New Stages Theatre in Peterborough has announced its 2026-27 season of three full productions, including a holiday production, along with five staged readings and the return of the Brand New Stages Festival.
Subscriptions are now available at www.newstages.ca/26-27 for the new season, which artistic director Mark Wallace announced from the Market Hall stage at the final production of the 2025-26 season, a staged reading of Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s.
“It has been a great 2025-26 season,” Wallace tells kawarthaNOW. “New Stages has grown significantly, and we aim to keep that positive momentum going in the new year ahead.”
Wallace says the 2025-26 season was New Stages Theatre’s most successful ever, with over 4,100 people attending 18 different shows performed at three venues.
Founded in 1997 by now-retired artistic director Randy Read, New Stages will be celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2027. The professional not-for-profit charitable theatre company has grown from a summer theatre only company for its first five years to a fall-to-spring company with a focus on producing and presenting high-quality, thought-provoking contemporary theatre.
For its 2026-27 season, New Stages will be presenting a series of all-Canadian plays, including five of its popular staged readings (where actors perform from scripts without elaborate sets or full costumes) and, for the first time ever, three full mainstage productions in a single season — including a homegrown family-focused holiday production.
“Selections include a rich mixture of material, including thought-provoking, comedic, and acclaimed works for the stage,” Wallace says. “Our plays this year are based around the theme of family, whether it is the families we are born into, or the families we form along the way.”
“What binds us together with other people? What keeps us alone and apart? How do we find out where we belong? These questions matter more than ever in our modern era of heightened isolation. We’ll get the chance explore them together in the coming season.”
Season subscription options include a premium subscription for $220 (including taxes and fees) that includes all eight shows at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre, a savings of $103 over regular ticket prices, and a flex pack subscription with your choice of six of the eight shows for $180 (including taxes and fees), a savings of $63.
Subscriber benefits include priority access to shows before they go on sale to the general public along with reserved seating, as well as the ability to transfer your tickets to someone else if you can’t make it to a show.
Here’s the lineup for the 2026-27 season, which runs from October to June.
“Mustard” by Kat Sandler (October 4)
What if your childhood imaginary friend never left? Find out in this funny, wistful, and wildly creative play from Canadian playwright Kat Sandler. Described as a fairy tale for grown-ups, the play won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play in 2016.
Directed by Dahlia Katz, the staged reading will star M. John Kennedy as Mustard.
“Casey and Diana” by Nick Green (November 15)
Written by Nick Green, Casey and Diana is based on the true story of Princess Diana’s visit to Casey House, Toronto’s first AIDS hospice, and a dying man who is determined to survive long enough to meet her. Nominated for the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play in 2024, it won the Toronto Theatre Critics Choice Award for Best New Canadian Play that same year.
One of the most produced plays in Canada in the past two years, the play makes its Peterborough debut as a staged reading featuring Linda Kash.
“The Nonsense Club” by Dreda Blow and Brad Brackenridge (December 9 to 13)
Peterborough theatre artists Dreda Blow and Brad Brackenridge present their homegrown homage to the whimsical nonsense stories of Edward Lear like “The Owl and the Pussycat.”
Filled with dancing, puppetry, music, and sheer wonder, this family holiday production is directed by Mark Wallace and also features Susan Newman and Rob Fortin.
“MONKS” by Annie Luján and Veronica Hortigüela (January 21, 22, and 24)
Two monks, one donkey, and a million lentils, what could go wrong?
Written and performed by Annie Luján and Veronica Hortigüela, this clown-inspired phenomenon comes to Peterborough fresh off the Edinburgh Festival and a month at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre.
Winner of the Toronto Theatre Critics Choice Award for Best New Canadian Work in 2025, MONKS was sold out at Crow’s Theatre and at the Theatre Centre weeks before opening.
Brand New Stages Festival (February 22 – 28)
The fourth annual Brand New Stages Festival will once again feature new Canadian work for the stage, including by local artists Bill Coleman and Wendy Trusler, with more to be announced.
Already confirmed shows are a staged reading on February 25 of On Thin Ice by award-winning Curve Lake playwright Drew Hayden Taylor, a new mystery comedy thriller set at a remote cottage in winter that premiered at Magnus Theatre in 2026, and a staged reading on February 28 of You, Always by award-winning playwright Erin Shields.
The play, which premiered at Crow’s Theatre in 2026, is an ode to sisterhood set across 50 years of shared memories from two sisters and the bond they share based on love, rivalry, and the kind of honestly only a sibling can deliver.
“The Myth Of The Ostrich” by Matt Murray (April 21 – 25)
When two very different mothers meet to sort out what their teenagers are up to, a small misunderstanding spirals into a hilariously unpredictable and entirely unforgettable day.
Matt Murray’s outrageous comedy, which was a big hit at the 2014 Toronto Fringe Festival, has since been performed across Canada, including at Toronto’s Next Stage Theatre Festival, at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in 2016, and at Here For Now Theatre in Stratford in 2023, and had its U.S. premiere in Missouri in January 2026.
“Jabber” by Marcus Youssef (June 13)
A staged reading of Vancouver playwright and actor Marcus Youssef’s youth drama that tells the story of a Muslim teenager and a rebellious outsider who form an unlikely friendship that will put everything they’ve been taught to the test.
Commissioned by Geordie Theatre in Montreal in 2011, Jabber has since been performed across Canada and internationally, winning Berlin’s Ikarus prize. Youssef himself won the Siminovitch Prize, Canada’s most prestigious theatre award, in 2017.
