The 2026-27 season at Crow’s Theatre will include a number of works that adapt Canadian books into stage shows, beginning with A Fine Balance, adapted from the Giller Prize-winning 1995 novel. Chris Abraham, Crow’s Theatre’s artistic director, is pictured in 2020.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
A year ago, Chris Abraham, artistic director of Crow’s Theatre, was faced with a dilemma: Should he stay at Crow’s, the Toronto-based company he’s led since 2007? Or should he aim higher?
In June, 2025, the Toronto Star reported that Abraham had been dropped from consideration for the artistic director job at the Stratford Festival. The role had seemed an inevitable next step for Abraham, who over the years has become one of this country’s most in-demand directors, and news of Abraham’s removal from the shortlist surprised some members of the Canadian theatre industry.
A year later, Abraham, 52, says he’s still right at home at Crow’s. Even if the Stratford position opens up in a few seasons, he says he’s not interested.
“A year ago, I was thinking about what I’d learned in Toronto, and my relationship with audiences, and how we can grow those audiences,” he says in his office.
“Theoretically, sure, other kinds of adventures will always be interesting to me. But I understand that how I can be of greatest value to the art form is by building on what we’ve done here. I get a tremendous amount of freedom to spend time on the projects I love. I’m not going anywhere short-term, and there are no other real horizons for me that are more interesting than the opportunities I have at Crow’s.”
Abraham’s renewed commitment to Crow’s is reflected in the company’s upcoming slate of programming – and in the company’s building. The space, formerly known as Streetcar Crowsnest, will officially be renamed Crow’s Theatre for the 2026-27 season, and the company will expand its footprint to accommodate the official launch of its cabaret series, which will include live music and stand-up comedy. Renovations for the expansion will also make room for new rehearsal spaces, offices, dressing rooms and a green room.
The 2026-27 season builds on Crow’s recent history of adapting Canadian books into stage shows. Fifteen Dogs, Crow’s 2023 adaptation of André Alexis’s novel, has toured across the country, as have Rogers v. Rogers and The Master Plan, both adapted from nonfiction books by Globe and Mail journalists. Rogers v. Rogers, which sold out in its world premiere, will return to Toronto next season, but will be presented a few kilometres west, at Canadian Stage’s Marilyn and Charles Baillie Theatre.
Next year, Crow’s will produce a number of new CanLit adaptations, starting with A Fine Balance, which begins previews in August. Adapted by Anosh Irani from Rohinton Mistry’s Giller Prize-winning 1995 novel, the play takes place during India’s 1975 Emergency.
“There are so many people for whom A Fine Balance is in the top three books they’ve ever read,” says Abraham. “We’re here for those people, just like we’re going to be here for Mona Awad’s 30,000 or so Instagram followers.”
One of the star pieces of programming in the season is Erin Shields’s adaptation of Awad’s witchy, Shakespeare-inspired All’s Well, which begins previews in November and which will star Maev Beaty as beleaguered professor Miranda Fitch.
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After A Fine Balance comes two back-to-back shows in the company’s cozy Studio Theatre, directed by Crow’s associate artistic director Christopher Manousos. The first is a remount of Manousos’ reimagining of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, which played for a short run during the company’s 2024-25 season. The second is a new take on Macbeth, set to star Evan Buliung in the title role in November.
After All’s Well, a co-production with Soulpepper Theatre Company that will also play at Hamilton’s Theatre Aquarius in 2027, Crow’s will produce the Canadian premiere of A German Life, adapted by Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons) from the life and testimony of Brunhilde Pomsel. The play, largely about Pomsel’s time as secretary to Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany, will be directed by Stewart Arnott and star Fiona Reid (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child).
In February, 2027, the company will produce another CanLit adaptation – but not one it initially commissioned itself. Crow’s, in partnership with Vita Brevis Arts and Nightwood Theatre, will present Hannah Moscovitch and Alisa Palmer’s two-part adaptation of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s novel Fall on Your Knees, with Palmer slated to direct. The work first played Toronto in 2023 before touring to London, Ottawa and Halifax.
“I was very moved by that show when I saw it,” says Abraham, adding that the Crow’s run of the show will be nearly six weeks. The 2023 production of the play, he says, may have been at a disadvantage in the cavernous Bluma Appel Theatre.
“It’s a lot easier for an audience to be in relationship to the risks and challenges of the work in a 214-seat theatre like ours,” he continues. “There is an untapped audience of people who love Ann-Marie’s book, and an audience who saw it in 2023 who will come back and see it again in a more intimate way.”
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To that end, Abraham’s dreams for Crow’s, beyond exporting the company’s shows internationally, include much longer show runs in Toronto: “It takes time for a show to catch on, in our experience,” he says.
“We’ve learned that you exhaust your subscribers and core audience around five weeks into a run. If you can hang on past five weeks, you start to see other people show up at the theatre. Shows in Canada generally don’t run long enough for people to find out about them. Every time we’ve managed to hang on past five weeks, we’ve seen a different audience start to come.”
After Fall on Your Knees will be The Fishermen, a co-production with Obsidian Theatre in association with BCurrent Performing Arts. Adapted by Gbolahan Obisesan from Chigozie Obioma’s novel of the same name, the show’s Canadian premiere will be directed by Tawiah Ben M’Carthy in Crow’s Studio Theatre.
Then, in April, 2027, comes The Ghosts of Mariupol, written and directed by Christopher Morris (The Runner) in response to Russia’s bombing of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre in Ukraine.
Closing out the year for the company are two more world premieres. We Swear, co-created by Matt Baram, Naomi Snieckus and Kat Sandler (who will also direct), reunites the team behind Big Stuff for a new show about promises. Then, in May, comes Laura Secord’s Thing, a comedy about the eponymous Canadian folk hero written by Brad Gira and directed by Will Dao.
Four additional shows, produced in partnership with other companies, will be announced in the coming weeks.