CHILD-ISH to Have Toronto Premiere at Tarragon Theatre in October

Tarragon Theatre will kick off the 2025/26 Extraspace season with the Toronto Premiere of CHILD-ish, A Tarragon Theatre Production in Association with The CHILD-ish Collective. This new take on verbatim theatre is created by Sunny Drake and runs in the Extraspace from October 21 – November 16, 2025, opening October 29. 

Why do adults have to share thoughts for us to take them seriously? And how can adults convey and embody the words of children, meaningfully?

Drawn from interviews conducted with 40 whip-smart and brutally honest children, CHILD-ish offers audiences a new take on verbatim theatre for all ages, where their exact words on love, life and the world are delivered through the voices of an incredible adult cast. Surprising, hilarious and profound, CHILD-ish offers audiences of all ages a fresh perspective, as they hear kids' ideas and experiences in a new way.

“In the spirit of bringing young and young-at-heart voices to Tarragon, it is a treat to share this special piece grounded by the lenses of the next generation,” notes Artistic Director Mike Payette. “Making his Tarragon debut, Sunny Drake is a celebrated international creator who has invested so much of his work in uplifting diverse stories across the globe. His years-long work in building CHILD-ish is a testament to his commitment to building bridges between us and within us.” 

Sunny Drake speaks about the process of making CHILD-ish, recalling, “I started to wonder what [...] adults could learn from listening to little ones? I got curious how our listening and learning might shift if we had adult actors speaking children's exact words - not pretending to be kids - but rather trying on children's words, as adults."

CHILD-ish is created by Sunny Drake [Tarragon debut, Every Little Nookie (Stratford Festival)]. With performances by Karl Ang [Cockroach (Tarragon), Mad Madge (Nightwood/VideoCabaret)], Janelle Cooper [Tarragon debut, Natasha & Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812 (Mirvish/Crow's)], Monique Mojica [My Sister's Rage (Tarragon), Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots], Jordan Pettle [Sextet (Tarragon), The Lehman Trilogy (Canadian Stage/RMTC)], Asher Rose [Tarragon debut, Romeo & Juliet (Canadian Stage)]. With direction by Andrea Donaldson [Sequence (Tarragon), Mad Madge (Nightwood/VideoCabaret)].

The Toronto debut of CHILD-ish joins what Drake describes as a “constellation of creative works,” where an intergenerational process has spanned ages 6-77. In 2018, CHILD-ish began as a verbatim project using interviews with children, which grew to the 2019 SummerWorks residency and sold out work-in-progress presentation. In that residency, youth collaborators worked as dramaturgs and creative partners. Throughout 2020-2021, the piece evolved as Drake adapted it into a four-part web series filmed in Toronto playgrounds. In 2024, CHILD-ish debuted on stage at Vancouver's Pacific Theatre. Now, it debuts on stage at Tarragon as the next evolution in this creative work, where continued work with several youth collaborators as dramaturgs and creative partners has expanded the piece further with themes of climate change and mental health.