Centaur Theatre 57th Season

Centaur Theatre 57th Season

CENTAUR THEATRE ANNOUNCES ITS 2025-26 SEASON:

THE VIEW FROM HERE

May 26,  2025

Centaur Theatre unveiled its new 2025–2026 57th season, themed The View From Here. This new lineup invites audiences to reflect on where we stand—personally, culturally, and artistically—and to consider how perspective shapes our understanding of the world around us. From reimagined classics to bold new voices, each production offers a distinct lens on identity, resilience, memory, and transformation. Through genre-defying collaborations, world premieres, and unique theatrical moments, The View From Here is both an artistic snapshot of the present and a call to imagine what’s possible next.

Eda Holmes, Artistic and Executive Director of Centaur Theatre, stated:

“The View From Here is about perspective—where we are, where we've been, and where we're headed. This season invites audiences to see the world through different lenses: across cultures, generations, and imaginations. The works we’ve curated are courageous, theatrical, and deeply human—stories that challenge assumptions, spark joy, and leave lasting impressions. Whether you’re a longtime theatregoer or discovering Centaur for the first time, this season offers new ways of seeing and feeling. I can’t wait to share these remarkable journeys with Montreal audiences.”  

The following plays will be staged during the 57th Season:

Stone and Bone Spectacular

October 15 – October 26, 2025

The season opens with Stone and Bone Spectacular  a vibrant new work created by Ange Loft, in collaboration with Barbara Kaneratonni Diabo and Iehente Foote, with Tehatkathonnions Bush, Iehente Foote, Stéphanie Héroux-Brazeau, Wahsontí:io Kirby, Véronik Picard and Iota’keratenion Thomas-Beaton. This large-scale Indigenous production blends puppetry, dance, and storytelling to explore the layered history of Tiohtià:ke (Montreal). The outcome of Centaur’s inaugural Indigenous Artist Residency, Stone and Bone Spectacular is a playful and profound look at the history of Tiohtià:ke featuring dancing beavers, stone-lifting stunts, and long-lost lovers.

Kisses Deep 

November 26 – December 14, 2025

Next, the English-language premiere of Kisses Deep by Michel Marc Bouchard, and translated by Linda Gaboriau. takes the stage . This long-awaited English-language premiere tells the story of the transformational relationship between a troubled, gifted young man and his complex and inspiring mother. Directed by Eda Holmes, the cast includes Lyndz Dantiste, Yves Jacques, Leni Parker, Alice Pascual, and Kevin Raymond.

Goblin: Macbeth

March 4 – March 22, 2026

In 2026, the second half of the season begins with a spontaneous theatre creation by Rebecca Northan and Bruce Horak, directed by Rebecca Northan. When three goblins—Kragva, Moog, and Wug—come across The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, they eagerly take over a theatre and attempt their own wild, hilarious, and chaotic version of Macbeth. A one-of-a-kind blend of comedy, tragedy, and improvisation, Goblin:Macbeth is a mischievous, theatrical joyride.

Seeker

April 15 – May 3, 2026

Last but not least, a gripping sci-fi drama by Marie-Claude Verdier, translated by Alexis Diamond and presented in partnership with Talisman Theatre. Directed by Rebecca Gibian, with Bénédicte Bélizaire and Andrew Shaver, this hard-hitting sci-fi drama follows a pair of exes hired by the US military to conduct a mysterious mission on Mars that could have consequences for all of humanity. 

Centaur Theatre: Strawberries in January

Centaur Theatre / 56th Season

STRAWBERRIES IN JANUARY

A MUSICAL FANTASY

Based on the play by Evelyne de la Chenelière 

Des fraise en janvier

The World English Language Premiere 

In Collaboration with Théâtre Advienne que pourra

January 21 - February 9, 2025

Montreal's Centaur Theatre is presenting a new play with a fitting title and timing for the present cold month of January: Strawberries in January - A Musical Fantasy. For Centaur, it is also a fruitful and joyous collaboration with the Théâtre Advienne que pourra, located in Repentigny.

This new English-language musical version of a Québec's classic was adapted by a talented director Frédéric Bélanger and a songwriter Audrey Thériault and features original music by Ludovic Bonnier, Eva Foote and Habib Zekri.

It is based on the award-winning play Des fraises en janvier by Evelyne de la Chenelière. This new adaptation is a vibrant exploration of love, serendipity, and human connections, set against the wintry backdrop of Montreal. Its lovely music and singing add additional vibrancy to the original play. Strawberries in January - A Musical Fantasy offers a fresh perspective on the interwoven lives of four single people searching for meaning, love, and laughter amidst their daily routine and trials.

