Theatre Passe Muraille Unveils The First Phase Of Its 2024/2025 Season

With over five decades of celebrating Canadian voices, Theatre Passe Muraille has revealed the first phase of its Fall 2024 season. It features wide-ranging new works and collaborations, each with a unique perspective that is sure to captivate and intrigue. The first phase of Passe Muraille's powerful new season kicks off this September 2024, continuing its goal of fostering a diversified hub for theatre enthusiasts.

“We are thrilled to announce the Fall Season at Theatre Passe Muraille, featuring an exhilarating and interdisciplinary line-up of shows and festivals. This season includes the international perspectives of the RUTAS Festival (in partnership with Aluna Theatre and Factory Theatre), the captivating and personal work of Manitoba-born artist Ken Harrower, the fantastical future envisioned by Coleen Shirin MacPherson, and the innovative technological performances of PXR. Our focus remains steadfast on collaboration, innovation, accessibility, and community as we develop and curate the most intriguing and provocative theatrical experiences for you. Join us as we challenge, engage, and inspire for a fall of wonder!”

- Marjorie Chan, Indrit Kasapi, Michelle Knight (TPM Leadership Team)

The season begins with the SIXTH edition of the RUTAS INTERNATIONAL PERFORMING ARTS FESTIVAL, bringing art from across the Americas to Toronto. The theme for this year's festival is Personal Cartographies. In these inspiring performances, national and International Artists chart their paths through themes of family, displacement, privilege, women's labour, and the body as a map of resistance. Dreaming of a better world we can build together is the driving force behind the works presented at RUTAS. In their thought-provoking work, artists from Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, and Turtle Island ask us: What is the cost behind what we consume? What do we gain, and what do we lose in our journey to achieve freedom?  How do we mark the world that shapes us, and what will happen to our footprints when we are gone? The RUTAS FESTIVAL, an Aluna Theatre production in partnership with Theatre Passe Muraille and Factory Theatre, runs from September 26 to October 6, 2024.

Following the festival is THE FLIN FLON COWBOY, an original autobiographical musical about disability, love, and sex. Co-created by Ken Harrower, Erin Brandenburg, and Johnny Spence and the Flin Flon Collective, it tells the extraordinary story of Disabled performer and country singer Ken Harrower's life as he recounts his journey from being abandoned at birth in Manitoba to today as a Disabled and LGBTQ+ performer and advocate, and backed by a live country-western band made up of some of Canada's most inventive indie musicians in a show that combines elements of documentary, confessional, and breathtaking musical numbers. All performances of Flin Flon Cowboy will be fully captioned. The show, a Flin Flon Cowboy Collective and TPM co-production presented in association with Why Not Theatre, runs from October 19 to November 2, 2024.

TPM will again serve as one of the venue partners for Single Thread Theatre's most significant Extended Reality (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality) conferences exploring innovative digital theatre. The first and only conference of its kind in Canada, THE PERFORMANCE AND XR (PXR) CONFERENCE will bring together over 400 artists, technologists, game creators, and academics of diverse backgrounds from across the globe to discuss digital art creation and innovation. The conference will feature keynote speeches, panel discussions, and interactive workshops, providing a unique opportunity to learn and network in digital theatre. Theatre Passe Muraille will be the in-person hub of the conference from November 8 - 10 and November 15 - 17, 2024.

After four years of development in TPM's Buzz program, we are excited to finally share the world premiere of Erased, a new work written and led by Coleen Shirin MacPherson. This absurdist, movement-based theatre piece brings us into the uncanny world of a greeting card factory, where workers negotiate their relationship to a system of power only to learn that people are being "disappeared". Set in a post-climate collapse landscape, it is an ambitious play that brings 11 performers to the stage and explores how the kindling of revolution turns to flame, igniting the spirit of resistance that keeps it alive. A dystopian parable that is poetic, violent, darkly humorous and imagistic: an awakening for us all to look deeply into ourselves and the state of our planet. This Open Heart Surgery Theatre and Theatre Passe Muraille co-production performs November 20 - 30, 2024.

Accessibility offerings are designed uniquely for each piece of programming and will include Sensory-Sensitive Performances, captions, and select masked mandatory performances. TPM is proud to continue from last season as a Relaxed Environment for all performances and experiences, ensuring people with various accessibility needs feel welcomed and valued.

Continuing the history of works in development at Theatre Passe Muraille, the Buzz In-Development Series will host a dozen artists in various stages of development. This season will include artists doing text-based explorations, translation, and digital explorations in VR and AR. TPM is also pleased to announce its continued partnership with Diaspora Dialogues, supporting workshops for Donovan Hayden and Ajahnis Charley. 

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