The Quebec premiere of ‘The Best Brothers’ comes to the White Wall Studios by Born on a Raft Theatre
By Darragh Kilkenny-Mondoux
May 25, 2026
Montreal’s New Guard of Queer Canadian Theatre
A queer streak runs through the canon of Canadian theatre, and the Born on a Raft Theatre collective is bringing this streak into the summer sunlight with their inaugural production. Founder and actor Thom Niles and director Trevor Barrette tell the Overture about staging Daniel MacIvor’s two-hander dramedy ‘The Best Brothers’ at the White Wall Studios later this month. The play has been popping up across the country and as far as Australia since its world premiere production in the 2010s, and it comes to Montreal for the very first time thanks to the team behind Born on a Raft Theatre.
Niles explains that the company name is derived from a “Newfoundland Dad expression,” denoting wild abandon—“Use a coaster, boyo! What, were you born on a raft?” The group’s mission is to tell queer stories, using queer voices, with an eye towards Canadian works of theatre in Montreal. He tells me he saw MacIvor’s Marion Bridge produced at Hudson Village Theatre in 2019, and that The Best Brothers struck him as its fraternal counterpart—“It’s basically Marion Bridge for boys!” With shared motifs of a loss of a mother, family dynamics, and MacIvor’s penchant for dark comedy between the two plays, Best Brothers offers its pair of actors great stakes and circumstances to explore a grown sibling dynamic sparkling with the love that binds, the grief that strains, and the identities that bloom in adulthood.
Sam Beaton (L) and Thom Niles (R) in The Best Brothers.
It was at a bilingual actors’ monologue showcase event in Montreal where Niles describes his delighted surprise upon finding so many Daniel MacIvor pieces brought out by his fellow actors. It was there that Niles introduced himself to Trevor Barrette, and a year later pitched him the play to direct.
Barrette shared his personal mandate of bringing more Canadian theatre to Montreal’s stages, or in this case our studios. “Montreal is a bit of a silo,” describing our city’s relationship to Canadian theatre: ”We do a great job of bringing French Quebec works into English audiences’ hands, but there’s a lot of Canadian theatre that hasn’t come to Montreal yet.” Renowned as a musical director and composer, and the mind behind Max and Aaron Write a Musical, Barrette confesses elements of musical theatre have made its way into The Best Brothers. “There’s ways that I’m sneaking in choreography throughout the piece,” he says, adding “We have Violet Kay, our composer, who will be performing the music live, so music is a storytelling component.” Kay recently provided on-stage musical scoring to Infinitheatre’s sublime puppeteered environmentalist two-hander, Whalefall,a show which balanced its heartbreak and its playful laughs with a deft hand. Her strings enhanced the powerful storytelling of the idiosyncrasies and tragedies of marine mammals with Kay’s instrument’s range for solemnity and smiles, which she masterfully blends with a loop pedal. The Best Brothers is sure to enjoy Kay’s touch and Barrette’s musical inclinations.
Niles is very proud that the team aboard this maiden voyage for Born on a Raft Theatre reflects the commitment to uplifting queerness in every aspect of theatre-making. Both Niles and Barrette reveal The Best Brothers is not a coming-out story, but rather a story where queerness colours the characters’ backgrounds as they navigate a new familial challenge throughout the play. Barrette recently brought Bed & Breakfast by Canadian playwright Mark Crawford to Hudson Village Theatre, which will be heading to the Watermark Theatre on Prince Edward Island. Crawford’s piece is another work of contemporary Canadian theatre which brings queerness into the homestead, weaving it into the quintessence of our canon. So it is through The Best Brothers that Barrette gets to fulfill his desire to produce and direct more Canadian theatre in the city, and right to the springtime heart of it.
Brothers of the White Wall Studios
This is the Quebec premiere of Daniel MacIvor’s The Best Brothers, and it seems a fine fit for a space like the White Wall Studios. More and more English-language performing arts have come through its eponymous walls amid our city’s worsening venue crisis. It is not a conventional theatre, not a black box, no rigging for lights, and one wide flight of stairs necessitates simple set designs, yet still it has become a warm and welcoming space for our staged storytelling.
Thom Niles (L) and Sam Beaton (R) in The Best Brothers.
Sam Beaton will take the stage alongside Niles in The Best Brothers, which will be a return for him after playing another one of two brothers at the White Wall Studios last summer, in thepremiere production of In Memoriam. That play featured one central set piece, and arranged the performance space as an amphitheatre, with chairs arranged in a semi-circle facing the windows, and the actors made use of a wide open area for a very physical performance.
When asked about how the limits of the space inform the creative inventiveness of this upcoming production, Barrette beams, “It’s exciting that we’ve programmed it in a time of year when we can play with natural light. There are these big beautiful windows that we’re working with, so our lighting design is timed out to the sunset.”
“With theatre, you have to embrace what’s going on around you,” adds Niles. “A few years ago, I received some advice from Alison Darcy - we were rehearsing a play, and there was a flock of geese honking above, and she said, “No, don’t stop because of the geese. That’s something you observe - you need to observe the elements and allow that to be part of the piece.” Could you ask for a more fitting image of Canadian summer theatre than actors responding to returning geese overhead? Could a work of theatre be more classically Montreal than to take over a multipurpose loft space in the Plateau?
The Best Brothers comes to the White Wall Studios at 4532 Avenue Laval in the Plateau for an all-too-short run from Thursday, May 28 to Sunday, May 31, 2026 all shows at 8:00pm ET. Get your tickets now.
The Best Brothers
Born on a Raft Theatre
Running May 28-31, 2026
At The White Wall Studio