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Ideas Too Big to Fit on a Single Stage

For more than 15 years, we’ve developed, co-produced and toured plays that are loved and critically acclaimed. After navigating years in lockdown, we were thrilled to finally present innovative live productions on the national and international stage.

• In the spring, our first full-length film What You Won’t Do For Love, featuring renowned environmentalists Dr. David Suzuki and Tara Cullis, toured to British Columbia and Winnipeg after a successful Toronto premiere. In June, we brought the live production to the Luminato Festival and partnered with Coach House Books on a book version. Click here to buy or rent the film, or click here to purchase the book.
• In the fall, our intersectional and bilingual English/ASL production of Prince Hamlet embarked on an exciting 8-stop North American tour, crisscrossing the USA before ending at Robert Lepage’s Le Diamant in Quebec City. Learn more about the production here.
• In October, our Founder and Co-Artistic Director, Ravi Jain, was selected as a finalist for the 2022 Siminovitch Prize. This year’s shortlist shone a spotlight on directors from across the country who are blazing new paths in Canadian theatre. Watch a short documentary about Ravi’s art practices here, and view the full ceremony here.
• To close out the year, we brought French-Norwegian puppetry company, Plexus Polaire’s visually-stunning adaptation of Moby Dick to Canada for a sold-out run at Harbourfront Centre. Watch our conversation with director Yngvild Aspeli here, and a trailer of the production here.

More Artists, More Stories

In 2022, we continued to support new voices from across the country by sharing our resources and platforms, and helping artists bring their unique visions to the stage.

• In January, we supported artist-in-residence Nikki Shafeeullah’s workshop of her new work, A Poem for Rabia. Weaving together stories of three generations of women impacted by colonization, the play spans 200 years and three different states undergoing major political shifts.
• In July, in association with Why Not, Paul Watson Productions brought their raucous ‘feminist circus’ MASHUP PON DI ROAD on a flatbed truck to neighbourhoods across Toronto, stopping in Assembly Park, Little Jamaica and The Bentway. An adapted version of the show, called MASHUP ting! then travelled across the border to Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre in New York City!
• We continued to support Ian Kamau as a SHARE artist-in-residence. We’re excited to share that Ian’s work, Loss, a live-arts multimedia performance exploring mental health in Afro-Caribbean communities, produced by The Theatre Centre, will be premiering at Luminato Festival Toronto in 2023.
• SHARE artists Dawn Jani Birley, Quote Unquote, and Sunny Drake meanwhile continued development on their respective new works  – Lady Macbeth, Universal Childcare, and Climate Change and Other Small Talk. Look out for these productions!

Art for Everyone, by Everyone

Throughout the year, we’ve been committed in our pursuit to create real change in our community and sector. In order to remove barriers for artists, we opened doors wider and continued to pursue innovative models to promote a more equitable future for all.

• This spring, we welcomed a new cohort of ten BIPOC women, trans, and non-binary artists to an expanded two-year ThisGen Fellowship in partnership with the National Arts Centre (NAC). Thanks to our pals at the NAC, in addition to the Fellowship’s regular training components, this year we were able to gather for an in-person residency in Ottawa. Learn more about ThisGen from 2022 participants here.
• In April, after two years without live performances, RISER Toronto, came back stronger than ever, presenting five new works by indie artists – three in-person at The Theatre Centre (Don Valley Girls, An IMM-Permanent Resident, TAOS) and two online (Monica vs. The Internet, What Brings You In). 
• RISER also went national in 2022! In partnership with Common Ground Arts Society, RISER Edmonton’s inaugural participants (Cuban Movements Dance Academy, Even Gilchrist, NASRA, Tai Amy Grauman) presented their projects following a year of mentorship.
• Alongside Canadian Urban Institute and Entremise, in October, we launched the National Meanwhile Space Network–Le Réseau National des Lieux Transitoires as part of our Space Project. This nation-wide collective of arts and nonprofit organizations is working to find affordable space solutions for artists and nonprofits.

Making an Important Step on to the World Stage

Wow, what a year 2022 was! Our team is taking a much-deserved opportunity to rest, but once we return in January, it’s all hands on deck. We’ll be premiering the largest production in the history of our company, a 2-part retelling of the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata at the Shaw Festival, and touring internationally afterwards. To make this ambitious project a reality, we recently launched our  Mahabharata Circle of supporters.