In a world of streaming, scrolling, and endless digital distraction, there is something increasingly rare about sitting in a theatre with other people and watching a story unfold right in front of you.
You sit beside strangers. The lights go down. Actors walk onto a stage and create something that exists only in that room, on that night. There is no pause button and no two performances are ever quite the same.
The Canadian Heritage Arts Society (CHAS) and the Canadian College of Performing Arts present their 2026/27 season this fall. They invite audiences to embrace the unique experience of live theatre, and to be quietly radical in choosing to experience live stories together.
Five productions—all performed by the emerging artists-in-training at the College—move between comedy, psychological drama, literary adventure, and musical theatre. Even though each show inhabits a very different world, together they explore a compelling question: What happens when we find the courage to discover who we really are and where we belong?
CHAS/CCPA productions put emerging theatre artists in front of the public at a formative moment in their careers. These are performers developing the craft, confidence, and collaborative instincts that will help shape the next generation of Canada’s professional stages.
CCPA students work alongside faculty and industry professionals, putting their training into practice through acting, singing, dancing, and ensemble performance. The theatre becomes both classroom and workplace—and audiences become an essential part of that experience.
“Live theatre asks something unique of both artists and audiences,” says Managing Director Erin Gavaghan. “It demands presence. Every performance is created in real time, shared by everyone in the room, and never repeated exactly the same way. That shared experience is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.”
This season, A Chorus of Disapproval goes behind the scenes of an amateur theatre company; Weasel ventures into darker psychological territory; The Call of the Wild follows Buck into the wilderness; Cats brings its iconic feline world to the stage; and Anything Goes sails into Victoria’s McPherson Theatre with Cole Porter’s irresistible music.
In a city with such a rich theatrical tradition, CHAS and CCPA offer something distinctive: the chance to not only experience live theatre, but to witness the artists of tomorrow finding their voices—and to invest in the future of Canadian performing arts.
More information and tickets available: ccpacanada.com/current-season
