Rain and Simone are in the kitchen, prepping dinner. Things are weirdly tense. Suddenly, Rain snaps and accuses Simone of killing his ex-girlfriend, Sally. Of course, Rain doesn’t really have proof of this (other than the time Simone killed a Yorkie for biting her - but they’re an aggressive breed). Simone tries to placate Rain. She’s always bee...

Content warning: murder

Nighttime on a dock on a lake. Tea lights have been carefully arranged on the side of the dock to illuminate a path. Adele stands at the end of a dock holding an urn that contains her husband’s ashes. She takes the lid off the urn, and begins to sprinkle ashes on the water.

Her son Theo joins her and asks what she’s...

Content warning: war

In a shack surrounded by barren fields, a dying father and his son drink their last bowl of water. They need oil for the machines that will keep them alive and purify their water. A truck rolls past with a huge barrel of oil in the back. The son flags it down, only to discover the person driving the truck is a monstrous c...

A blind dancer and the shadow of her former sight share a final dance.

Each of two brother bulls attempts to convince the other to enter the barn. Neither wants to go, knowing their lives are at stake. The two flatter, dare, and challenge one another, until a race finally settles it: first one to the barn wins. Sort of.

An entire relationship in microcosm, from first meeting to last sunset together. This piece uses a couple’s dancing together as a metaphor for their time passing.

In a schoolyard full of kids, nine-year-old Elijah still feels alone. He’s had a lot of trouble from Big Billy Brett, who takes every opportunity to bully and tease Elijah and his friends. For comfort, Elijah brings his favourite kite to school. One day, they meet a strong new girl called Miriam. Miriam isn’t afraid of Billy and stands up to him...

Elvet is struck with grief over the death of his newborn child, not yet named.

Charlie and Robert stand over a toilet examining Charlie's poo and reflecting on lost loved ones.

Content warning: sexual violence, incarceration, religious abuse, homophobia, conversion therapy

Through several vignettes, Forbidden examines the idea of rules and taboos. Do they protect people, or do they control them? Are they of any value, or do they simply exploit the powerless?

A young girl, punished with repetition of religious tex...

It’s “gotcha day” – the term used for the first meeting between birth parents and adopted children – and Adam is about to meet his birth mother, Eileen. The reunion goes awry and they begin to wonder who has got whom.

Singer-songwriter Josie works on a song in her shared Portland apartment, a girl-at-the-guitar on the cusp of leaving for New York City and a long-anticipated big break. Though her luggage is packed and she’s almost out the door, her boyfriend interjects with objections—he’ll miss her. Josie’s reassurances, dreams of him visiting her on the East...

At 4 a.m., a composer stands looking out the window, his tools nearby. Across town, a librettist is doing the same. Both are just slightly panicking about their latest work: an opera about a dog named Harley. This work is a meditation on the personal doubt, collegial suspicion, and sudden inspiration that can keep artists awake until the wee hours.

Content warning: racism, colonialism, violence, death

In 1880’s China, Lai Gwan, a young impoverished woman, stands on the brink of momentous change. Her dying mother urges her to respect and honour the memory of her father, Manli, whose disappearance to the New World haunts them both.

Armed with the hope that she will find her father aliv...

Content warning: xenophobia, migration

A young child wakes up alone on the beach. They call for their mother. The sound of the waves muffles the voices of people who worry about newcomers and the effect that they will have on their society. Other voices take over - other children declaring that the child belongs with them now.

Inspired by ...

Content warning: death, murder, suicide, xenophobia

Jason, an army captain and now war-hero, is returning home after years of war and an uncertain future. His interpreter and lover M’dea and their son Chase accompany him to a new life in the West. Jason begins a political career, working alongside the President and Dahlia, the President’s bea...

An Iranian man sits in a hotel room in Canada, writing his morning prayers.

Content warning: death

Just below the summit of Mount Everest on the south summit ridge, Jackie and her partner Pasang are celebrating that she is the first woman to reach the summit without oxygen. Then something changes. Could it be Mother Everest punishing the climbers?

Partition in 1947 drives Naila’s family to the new country of Pakistan while her best friend Lolo must remain in India. In a child’s-eye view of this world event, the significant concerns for these two nine-year-olds are custody of a tin box with important valuables (“marbles and flowers and keys and rings”), and the care and feeding of a pet ra...

Noor Over Afghan is set in Afghanistan, and tells the story of two young Afghani sisters, Noor and Jaan. But Jaan is dying, and begs Noor to take her place in the marriage and have her child. By the time the groom finds out, Jaan will have died. They swap places, Noor disguised by the veil.

