Factory’s 2023/2024 Season has been announced!
Graphic Design by Awake Studio
FACTORY THEATRE, Toronto’s vibrant centre for Canadian theatre, announces its 2023-24 Season, the first curated by Artistic Director Mel Hague. The season brings together an impressive roster of nationally recognized and award-winning artists to offer audiences a year of fun, joyful, and thrilling live performances.
Through the delicate beauty of The Waltz, the sardonic brilliance of Monster and Here Lies Henry, and the multiversal supernova of In the Kitchen, Factory’s 2023-24 Season explores our most intimate moments, our basest instincts, our biggest fears – and brings it all to our stages.
Mel Hague, Artistic Director & Mark Aikman, Managing Director.
The 2023-24 Season kicks off with the return of THE WALTZ, written by Marie Beath Badian, directed by Nina Lee Aquino, and starring Ericka Leobrera & Anthony Perpuse. Badian’s sequel to her hit play Prairie Nurse continues the intergenerational story of two Filipino families who immigrate to Canada. Set on the doorsteps of a rustic cabin in north-east Saskatchewan, The Waltz captures one perfect moment when two teenagers, whose histories are serendipitously interwoven, spend one evening with a boom box under the magnificent prairie sky at dusk. Brimming with 90’s nostalgia, this smash hit, which charmed audiences last year, continues to capture their hearts as it explores whether we can ever feel truly at home. Presented in the Mainspace Theatre September 6 – 17, 2023 before touring to Prairie Theatre Exchange (Winnipeg, MB) November 14 – 26, 2023 and the Great Canadian Theatre Company (Ottawa, ON) February 13 – 25, 2024.
Next in the season is a pair of iconic shows from playwright Daniel MacIvor, MONSTER and HERE LIES HENRY. Finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Drama, MONSTER peels back the psychological layers of 16 different characters to reveal the dark heart of individual experience. With a masterful blend of suspense, humor, and raw emotion, Monster invites you to confront your fears and embrace the complexities that make us human. Daniel MacIvor’s chilling one-person show returns featuring powerhouse performer Karl Ang, directed by Soheil Parsa (who returns to Factory after his multi-Dora Award winning production of Wildfire in 2022). Presented in the Studio Theatre November 16 – December 10, 2023.
In HERE LIES HENRY, director Tawiah M’Carthy takes on MacIvor’s seminal one-person show about a man alone in a room with a mission to tell you something you don’t already know, with Damien Atkins stepping into the iconic role. Henry is nervous, a self-proclaimed liar, and compelled by some unknown force to tell us his life story. MacIvor’s spellbinding head-scratcher of a one-man play twists and turns, flips and sidesteps through Henry’s struggle to grasp the meaning of life, love, beauty, death, truth and lies. Presented in the Mainspace Theatre November 23 – December 17, 2023.
During the run, on Sundays audiences will be able to see them back-to-back on a single ticket.
The season concludes with the world premiere of IN THE KITCHEN, a new work from playwrights Fatuma Adar, Augusto Bitter, Olivier Choinière in a translation by Bobby Theodore, and Rosa Laborde, directed by Kat Sandler. These four playwrights join forces to tackle the classic ‘kitchen sink drama’ trope. Sharing a cast and set, the anthology of new works creates a mini-multiverse inside a kitchen and one unforgettable night of theatre. Presented in the Mainstage Theatre March 8 – 31, 2024.
We are so grateful to share this season with you. Whether you join us for a play, for a talk, or an afternoon chatting with your friends in our courtyard, welcome to Factory. Make yourself at home.
Mel Hague & Mark Aikman.