PRIMARY TRUST To Close Crow’s Theatre Season With Toronto Run

Concluding another record-breaking season at Crow's Theatre, the company will partner with Grand Theatre to co-produce the 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama, Eboni Booth’s PRIMARY TRUST, on stage May 26 through June 21 (media night: May 29).

Directed by Cherissa Richards—whose production of RED VELVET in the 22.23 Crow’s season received six Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations, winning Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Production in the General Theatre category—PRIMARY TRUST tells the story of Kenneth, who has lived a safe and comfortable life alone, working at a local bookshop. When the shop suddenly closes, however, Kenneth is forced to confront the fears and unspoken grief that have held him down. A fitting ending to a season that has explored the search for humanity, meaning, and connection, PRIMARY TRUST is a charmingly funny and poignant meditation on our need for connection and the courage it takes to reach outwards and transform your life.

“PRIMARY TRUST is one of those rare plays that reaches you quietly, and then, almost without you noticing, completely undoes you,” shares Crow’s Theatre Artistic Director Chris Abraham. “It isn’t really about the systems shaping people’s lives, but about the people themselves — their loneliness, their resilience, and their search for connection and joy. Cherissa Richards and this extraordinary company have created something exquisitely detailed, deeply felt, and profoundly humane, and I’m thrilled that Crow’s audiences will encounter it through our co-production with the Grand Theatre as our season closer.”

Rachel Peake, Artistic Director of the Grand Theatre, adds, “When I read PRIMARY TRUST, I was instantly in love. For me, this play is ultimately a story of kindness. It is a story of loneliness, but the counterpoint to that is people reaching out again and again to offer a hand to someone and lift them up. Full of magic realism, humour, and heart, PRIMARY TRUST lets you walk in the shoes of someone else in a way that unlocks the world a little differently.”

The production first bowed in January at the Grand Theatre, where it was met with critical and audience response, with critics calling the production “quietly miraculous” (FrontMezzJunkies.com), lead actor Durae McFarlane “outstanding,” and one critic noting he “was moved to the point that he couldn’t speak for a few minutes after curtain call” (OurTheatreVoice.com).

Actor Durae McFarlane plays Kenneth, leading a cast that includes Peter N. Bailey, Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah, Ryan Hollyman, and Danilo Reyes. Toronto theatre audiences will remember McFarlane’s performance in the Crow’s Theatre and Outside the March production of Annie Baker’s The Flick, for which he was recognized by NOW Magazine as a breakthrough artist of the year in 2019. McFarlane can also currently be seen opposite Elizabeth Banks and Matthew Macfadyen in The Miniature Wife.

Beginning her career as an actor and transitioning into directing, Cherissa Richards has directed across Canada for companies including Bard on the Beach, Citadel Theatre, Neptune Theatre, and Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre. She is a Crow’s Theatre RBC Rising Star Emerging Director recipient (2021) and a Why Not Theatre This Gen Directing Fellow (2021).

PRIMARY TRUST first premiered Off-Broadway at the Laura Pels Theatre, where it was named a New York Times Critics’ Pick. Playwright Eboni Booth is a writer and actor from New York City whose previous work includes Paris (Atlantic Theater). For television, she has written for Hulu’s We Were the Lucky Ones and HBO Max’s Julia.

Joining Richards on the creative team are set designer Julie Fox, Costume Designer Rachel Forbes, sound designer Thomas Ryder Payne, and lighting designer Imogen Wilson.

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