On a steamy September morning a decade ago, my mother and I crammed her car full of everything we figured I’d need for a Canadian theatre degree. My mom had bought me a winter coat I was certain would be too warm – I discovered by October that it wasn’t – and I had carefully packed a considerable collection of Broadway songbooks.
Globe and Mail theatre critic Aisling Murphy in 2022, in front of her first Mirvish marquee pullquote.The Globe and Mail
No part of me thought I would someday write about theatre for The Globe and Mail. At age 18, on the 10-hour drive from suburban Baltimore to the University of Ottawa, I hardly thought I’d stay in Canada long enough to finish the degree.
But the longer I spent in Ottawa’s arts scene – in theatre classes, in auditions, at the National Arts Centre – the more I learned what it means to thrive in this country. My first year in Canada, I took a theatre exam in a University of Ottawa ice rink, an experience so surreally Canadian that I half-expected the final to be proctored by a beaver or some human embodiment of the word “sorry.”
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Indeed, my experience of Canada is inseparable from my experience of its theatre. Sure, I measure my adulthood by the usual milestones – birthdays, apartments, jobs – but as someone who sees 220-plus shows a year, I also measure it in plays. I remember vividly the first time I read Infinity by Hannah Moscovitch, sticky with sweat in a Gatineau studio; I remember, too, the way I wept when I saw Kat Sandler’s adaptation of Anne of Green Gables.
Here are the 10 plays and musicals that have taught me what it means to be Canadian. They’re not necessarily the best shows I’ve seen, or even my favourites – that’s what end-of-year lists are for – but they’re the works that made me fall in love with this country and with its extraordinary community of theatre-makers.
‘da Kink in My Hair by Trey Anthony
‘da Kink in my Hair examines how it feels to be a Black woman in Canada.DAHLIA KATZ/Soulpepper
This enduring play about a hair salon on Eglinton Street West was the first show I saw in Canada, at the National Arts Centre’s Babs Asper Theatre. I remember I admired the way the work peeled back how it feels to exist as a Black woman in this country; with each additional character, I felt myself learning something new about the place I had chosen to call home.
The Assembly by Alex Ivanovici, Annabel Soutar and Brett Watson
The Assembly script comes from a transcript of four real-life Montrealers discussing hot-button issues.Porte Parole
For my first few years in Ottawa – coincidentally, also the first few years of Donald Trump’s presidency – I somewhat avoided political theatre, not feeling the need to see the vitriol of my Twitter feed replicated on stage.
The Assembly, however, was formative for me as an American still finding my sea legs in Canadian discourse. As a devotee of verbatim theatre, I appreciated seeing North American politics debated with so much nuance – the play’s script, assembled from a transcript of four real-life Montrealers discussing a number of hot-button issues, felt like a juicy conversation, rather than a lecture or rant. As a fledgling critic, I loved, too, that the performance I saw in Ottawa responded directly to J. Kelly Nestruck’s review of the show in Toronto.
Come From Away by David Hein and Irene Sankoff
The cast of the Canadian international hit Come From Away.Matthew Murphy
I often joke that, as The Globe’s theatre reporter, I could write exclusively about Come From Away and never run out of stories. Come From Away, about the diverted flights that landed in Newfoundland on Sept. 11, 2001, was the first show I saw in Toronto, and as a critic, it’s the show I’ve seen most often – and in the most places. Travelling to Gander to see where Come From Away takes place was particularly meaningful; so too was seeing the show in a massive American amphitheatre during Trump’s trade war.
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PlayMe, hosted by Chris Tolley and Laura Mullin
Maev Beaty does a recording for PlayMe of the play Bunny by Hannah Moscovitch.Jeremy Sale/The Globe and Mail
For a theatre student in Ottawa – and, once the pandemic hit, a theatre critic without access to theatres – CBC’s PlayMe was the ultimate boon.
A podcast that sees Canadian scripts transformed into fully produced (and Foley-produced) audio dramas, PlayMe continues to ensure that audiences from coast to coast can enjoy this country’s hottest new plays, no matter where they might be running. My favourite episodes: Hannah Moscovitch’s What a Young Wife Ought to Know and Leanna Brodie’s translation of Wildfire by David Paquet.
The Master Plan by Michael Healey
The Master Plan is Michael Healey’s adaptation of Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy.Supplied
Need a crash course on a slice of Canadian history, distilled into its funniest, most absurd form? Michael Healey’s your guy. The Master Plan, Healey’s adaptation of Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy (by my Globe colleague Josh O’Kane), added fascinating historical context to the work I was doing at the time as a breaking news reporter at Toronto’s CP24. I appreciated, too, that the script gave me a fresh understanding of the city I now know better than Baltimore.
