play/PLAY: the gallery

A working collection of 90+ North American participatory performances collected by Jenn Stephenson, Mariah (Mo) Horner, and research assistants Derek Manderson, Jacob Pittini, Hailey Scott, Mary Tooley, Hamish Hutchison-Poyntz and Charlotte Dorey. All photography is gathered from promotional material associated with the shows and whenever possible, production information is provided. To see more information on cast and creative team, click the image in the gallery. 

If you are an artist with a participatory performance on the horizon, please connect with us through our contact page! 

4inXchange / xLq / 4 audience members. 1 table. $1000.00 in cash. Limitless possibilities

Ambrose / Single Thread Theatre Company / Solo audience exploratory ghost story in the Grand Theatre in Kingston

The Archive of Missing Things / Zuppa Theatre Co. / An audience is led on a digital scavenger hunt of a lost archive, with the help of live actor vignettes, audio excerpts, and an iPad app

The Assembly / Porte Parole / A staged debate about democracy with a final act inviting the audience to speak their piece

asses.masses / co-created by Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim / A multimedia performance game about labour, revolution and donkeys

Biidaaban: A Sonic Call to the Future / Lisa Cooke Ravensbergen / Listen to a soundscape by the water at dawn

Brantwood / Co-created by Julie Tepperman and Mitchell Cushman / An immersive and site specific musical at an old high school

Broken Tailbone / Carmen Aguirre (Nightswimming) / A salsa dance lesson with monologue about politics and sex

b side / Co-created by Molly Johnson and Meredith Thompson / A meditative act of witnessing and wandering, giving life to what is hidden in plain sight.

Ça a l’air Synthétique Bonjour Hi / co-created by Burcu Emeç, Michael Martini, Nien Tzu Weng and Roxa Hy / A satirical participatory performance where willing audience members are compensated for their participation

Café Sarajevo / bluemouth inc. / An immersive experience exploring the borders that divide and unite us, within the framework of a live podcast

Candlemaker's Game / Richard Lam / a solitaire-like experience that invites you to consider a conflict from your real life

Choir!Choir!Choir! @ foldA / Choir!Choir!Choir! / A crowd of strangers becomes a community choir, located in Kingston, Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal connected digitally

Citation / Lisa C. Ravensbergen / Audio walk meets ritual around Queen’s University Campus

Club Quarantine / A socially isolated queer nightclub and dance party on Zoom

The Complex / It's Not a Pivot Productions / A game in zoom and gather.town to decide upon a leader of a new society

Controller / Mily Mumford / A “choose-your-own adventure” interactive play about technology, ethics and violence

The Corona Variations / Convergence Theatre / Six live phone plays

Counting Sheep / Lemon Bucket Orkestra / Audience participates in recreated moments from the Ukranian revolution

culture.capital / Milton Lim and Patrick Blenkarn / A collectible trading card game and live art performance project

The Curious Voyage / DLT / An immersive show where the participant starts in a hotel, hops on a plane and ends up seeing a secret musical in London

The Dead Letter Office / Popcorn Galaxies / An interactive letter exchange, where audience members write and receive mysterious handwritten letters and postcards.

Deep Gazing / Horizon Factory / A scrying ceremony led by the Sisters of the Celestial Order of Nephology

Double Dribble / The Bentway / Exploration of the accessibility of public spaces through a basketball court comprised of nets of varying diameters

Draw Me Close / Jordan Tannahill / A one-one-one VR performance with an audience member and an actor in a mocap suit

Embrace / Hazel Venzon ft Sawa Theatre / An interactive zoom cooking show

Escape / PushOFF / one on one interactive performance via cell phone

Escape The Tower / Casa Loma Escape Series / An interactive escape room set in Casa Loma during World War II

Everyman / Single Thread Theatre Company / Show for one, adaptation of Everyman in a church basement where you are Everyman

FARCE / Milton Lim, Patrick Blenkarn, Laurel Green / A tabletop card game and incubator for imagining an arts ecosystem

