For its 25th season, Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre is returning to full theatres with a mandate to champion Canadian actors and playwrights. All six works featured in this season are spearheaded by female creators. Of the six pieces featured, only one isn’t Canadian—that being Shakespeare's King Lear, which is in repertory with the freshly commissioned Queen Goneril, written by Canadian Erin Shields. Shields wrote this feminist reimagination, centring one of Lear's daughters within the context of Soulpepper’s Six Women Writing program. This stewardship of Canadian female voices is part of Artistic Director Weyni Mengesha’s mission to center the stories told by women, and about women, in this season’s roster of experiences. Mengesha also directed Queen Goneril while Mengesha has been Artistic Director since 2018 and is a prolific director, composer, and community leader. She’s earned recognition from the Drama Critics Circle, Drama League, NAACP, and a Dora award for her compositions in Trey Anthony’s ‘da Kink in My Hair—which she is also directing a 20th-anniversary remount of in December. Also featured this season is The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale by Haley McGee, Bad Parent by Ins Choi, and the latest Soulpepper concert from the Slaight Family, The Golden Record. Mengesha joined smART Magazine from Toronto, at the tail end of Queen Goneril’s rehearsal process.

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR WEYNI MENGESHA