A Christmas Carol, directed by Stafford Arima
A Christmas Carol staged by Theatre Calgary has lavish sets, costumes and music.HarderLee/Supplied
A hazard of my job is the endless stream of Christmas Carols that clog my calendar every December. After seeing at least 20 productions in half as many years, I am sick of Scrooge; I care little if Tiny Tim makes it to New Year’s Day.
But Theatre Calgary’s annual production of the classic tale, performed by an enormous cast, is the exception to this rule. Stafford Arima’s staging, which I saw in 2023 on my first-ever trip to Alberta, was jaw-dropping: Its costumes, music and sets were lavish and rich, expansive in ways I had not yet experienced outside of Broadway. I still think often of the festive dance scene – it was utter theatre magic.
William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, a Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal
Cliff Cardinal's retelling of As You Like It was a gutsy monologue about Canada’s relationship with land acknowledgments.Dahlia Katz/Mirvish
In 2021, Cliff Cardinal’s take on As You Like It was advertised innocuously enough – you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d purchased a ticket to Shakespeare’s famous pastoral comedy – but in reality, the show was a monologue about Canada’s thorny relationship with land acknowledgments, with very little digression into the Bard. Cardinal’s experiment was gutsy and provocative, exactly what this city needed after 18 months of lockdown; even the walkouts from angry patrons who realized they’d been duped were thrilling.
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Prince Faggot by Jordan Tannahill
Canadian playwright Jordan Tannahill’s Prince Faggot has not yet been produced in Canada.Sara Hylton/The Globe and Mail
I must confess I had to return to my home country to see this one – Canadian playwright Jordan Tannahill’s Lucille Lortel Award-winning play has not yet been produced in Canada. But, trade war aside, I’m profoundly grateful I made the trip to New York to see it in 2025. Tannahill’s script, about what might happen if Prince George of Cambridge were to come out as a gay man, was risky and taut, and one of my favourite evenings in a theatre since starting at The Globe and Mail last January.
It’s worth adding that when I was in theatre school, Tannahill was all but proselytized during my classes – the writer is something of a hometown hero in Ottawa – and his book Theatre of the Unimpressed was central to my decision to become a critic in 2019. To see one of his plays produced so thoughtfully, and at such a large scale, felt like the ultimate full-circle moment.
Casey and Diana by Nick Green
From left: Sophia Walker as Vera, Davinder Malhi as Andre and Linda Kash as Marjorie in Casey and Diana.Cylla von Tiedemann/Stratford Festival
Nick Green’s Casey and Diana, first produced at the Stratford Festival in 2023, was special. A Canadian story of queer inheritance and destiny, the play’s premiere was directed sensitively and artfully by Andrew Kushnir, and its starry cast couldn’t have been better-calibrated to Green’s sardonic – yet hopeful – tone.
You don’t get many Casey and Dianas in a career; the play is my unofficial benchmark for new works at the Stratford Festival, and one special show aside (more on that below), nothing has come close to surpassing it.
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Anne of Green Gables, adapted by Kat Sandler
From left: Sarah Dodd as Marilla Cuthbert, Tim Campbell as Matthew Cuthbert and Caroline Toal as Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables.David Hou/Stratford Festival
If there were only one production on this list, the Stratford Festival’s 2025 production of Anne of Green Gables would be it. Kat Sandler’s adaptation – my first encounter with Prince Edward Island’s most famous redhead – was a coming-of-age tale when I needed it most, a warm hug of a story about fighting for what’s right and accepting life’s many changes with grace.
I still can’t quite believe I had never read or seen Anne of Green Gables before (hey, blame my parents!), but perhaps more than any on this list, this play showed me that being Canadian isn’t just paying Canadian taxes or enjoying maple syrup. As made clear by Anne Shirley, being Canadian is caring for your friends; it’s enjoying meals and treats made from Canadian ingredients; it’s frolicking in this country’s oceans, lakes and dells.
And, for me, to be Canadian is to spend time in this country’s theatres. It’s the thing I love most, the way I bond with my friends, the way I spend my weekends and holidays.
Yes, after a decade in this country, my elbows are proudly up – or, most nights, tucked politely by my side in the darkness, taking notes on the plays that have shaped not only this country’s mythology, but my own, too.