Centaur's musical adaptation of the play features eighteen toe-tapping tunes, arranged by Nick Carpenter and Habib Zekri, that add additional layers of emotion and melody to this modern romantic tale.

The Director Frédéric Bélanger expressed it very precisely when stating:

"Strawberries in January invites audiences to reflect on the power of chance and the beauty of human connection, all while immersing them in a world of song and storytelling. It’s a show that warms the heart and brightens the soul, perfect for the cold winter months.”

Eda Holmes, Centaur Theatre Artistic & Executive Director, also added:

“I am thrilled by the opportunity to introduce the English community to the exceptional talent of director Frédéric Bélanger. He has nurtured the musical adaptation of Strawberries in January since 2016. We began working together on it just before the pandemic and being able to bring it to the stage at last is a testament to the resilience of the artists of the Montreal theatre community. It is a play that celebrates the power of love and imagination to overcome every obstacle and that is a story we all need right now.”

This is an exceptionally heart-warming play that portrays people's straggles to find in their lives love, meaning, happiness, as well as true friends and life partners.

Creative Team

• Original Playwright: Evelyne de la Chenelière

• Translator: Morwyn Brebner

• Adaptation / Director: Frédéric Bélanger

• Adaptation / Original Music: Audrey Thériault

• Original Music: Ludovic Bonnier

• Original Music: Eva Foote

• Original Music / Arrangements: Habib Zekri

• Musical Direction / Arrangements: Nick Carpenter

• Song Translations: Alexis Diamond

Cast

• Eloi ArchamBaudoin

• Ryan Bommarito

• Métushalème Dary

• Madeleine Scovil

Musicians

• Khalil Bouaziz

• Quinn Dooley

• Tobias Kimmelman

• Christophe Papadimitriou

Performance Details:

Dates: Tuesday, January 21 to Sunday, February 9, 2025
Times: Tuesdays to Saturdays at 8:00 PM, with matinees on Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00 PM

French surtitles: January 30 and 31 at 8:00PM; February 1 at 2:00PM

Location: Centaur 1, Centaur Theatre, 453 St. Francois-Xavier, Montreal

Tickets: Prices range from $22 to $68, with subscription rates, group rates, and student/senior discounts available. Tickets can be purchased at www.centaurtheatre.com or by phone at 514-288-3161.

All images in this article courtesy of Centaur Theatre, Photographer Andrée Lanthier.

For more information about Centaur Theatre visit the Centaur Theatre website.

SOCIAL MEDIA:

FB: @CentaurTheatreCompany 
IG: @CentaurTheatre 
YouTube: @CentaurTheatreCompany ash@b-rebelpr.com  

Centaur Theatre: Sakura

Centaur Theatre / 56th Season

SAKURA – After Chekhov

Written by Harry Standjofski

Directed by Eda Holmes

With Deena Aziz, Ravyn R. Bekh, Stefanie Buxton, Marcel Jeannin, Marc-Antoine Kelertas, Howard Rosenstein, and Paul Van Dyck

September 17, 2024 — October 6, 2024

This is a world premiere adaptation of a 19^th century Russian play, based on Anton Chekhov’s masterpiece The Cherry Orchard, a story of a pre-revolutionary Russian upper-class (gentry) family forced to sell their estate, including a beloved orchard, to pay off debts that have accumulated from years of mismanagement and self-indulgence. Yet if one cherishes the original Chekhov's plays, the subtle and even elusive way he portrays his characters, their dilemmas and relationships, as well as the general mood and wider social connotations, the Harry Standjofski's reinterpretation of the play for the 21th century is very different. Although he uses the same though renamed characters as in the Chekov's play, with basically the same plot, his play fails to create a deep sympathy for the personages on stage as do the original Chekov's plays.

Moreover, the Standjofski's play is supposed to be a "witty comedy with a hint of nostalgia". Chekov's play was not a comedy. This is where the plays of two playwriters part. The frequent language crudity and the enactment on stage of the sex act bring both plays even further apart.

Harry Standjofski is a Montreal playwright and actor. His play is based on the present day's milieu that surrounds him and that he knows the best: their current sensibilities, the language usage, their relationships, and how they tend to express their frustrations and desires. A great number of the audience could relate to that and even identify with it. However, those who might hope to see a Chekov-type of play might be disappointed.

All images in this article courtesy of Centaur Theatre.

For more information about Centaur Theatre visit the Centaur Theatre website.

