a digital metropolis, six young people struggle to find purpose in their idyllic but sheltered existence. When a cryptic message from beyond begins to reveal the nature of their world, they embark on an epic journey to find answers – and themselves along the way. Vibrant Waveforms is a story about love, loss, friendship, and healing. This one-of-a-kind electronic musical brings the awesome power of live synthesizers to the Tarragon Mainspace in July 2024.
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Constellations
Directed by Connor Briggs
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Qalb - A Journey of the Ego
Directed by Debbie Z. Rennie
Qalb means heart in Persian, the native language of the beloved 13th century poet, Rumi. Diving into his world of thoughts and poetry, 1s1 Theatre’s latest production Qalb – A Journey of the Ego is about heart and resilience. Inspired by Dawn Jani Birley’s life as a Deaf person facing audism, her struggle for equity is relatable to all dealing with oppression. Birley turns to the philosophy of Rumi to transform her isolation, anger, and frustration into a force of love in the world.
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Black & Rural
Directed by Shayna Jones
dance Immersion is thrilled to present the Toronto Premiere of this incredibly moving one-woman show by Shayna Jones of B.C., produced by Pi Theatre. Black & Rural incorporates spoken word, movement, and music to create an essential theatre experience that gives voice to rural Canadians of the African Diaspora.
Black & Rural is an artistic inquiry into the hearts and minds of Black folks tucked away on Canada’s countryside. Project lead, Shayna Jones, aims to seek out, honour, and showcase stories from rurally based Blacks (like herself) to nuance and challenge the monolith of what matters to Black Lives. Created and performed by Shayna Jones and produced by Pi Theatre, Black & Rural weaves spoken word, movement, music, and verbatim theatre together in a spellbinding performance that is resonating across the country. www.blackandrural.com
Shayna Jones (she/her) is an award winning actor, a playwright, a folklorist, and a multi-disciplinary spoken word artist specializing in the traditional oral storytelling of African and Afro-Diasporic lore. As a professionally trained performer, vocalist, and fine mover, Shayna has crafted performances for countless audiences across Canada featuring Afro-centric Folk History, Folklore and Contemporary Experience. Learn more about Shayna and her work at: www.wearestoryfolk.com