Foreign Radical / Theatre Conspiracy / Theatre-game hybrid that explores security, profiling, freedom of expression, and privacy in the age of cybersurveillance

Future Perfect / Eric + Mia, Action Hero / New bylaws written using words from the existing bylaws are posted publicly around the city

Good Things To Do / Good Things Collective / A show for one in a camping tent, where you befriend a computer program that offers tips on self-care

A Grimm Night / TranscenDance Project / An exploratory and immersive dance performance based on fairy tales

Haircuts By Children / Mammalian Diving Reflex / Children give free haircuts to the public

Higher Hair / Hima Batavia / An intimate experience that invites you to contemplate the ancestral stories held in your hair

Holy Moly / Jarin Shexnider and Upintheair Theatre / Using one of several audio tracks, jazzercise, and beanie babies the audience recovers a sense of holiness

Huff / Cliff Cardinal / The story of a young man struggling with solvent abuse and the death of his mother

The Human Library / The Human Library Organisation / A library of people where you can check out one human book and converse about topics you normally wouldn't

Illuminations: human/nature / Moment Factory / Audience members explore National Parks with tools such as lights, speakers, and projectors

Imaginary Ordinary / Eric Moschopedis / A community centre meets pop-up performance space. For regular people, by regular people

Improbable Escapes Kingston / A series of escape rooms and experiences in Kingston

Inheritance / Daniel Arnold, Darrell Dennis, and Medina Hahn / A pick-the-path experience that engages the audience in a struggle over land ownership

Intimate Karaoke, Live in Uterine Hall / Dayna McLeod / Cabaret karaoke where participants are invited to sing karaoke into a mic fed into Danya MacLeod's uterus

Invisible / Aurelie Pedron / 72-hour durational, improvised dance show

It Comes in Waves / bluemouth inc. & Necessary Angel Theatre Co. / Canoeing to the Toronto Island to set up an experimental dance party

The Itinerary: Playtest / Outside the March & Sébastien Heins / An interactive real life video game that’s controlled by the audience and performed live

Justin Eddy and The Great Cosmic Crisis The Experience / DoorStep Theatre Project and Theatre Direct / An interactive AR show for kids

King of the Bootleggers / Casa Loma Escape Series / Immersive escape room set in Prohibition Era Toronto

LA RIVOLUZIONE SIAMO NOI - The Change Maker / Dopolavoro Teatrale (DLT) / A show in three parts that fashions a micro-community in revolution

Landline / XO Secret / Two strangers text while doing a tandem audio-walk in two different cities

Legend Has It / Rebecca Northan / An audience member is selected to be the hero in a quest to save the world

Less & More / XOSECRET / A participatory show built each night with an audience from feedback from previous shows

Long Distance Relationships for Mythical Times / Gloria Mok & 2b theatre / A personal story about long-distance relationships and immigration told through food and object theatre.

Lost Together / UnSpun Theatre / A participant shares a story of loss, Michaela and Shira make them something to remember

Lumina Walks / Moment Factory / A series of unique site specific outdoor immersive experiences

MANUAL / Christopher Willes and Adam Kinner / ​A one-on-one experience exploring the power of sound and images

The Maydee Box / Rebecca Cuddy / An AR experience exploring Cuddy's own relationship with her Métis heritage

May I Take Your Arm? / Red Dress Productions / A tactile audio experience where participants are taken by the arm through an immersive installation

Megaphone / Moment Factory / An outdoor interactive urban art installation exploring public speaking

Ministry of Mundane Mysteries / Outside the March / Week-long series of personal phone calls

Monday Nights / 6th Man Collective / Live performance meets basketball game, teamwork is the drill we're all running

Necessary Dream / Up In the Air Theatre / Participants craft dreams to help ease a dreamer’s mind

New Age Attitudes: Live in Concert / PushOFF / An at-home construction paper concert performance

New Societies / Re: Current Theatre / A game that invites players to create a utopia

Online Joy Edit / fu-GEN Theatre / 1-on-1 interactions with artists online in the name of joy during early COVID-19.