In a country torn by war, a woman works as a bell-ringer. There used to be many more in the tower, but one by one the bells were taken: metal for the war-machine. A man climbs the tower after hearing her play the one remaining bell. What seems at first a meeting of two lovers turns dark as the man tries to claim the bell. They need the metal for...

Across eight brief vignettes, couples experience small moments of frustration, miscommunication, and attraction.

Content warning: captivity, memory loss

Laura has been forcibly confined in a basement for years until she frees herself. She approaches a stranger on the street, wondering if the stranger remembers her, and discovers that she barely remembers herself.

An estranged father and daughter re-establish their relationship after he has suffered a stroke and can no longer speak. He tries to convey to her that he loves her and is sorry for the harm he caused her. She is still too hurt from their past to see what he is trying to say. Instead, she passes the time by reading a book. He finds another way o...

Content warning: stalking

A young barista seems to know a surprising amount about one of the customers at her cafe.

Content warning: death, sex work

After the tragic death of her first child, a baby daughter, Isabelle has run away to another town in Spain to escape the grief, leaving her husband Hector with a double loss. They are a working-class couple. The scene opens with Isabelle expecting a client in a seedy bordello. Hector has found her. He entreats...

An opera for all ages. Sydney, an Asian elephant poached at a young age from the jungles of Indonesia, recalls her remarkable life in captivity, far from home, as her keeper of 22 years leads her on a journey towards sanctuary in the hills of Tennessee. A dynamic weaving of opera and dance unearths friendships lost and found and restores a stole...

Content warning: colonial violence, colonialsm, death, illness

1828, Notre Dame Bay, on the northeast shore of Newfoundland. William Cormack, an explorer and anthropologist, has recently created the Beothuk Institute: an organization designed to prevent the extinction of the original inhabitants of the island. After learning that a Beothuk wo...

A woman and her grown son are leaving their home. It’s time for bed, but the boy insists they play his favourite game one last time. Begrudgingly, the mother agrees. They make up ways of killing an unnamed woman.

When the game is over, the boy asks what would happen if they killed the woman “for real,” if it would make his father love them ag...

A sister and brother go through the belongings of their recently departed mother and find an old snow globe from their youth. They both really want to keep it. A bitter fight ensues and the sister inadvertently blurts out a very painful secret.

Content warning: gun violence, death, mass shooting

In the Blue Room of the Quebec National Assembly, Denis Lortie kills and wounds people with a submachine gun as a protest against Quebec sovereignty.

Content warning: child sexual abuse, incest, death, murder

Judith and Daniel, long estranged siblings, are brought together by the passing of their father. Time has passed, but it seems like Judith hasn't changed at all. Daniel kills his sister when she wants to resume their childhood sexual relationship.

The scene is divided into two sections: a tense argument between mother and child, and a tender aria for the mother as she finally reveals a painful truth to her son about the prolonged absence of his father.

A businessman is waiting for a streetcar, with his back to an unhoused woman. The two silently judge each other. The man is annoyed at seeing someone who wants something for nothing, and the woman is feeling judged for a situation she has no control over. The two finally acknowledge each other, and we discover their shared experience.

Content warning: descriptions of enslavement, violence, sexual violence, death

A father will do anything to save his daughter. Of the Sea follows the story of Maduka, his daughter Binyelum, and fellow Africans thrown overboard during the Middle Passage who now populate mythical underwater kingdoms that span the ocean floor. Amidst the waves, ...

Content warning: death, suicide

Dragon’s Tale is the story of a young Chinese-Canadian woman (Xiao Lian) and her ailing father, both living in Toronto. Xiao Lian wakes up in the ancient past and witnesses the last days of one of China’s greatest poets, Qu Yuan. In doing so, she begins to understand her father and herself as she returns to a c...

A 12 minute long opera, it is set during the 1996 Olympics and Paralympics held in Atlanta.  A Paralympic athlete with a disability, and a person of color made homeless by the construction of Olympic sites, meet by chance in Piedmont Park in front of a strange statue.  “Before the Last Meter” explores and humanizes the themes of ambition, home, ...

Content warning: gun violence, strong language, terminal illness, attempted assisted suicide

A father and son argue in a dark alley.  The father, sick with a tumour "the size of a fig" in his brain, begs his son to end his life.  When the gun they're using fails and the son panics, the father offers comfort and encouragement in the form of a ...

Content warning: war, death, gun violence

A young mother with her infant daughter is threatened by an armed military officer escorting prisoners. She wants to wait for her husband, but the officer tells her he is probably already dead. The woman sings a lament to her baby, then pleads with the officer to take her baby and raise her as his own.

Content warning: infidelity

An ambitious politician gleefully shares with his mistress the news that his party may soon be back in power.  The mistress shares her own news: she is pregnant.