A new production of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s 'Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)' will be one of the season’s centrepiece plays.Supplied
Canadian Stage will produce Cabaret, the 1966 musical by John Kander, Fred Ebb and Joe Masteroff, as part of its 2026-27 season, the company announced on Friday.
The programming marks a return to large-scale musical theatre for the company, which has not presented a traditional musical since its 2014 production of London Road.
In recent years, the company has experimented with musicals for its Dream in High Park programming and its holiday pantomimes. But Cabaret, staged at the Bluma Appel Theatre by Shaw Festival associate artistic director Kimberley Rampersad, will be Canadian Stage’s first major musical in more than a decade.
“This is the moment for this particular story,” said Canadian Stage artistic director Brendan Healy. The show, set in the late 1920s and early ‘30s, takes place in Berlin during the Nazis’ rise to power. Story-wise, it follows Sally Bowles, the British nightclub performer who will be portrayed by Sara Farb, and Clifford Bradshaw, an American writer whose casting has not yet been announced. Allan Louis will play Cabaret’s Emcee.
“The resistance presented inside the show, these themes of finding pleasure and joy and self-expression in challenging times, is really apt for right now,” Healy continued. “Musical theatre is part of our tradition, our history, and I’ve been trying to find a project for Kimberley to do for us for years. For me, it’s a huge achievement to be able to bring her to Toronto, and to Canadian Stage – she’s such an exquisite director and choreographer.”
As far as its wintertime pantomime, Canadian Stage will produce a new version of Cinderella in the Winter Garden Theatre in December. Written by longtime panto scribe Matt Murray and directed by Theatre Aquarius artistic director Mary Francis Moore, the show will feature Stephanie Sy as Cinderella and TikTok personality Mitch Wood as Fairy Bum.
The 2026-27 season opens this summer with the company’s annual Dream in High Park, which will feature Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, directed by Gregory Prest.
Then, in September, comes the Canadian premiere of Alice Childress’s Wine in the Wilderness, directed by associate artistic director Jordan Laffrenier (Slave Play) and featuring Mazin Elsadig, Virgilia Griffith, Andrew Moodie and L.A. Sweeney.
November brings one of the season’s centrepiece plays, a new production of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), first produced by Nightwood Theatre in 1988. The revival, staged at the Bluma Appel Theatre, will be directed by Alisa Palmer and will feature MacDonald as academic Constance Ledbelly, alongside Praneet Akilla, Jessica B. Hill, Mike Shara and Caroline Toal.
“The writing is so witty, which is why this play has stood the test of time,” said Healy. “It’s important for us that artists are able to revisit works and step back into their old work. Our mandate allows us to do that.” Healy added that MacDonald has made updates to the script that “bring it into the present day,” with small tweaks to the play’s characters as well as its setting.
Meanwhile, in Canadian Stage’s more intimate Marilyn and Charles Baillie Theatre, the company will present Rogers v. Rogers, Crow’s Theatre’s sellout dramedy about Edward Rogers and his fight to control one of Canada’s largest telecom companies. Tom Rooney will reprise his role as the bumbling capitalist.
“There continues to be interest in this story,” said Canadian Stage executive director Monica Esteves. “It’s a show that balances our other offerings in the Baillie Theatre quite nicely.” She added that the Canadian Stage engagement will be part of a tour for the show, which will also be presented by the Great Canadian Theatre Company in Ottawa.
Next winter, Canadian Stage will kick off the new year with the world premiere of Kate Hennig’s Sex in the ‘80s, directed by Tanja Jacobs and featuring Hennig, Oliver Dennis, Jacob MacInnis and Heeyun Park. “It looks at sex retroactively,” explained Healy. “It’s about looking at a sexual encounter and asking questions from today’s perspective, which I find to be a really provocative question: Can you hold your behaviour to the standards of today?”
After Cabaret, which begins previews on Feb. 13, 2027, the company will produce Raised by Women, the solo show performed and written by Keith Barker about his upbringing in northern Ontario. The production will be directed by Yvette Nolan.
Canadian premiere of Jen Silverman’s adaptation of August Strindberg’s 'Creditors' will close out the season.DAHLIA KATZ/Supplied
Closing out the season is the Canadian premiere of Jen Silverman’s adaptation of August Strindberg’s Creditors, directed by Healy. The production, which will feature Paul Gross, Kristen Thomson and Prest, closes out a project for Healy that’s seen him tackle plays about marriage, building on his stagings of A Doll’s House and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
“I’m always trying to do work that reflects a question in my life,” says Healy. “It’s such a middle-aged thing to do, but I have a lot of questions about marriage. What is it? What are relationships? What is love, and particularly in a conjugal context? I wanted these plays to look at marriage in a way that would help me understand that concept – I wanted to learn something inside myself about love, and I have. While I’m sure I’ll do many other plays about marriage, this will mark the official end to my triptych.”