MOB

Centaur Theatre / 51th Season

MOB

English-language Premiere

Written by Catherine-Anne TOUPIN

Translation by Chris CAMPBELL

Directed by Andrew SHAVER

With: Susan BAIN | Matthew KABWE | Adrianne RICHARDS

March 3 – 29, 2020

This play was written by a Quebec TV and film star Catherine-Anne Toupin. The original French production of La meute (the French title of MOB) first played at Montreal's Théâtre La Licorne in January 2018. It enjoyed an immediate box office and critics' success and was re-staged at La Licorne in the summer 2018, and once again in the fall 2019. Catherine-Anne Toupin played the principal character Sophie in all French productions of this play. She is also admired by numerous fans for her roles in highly successful Quebec TV series Boomerang and Unité 9.

Sophie, the MOB's principal character, is a highly skilled professional with a 20 years experience in her field. She loses her job under nerve-racking, sinister circumstances. Disturbed and hurt, she drives out of town, eventually stopping at a B&B run by aging Louise and her engaging nephew Martin. Several booze-fortified evenings lead to more direct verbal exchanges between Martin and Sophie, resulting in an irksome scheming between the two. It is only at that point one becomes aware that the play is a clever psychological chiller with the most revealing ending.

The play deals with a wide-spread and even intensifying phenomenon which also might have touched others in the audience. Under stress, Sophie talks to herself as if in a split-personality type of state. Though this might only be a theatrical device to elucidate better her tragic reality, it is not unusual to experiences a crack, a split in one's psyche under psychological duress. In the world with the falling moral and ethical standards, when ethics and spirituality are being viewed by many as something useless and outdated, the round-about face changes in play's characters point to a much more disturbing phenomenon in the psychological make-up of our society.

Be prepared for explosive shouting and obscenities and other play's sinister and disturbing elements, thought many might also find funny elements in it. Catherine-Anne Toupin positions herself as a black humor comedian.

PRODUCTION TEAM

Set & Costume Designer: James LAVOIE

Lighting Designer: Martin SIROIS

Sound Designer: Jesse ASH

Stage Manager: Sarah-Marie LANGLOIS

Assistant Director: Sarah SEGAL-LAZAR

Apprentice Stage Manager: Trevor BARRETTE

Click on images to enlarge them.

Hover your mouse over images for description and credits.

For more information, visit the Centaur Theatre website.

Little Dickens

Centaur Theatre / 51th Season

LITTLE DICKENS

Quebec Premiere

November 19 - December 21, 2019

Created & Performed by Ronnie BURKETT

With Musical Arrangements by John ALCORN

Production Manager & Artistic Associate Terri GILLIS

Stage Manager Crystal SALVERDA

Every performance of Daisy Theatre show is unique, improvised on the spot, adjusted to the audience's mood and reactions. It also relies on the volunteers from the audience Burkett gets to participate in his play. Stated plainly, there is no written script. These puppet performances cannot be reproduced or performed by anybody else but their creator Ronnie Burkett.

Little Dickens is a funny and edgy remix of Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas Carol. It also launches the early Yuletide celebrations at Centaur.

The Dickens's character Scrooge is impersonated by the aging Diva Esmé. As she launces her midnight journey that leads to her inner redemption, she encounters many other Daisy Theatre well-known puppets, now all interpreting Dickens’ infamous characters. Presented in vaudevillian style, music ties all parts of the performance together: Christmas remixes and sultry jazz solos helping with the joyful merriment of the Fezziwig’s party.

ABOUT RONNIE BURKETT

Captivated by puppetry since the age of seven, Ronnie Burkett began touring his shows at the age of fourteen. His Theatre of Marionettes was formed in 1986, playing on Canada’s major stages and abroad. Ronnie received the 2009 Siminovitch Prize, The Herbert Whittaker Drama Bench Award for Outstanding Contribution to Canadian Theatre, a Village Voice OBIE Award and four Citations of Excellence from the American Center of the Union Internationale de la Marionnette. In 2019, Ronnie Burkett was appointed as an Officer of The Order of Canada.

AGE RESTRICTION: 16 years and over

Click on images to enlarge them.

All photos courtesy of @ Centaur Theatre.

For more information, visit the Centaur Theatre website.

More about this performance here.

Blind Date

Centaur Theatre / 50th Season

BLIND DATE

Spontaneous Theatre Creation 

by Rebecca Northon

April 9 - 28, 2019

Starring Rebecca Northan, Emma Brager, David Benjamin Tomlinson and Lili Beaudoin as Scenographer.

