In this special PlayME episode, host Chris Tolley sits down with Brian Quirt of Night Swimming as the company celebrates its 30th anniversary.

Brian shares insights into the long, collaborative process of developing new plays, Night Swimming’s philosophy of “faith over hope,” and the re-release of Boys With Cars by Anita Majumdar—exploring how the work resonates with audiences today.

Playwright and actor Pamela Mala Sinha joins Chris Tolley to talk about NEW, her play about a generation of South Asian immigrants who came of age in 1970s Winnipeg. Sinha shares how a box of old photographs and her mother's stories sparked the idea, and why she felt compelled to tell the story of a generation that built this country but has been largely skipped over in our cultural narrative. She talks about casting her own mother as cultural consultant, what it means to take notes from a parent, and the unexpected rehearsal room moment that unlocked the emotional truth of a key scene. She also reflects on writing trauma without centering it, the role of comedy in her work, and what she wishes she had known at the start of her writing life.

Two months after her arrival, Nuzha is beginning to understand that something is deeply wrong in her marriage. Qasim comes home late every night, and has never once reached for her. She arrived ready to build a life and instead finds herself waiting in a cold apartment in a city she doesn't know yet, wondering if she's about to be sent home. As she confides in the women around her, the close-knit community that welcomed her starts to reveal its own cracks. And Abby is still in the picture.

NEW features: Ali Kazmi, Lisa Ryder, Zorana Sadiq, Ellora Patnaik, Shelly Antony, Fuad Ahmed and Pamela Mala Sinha.

It's 1970 in Winnipeg, and a young Bengali bride has just arrived in Canada to marry a man she's never met. But the husband waiting for her is hiding a secret, and the tight-knit immigrant community she's stepping into is holding more than a few of its own. Three couples. A doctor with a double life. A marriage frozen by grief. Two students being pulled apart by the new world around them. And one unexpected arrival who refuses to behave the way anyone needs her to. Theatre critic Glenn Sumi calls New by Pamela Mala Sinha "specific in its details but universal in its themes" and one of the best new Canadian plays in years.

And if you're looking for more great plays to listen to, we highly recommend our PlayME recording of Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov, adapted by Liisa Reppo-Martell, featuring some truly incredible performances, including actor Ali Kazmi, who plays Qasim in this production of New.

NEW features: Ali Kazmi, Lisa Ryder, Zorana Sadiq, Ellora Patnaik, Shelly Antony, Fuad Ahmed and Pamela Mala Sinha.

Laura Mullin talks to actor Tom Barnett about Michael Healey’s celebrated Canadian play The Drawer Boy. Barnett was part of the original 1999 Theatre Passe Muraille production, where he played the young actor Miles in a play inspired by the creation of the groundbreaking documentary theatre project The Farm Show.

In this conversation, Barnett reflects on discovering the play as a young actor before anyone knew it would become a classic, touring it across Canada, and returning decades later to play Angus, the farmer at the emotional centre of the story. He shares what it was like to experience the play from two very different characters and why The Drawer Boy continues to move audiences around the world.

Morgan begins to share the story of the wartime accident that changed everything for him and Angus. But as the past comes into focus, the careful world the two farmers have built together starts to crack, forcing all three men to confront the consequences of turning memory into story.

Cast: Tom Barnett, Patrick McManus, Stephen Jackman-Torkoff

The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey

One of the most produced Canadian plays of the past three decades, The Drawer Boy is inspired by the creation of The Farm Show, the legendary production that sent a group of actors to rural Ontario to learn directly from farming communities.

On a quiet farm, lifelong friends Morgan and Angus live inside a carefully structured routine shaped by a wartime injury that altered Angus’s memory. When Miles, a young actor from Toronto, arrives to research rural life for a theatre project, his presence disrupts the balance the two men have built over the years. What follows is a funny and revealing collision between urban theatre-making and farm life, as Miles observes the farmers and begins collecting stories for the stage.

Cast: Tom Barnett, Patrick McManus, Stephen Jackman-Torkoff

The Drawer Boy by Michael Healy

If you’re interested in hearing more plays about Canadian rural life, check out Between Breaths by Robert Chafe, available on our feed.

Chris Tolley talks to playwright and performer Akosua Amo-Adem about her hit play Table for Two, a funny, candid, and deeply relatable look at modern dating. Set in Toronto and centred on Abby, a hopeful romantic navigating apps, expectations, and one bad date after another, the play explores the search for connection in a world that can feel both hyper-connected and isolating.

Akosua shares how the play grew out of real observations and research into dating-app culture, why humour is essential to telling this story, and what audiences respond to most when they see Abby onstage. Together, they talk about vulnerability, rejection, desire, and the pressure to find love on a timeline that doesn’t always match real life.

Table for Two by Akosua Amo-Adem.

Still carrying the sting of a major breakup, Abby is trying to reset and move forward, but it feels like her best friend’s love life is racing ahead while she remains stuck in the same exhausting dating cycle. With pressure building from family, friends, and her own expectations, Abby puts her hope in a promising new match and a long-awaited dinner at Lucia’s, a night that just might shift everything.

Cast: Bola Aiyeola, Ryan Allen, Meghan Swaby and Akosua Amo-Adem

Table for Two by Akosua Amo-Adem. 

If you’re interested in hearing more plays by Black female playwrights, check out the hit show Da Kink in My Hair by Trey Anthony, available on our feed.

“Ghanaian parents don’t talk about sex, and when they do, it’s not very helpful.”

Abena Ohemaa Frimpong is thirty-five, accomplished, and dating in Toronto. A Ghanaian Canadian woman with an impressive resume and a dating history that has taught her to manage expectations, Abby still shows up hoping this time might be different.

On the night she is meant to meet JD45, a man she has grown cautiously excited about, Abby arrives early and waits. As the table stays empty, the evening slips into memories of first love, missed timing, and the quiet pressure of a best friend’s engagement and a mother who wants answers. Faith, family, and romantic history all press in as the minutes stretch.

Abby sits with her phone in hand, the chair across from her untouched, and the possibility of connection hanging by a thread.

Cast: Bola Aiyeola, Ryan Allen, Meghan Swaby and Akosua Amo-Adem

Table for Two by Akosua Amo-Adem

If you’re interested in hearing more plays by Black female playwrights, check out the hit show Da Kink in My Hair by Trey Anthony, available on our feed.

Playwright Ins Choi joins Laura Mullin to talk about Kim’s Convenience, the play that eventually became the hit television series. Choi shares why he started writing the play, what it was like to spend years facing rejection, and how one chance meeting transformed the story he thought he was telling. He reflects on being a first-time playwright thrown into television, the full-circle moment of playing Appa after writing from the son’s perspective, and on Toronto’s talent that is often underestimated. It is a candid conversation about writing for the stage, adapting for TV, and how a small play became a cultural phenomenon.

Kim’s Convenience by Ins Choi