What if your childhood imaginary friend refused to leave, even after you were well into your teens? Even worse, what if he suddenly became visible to your mom and they began dating?
That’s the premise of Kat Sandler’s award-winning play Mustard, which opens New Stages Theatre’s 2026-27 season on Sunday, October 4 at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre in downtown Peterborough.
Directed by Dahlia Katz, the one-night-only staged reading begins at 7 p.m. and features M. John Kennedy, Aurora Browne, Kris Siddiqi, Jason Gray, Jayda Freeman, and Matt Schermann.
Described as a “twisted fairy tale about friendship, love, growing up, moving on and finding magic where you least expect it,” Mustard premiered at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre in February 2016. It received seven Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations that year, winning for outstanding new play.
The story centres on Thai, a troubled teenager whose fantastical imaginary friend Mustard is still hanging around even though she has turned 16. Things become more complicated when Mustard becomes visible to Thai’s recently separated, wine-guzzling mother and the two begin dating.
Meanwhile, Mustard faces trouble of his own, with a pair of unsavoury characters ready to enforce the rules he has broken by overstaying his welcome.
“Mustard is a comic-tragic play,” Sandler says in a media release. “It is silly at times, but it’s also about a lot of very serious and scary things, including divorce, alcoholism, suicide, mental health, teen pregnancy, and growing up, which can be violent, tragic, funny and magical all at once.”
“For all the poo and fart jokes, Mustard is, at its core, a play about love.”
An award-winning playwright, director, and screenwriter, Sandler is the founding artistic director of Toronto’s Theatre Brouhaha. Her work has been performed across Canada and internationally, and she has staged 21 of her original plays as a writer and director over the past decade.
Her recent work includes an adaptation of Anne of Green Gables at the Stratford Festival in 2025, and co-creating and directing Big Stuff starring married Canadian comedy duo Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus, which is fresh off an award-winning sold-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and is coming to Vancouver this fall. Sandler is also the creator and showrunner of Yaga, a new Crave series based on her play of the same name, set to be released in October.
Bringing Mustard to life for New Stages is Kennedy, whose local performances include his one-person shows based on Robert Munsch’s stories and the role of George Bailey in New Stages Theatre’s hit holiday productions of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play.
Katz, who directs the staged reading, is a Dora Award-nominated director and a respected theatre and editorial photographer with 25 years of experience. Along with Kennedy, who is her husband, she calls both Toronto and Lakefield home.
Browne, a co-creator and star of Baroness von Sketch Show, plays Thai’s mother Sadie. A Canadian Comedy Award winner for best female improviser, Browne has worked extensively on stage and screen.
Siddiqi and Gray play Leslie and Bug, the henchmen who come looking for Mustard.
A Toronto comedian, actor, writer, and Canadian Comedy Award winner, Siddiqi’s screen credits include I Woke Up a Vampire and Titans. Gray will be familiar to local audiences from 4th Line Theatre’s 2024 production of The Tilco Strike. His other theatre credits include the Stratford Festival, Dream in High Park, and the Foster Festival.
Freeman makes her New Stages debut as the central character Thai. A recent graduate of Randolph College for the Performing Arts, she is joined by fellow recent graduate Schermann as Thai’s older boyfriend Jay.
Due to strong language and mature themes including violence, suicide, and drug use, Mustard is not suitable for young children and is recommended for audiences aged 16 and older.
Tickets are $30 plus taxes and fees, with a $20 “welcome rate” available for those who need it and a $40 “pay it forward rate” for those who can afford to help cover the cost of the lower-priced tickets. Tickets can be purchased at the Market Hall box office at 140 Charlotte Street, by calling 705-749-1146, or online at tickets.markethall.org.
Those planning to attend may want to book early. New Stages artistic director Mark Wallace says the company has sold out its season subscription seats for the first time ever, leaving fewer seats available for individual performances.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be media sponsor of New Stages Theatre Company’s 2026-27 season.