Blind Date, a comedy, is the closing play of the Centaur Theatre's 50th anniversary season (2018-2019). This is also a celebratory year for the Spontaneous Theatre Creation, their 10th anniversary season. Founded and created by the master improviser Rebecca Northan, the Spontaneous Theatre Creation performances had earned an acclaim in the on-stage theater world for it energetic, unpredictable stage enactments, where each night a different blind date encounter takes place.

A blind date partner is chosen from the audience. The play is about 90 minutes long, without an intermission, and the professional actor has to actively engage the "blind date" volunteer to support and navigate his untrained onstage presence. The clumsy, awkward moments have to be blazed over with the principle actor's acting skills, assuring the professionalism of each performance. 

Rebecca Northan's stage presence as Mimi is powerful and impressive. She makes the audience laugh. She is also tremendously skilled in making her volunteer "blind date" to navigate through the invented onstage story-line even when venturing into areas of discomfort.

In addition to the Mimi's principal onstage personage, a male sole principle actor was also added. Rebecca Northan stated:  

“… an audience member asked, ‘Would you ever do a queer version?’ and it’s in our nature to say, ‘YES!’”

You can see David Benjamin Tomlinson playing an onstage character Mathieu on Thursday nights April 11, 18 and 25.

Blind Date was originally commissioned as a 10-minute piece for the Spiegelshow at Toronto’s Harbourfront as part of World Stage. The full-length production has been touring since 2009 across Canada and the US, selling out in Toronto, on Broadway and in London's West End.

ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES

Sunday Chat-Up

April 14 at 12:30pm

Join Lucinda Chodan, the Montreal Gazette's Editor-in-Chief, in conversation with Shôvàne Brisindi, from Clowns Without Borders, who will talk about her latest visit to Haiti. For over 20 years, Clowns Without Borders has been organizing shows and workshops for people affected by war, misery, or exclusion. This is also a free public event with refreshments provided by Bonaparte Restaurant.

 
Post-Show Talkbacks

Thursday April 25 and Sunday April 28

Audience members are invited to stay after the performances for insightful Q&A’s with these masters of improvisation and spontaneous theatre.
 
Saturday Salon

April 27 following the 2pm matinée in Centaur’s main floor gallery. Eda’s guest will be Rebecca Northan, creator and performer of Blind Date, which celebrates its 10-year anniversary and 800^th performance while at Centaur Theatre!  

For more information, visit the Centaur Theatre website.

The Shoplifters

Centaur Theatre / 50th Season

THE SHOPLIFTERS

Written & directed by Morris Panych

March 19 - April 7, 2019

Morris Panych, who wrote and directed of The Shoplifters, is the two-time Governor General’s Award-winning Canadian playwright. The Shoplifters is a comedy about the effects of consumerism on people from the lower socially divided strata of our urban communities.

The play had a world premiere in 2014, in Washington, DC, a huge metropolitan area and a capital city of the world’s most powerful country that is dedicated to free enterprise and the power of the dollar. Ironically, the plays’ character Alma remarks, “You wanna talk about stealing? Who stole the American dream?”

Alma, a feisty geriatric shoplifter, spends her time helping to redistribute what she classifies as undeserved corporate profit to her less fortunate neighbours. Through her interaction with the play’s other three characters, it become apparent she is quite conscious how her steeling actually creates jobs not only for the security guards, but also all those who design and produce security equipment. Her comments lead the audience to ponder on the mechanics of the modern capitalist societies, and how nothing can really be qualified as terribly bad because in the long run all people’s disruptive, negative behaviours lead to stimulating industries to curb them, consequently creating innovations, jobs, more capital and more money.

Eda Holmes, Centaur Theatre’s Artistic and Executive Director, stated:

“Morris is one of Canada’s best contemporary humorists, looking at important, timely issues with the social consciousness of the guy on the street. With The Shoplifters, he questions right versus wrong within the larger corporate context. Grey areas abound but at its core, The Shoplifters is a love story of sorts: loving your community and putting it first. The wonderful eccentricities of these characters give us hope for humanity.” 

PRODUCTION TEAM

Actors: Ellen David, Marie-Ève Perron, Michel Perron, Laurent Pitre

Set & Costume Designer: Ken MacDonald

Lighting Designer: Alan Brodie  
Fight Director: Sylvio Archambault

Associate Lighting Designer: Eryn Griffith
Stage Manager: Elaine Normandeau
Assistant Stage Manager: Danielle Laurin  

Click on images to enlarge them.

Hover your mouse over images for description and credits.

Post-Show Talkbacks:  Thursday March 28 and Sunday March 31. Audience members are invited to stay after the performances for insightful Q&A’s with members of the play's production team.

For more information, visit the Centaur Theatre website.