Orestes / Tarragon Theatre / A virtual interactive interpretation of the Greek tragedy for a modern audience

Perfect Strangers / Popcorn Galaxies / Strangers pair up and get to know each other while exploring the city, leaving post-it notes behind.

Play in Your Bathtub / This is Not a Theatre Company / A site-specific immersive experience taking place in your own bathtub

Plays2Perform@Home / Boca del Lupo / Four plays mailed to your door to be read by your pandemic "bubble"

POLLINATORS / The Yarrow Collective / A participatory gardening installation series that playfully invites urban humans to build an ecosystem

Pop-Up Love Party (online!) / Zuppa Theatre Co. / A Zoom conversation about the nature of love

[Queer] Blind Date / Rebecca Northan / Improv show where a clown invites an audience member on a date

Red Phone / Boca del Lupo / An audience-to-audience performance that utilizes the intimacy of a phone call and the technology of a teleprompter

Remixed / Trophy / An auditory show featuring true stories, personalized music, and a hand delivered gift that inspires people to listen and create change in their lives

Revelations / Anahita Dehbonehie, Griffin McInnes, Aidan Morishita-Miki / Your household teams up/competes with other households to survive the apocalypse

Roll Models / Kick and Push Festival / Dungeons and Dragons staged improv play

Saving Wonderland / Gamiotics Studios / A participatory puzzle game on zoom based on Alice in Wonderland

Seiji's Perfect Day / Popcorn Galaxies / Participants fill in the blanks to create a loved one’s perfect day

Shadow Sign for Bedroom Protest: What I Dare To Do In The Dark / Upintheair Theatre / A Zoom workshop/gathering to make shadow and/or voice protest signs

The Spectator's Odyssey / DopoLavoro Teatrale / An ambulatory adventure through the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts based on the Odyssey

Sensory Box / Ghost River Theatre / A tactile play-in-a-box performed live and livestreamed

Silent Scream Solstice / Radix Theatre / A walk in silence followed by a scream in darkness

Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep / Tanya Marquardt / Participants text with an artist's sleeping and waking selves

Soon, Tomorrow Maybe / Théâtre Déchaînés / A participatory phone call from between a mother and a listener

The Stranger / DLT / You are the main character in an ambulatory immersive show about being-in-the-world

Switching Queen(s) / Switch Collective / A multi-media experience that pays homage to the Toronto neighbourhood of Parkdale

Tape Escape / Outside the March / Escape room meets immersive performance set in a 90s video store

TBD: Liberation Through Hearing / Radix Theatre / A multi-disciplinary event using text from the Tibetan Book of the Dead to study the process of dying and re-birth

This is Nowhere / Zuppa Theatre Co / Ambient Street Performance about searching for a secret blueprint of Halifax, exploring the city's past and present, and imagining its future

This Is the Story of the Child Ruled by Fear / A Strange Victory Performance / A play to be read together live by a room full of strangers

Through my Lens / Amy Amantea / An interdisciplinary performance exploring a reciprocal collision of the visual and non-visual experience

Time for Time / compagnie marie chouinard / One by one, audience members tell dancers a wish for them to interpret through movement

To You / Cellar Door Project / A pandemic pop-up porch Birthday party

Trophy / Sarah Conn / A performance and art installation that asks: how have you changed?

Walk Walk Dance / Daily Tous Les Jours / Passers-by walk, run, roll or dance to make music outdoors.

Ways of Being / Clayton Lee and Michael Rubenfeld / An interactive performance for two different groups of audiences, in two different cities, simultaneously

What Happens to You, Happens to Me / Susanna Fournier and CanStage / a meditative audio play for the COVID-19 isolation

Why We Are Here / Nightswimming / An invitation to sing with other people with a political/social/geographical bent

Words at the Window / Audrey Desrosiers and Théâtre Déchaînés / A 1-1 poetry performance for participants with dimentia

The Zombie Syndrome / The Virtual Stage / Participants work with actors to stop the zombie apocalypse.

ZED.TO / The Mission Business / 8 month narrative told in real time through interactive events and online content