Stories for All Ages! Geordie Theatre’s Playground Festival arrives!
By Michael Martini
January 15, 2026
Montréal’s leading force in English-language theatre for young audiences, Geordie Theatre hits the road every year with their tour of two plays — one for elementary-aged students and one for teens. They visit over 200 schools across Québec and neighbouring provinces, sparking imagination, laughter, and discussion with their carefully crafted productions. Being based in Montréal, it once felt amiss that audiences around Québec should enjoy the touring shows while friends of Geordie unaffiliated with schools sat out of the fun. That’s where the idea for Geordie’s Playground Festival emerged. It’s a local run of Geordie’s touring shows so that kids, teens, groups, families, and theatre lovers can see what the masterful Geordie Theatre has up its sleeves this year. Everyone is welcome, and it is the only chance to see Geordie’s current shows in a venue open to the public rather than in a school.
Built around the aim of sharing their annual shows is an entire miniature festival complete with talkbacks, a workshop for kids curious about theatre, and even a revival of a previous Geordie production to round out the festival’s programming. With the dates just around the corner, Geordie is gearing up to present a fun-filled festival with hard-hitting topics for Montréalers this January, in collaboration with their venue, Maison Théâtre.
3 shows: take your pick!
Beyond Belief is a show programmed for young kids approximately aged 5–10. It tells the story of an adventurous boy on a quest to prove dragons exist to cheer up his sister, who can’t seem to see the glass half-full these days as she struggles with her mental health. Luckily enough, he finds what just might be a dragon egg, and gives it his best shot at getting the egg to hatch.
Rae-Michelle Comodero (Left) and Luigi Tiberio (Right) in Beyond Belief.
For slightly older audiences, 2061 is a re-modernized stage adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984, the (unfortunately) timeless tale of a world under surveillance, bombarded with propaganda. In this adaptation, the protagonist is a data management worker who wonders where love is hiding in a world so deeply surveilled and so ruthlessly shaped by artificial intelligence. The play is notably the last project written by the late Harry Standjofski, whose words Geordie is committed to uplifting with love and respect.
Vassilios Iliopoulos (Left), Luigi Tiberio (Centre), and Rae-Michelle Comodero (Right) in 2061.
Finally, the festival offers the welcome surprise of Celestial Bodies, a production Geordie presented exclusively online via livestream to schools during the pandemic. Celestial Bodies is a one-person show starring Wahsonti:io Kirby that focuses on issues of anxiety and body image, as the protagonist Stella wonders how to “fit into” the world as a plus-sized teen. Filled with cosmic metaphors, Stella tries to figure out her place in the universe through a dynamic one-person show that runs the gamut of emotions and storytelling.
Wahsontí:io Kirby in Celestial Bodies.
Shows run from 55 minutes to just over an hour. See one or see them all!
Get the discussion started
Each show features a talkback where audiences can ask questions about the shows and their topics. The goal is not only to spark discussion between performers and spectators, but also between kids and adults after the show — be it in the classroom, around the dinner table, or on the way back from the theatre. For teachers who are interested, Geordie also offers resource guides made in collaboration with experts, such as therapists, to create study material directly related to their productions.
When asked how the company keeps its finger on the pulse of issues relevant to young audiences, Jimmy Blais (artistic director of Geordie) replies deftly: “Unfortunately, the issues don’t really change. They tend to boil down to the same core issues that young people deal with generation after generation. Isolation, for example.”
When the company revives shows it has produced previously, the updates can be as simple as changing Facebook to TikTok, or LOL to IJBOL; the core issues remain the same. Sometimes all it takes is a play to open up young people to talking about these issues from their points of view.
Theatre for all
Discussing issues and ideas through the vehicle of theatre can also introduce kids to an appreciation of the art itself, a desire to try out or to see more theatre. That’s why theatre for young audiences isn’t just crucial to the young audiences in question, but to the milieu of theatre itself. It creates an entry point for the magic of theatre- and perhaps even a lifelong love- that a child might not come across otherwise.
This is one of the reasons that the Geordie Playground Theatre Festival offers a free workshop for kids. This year’s edition will be on the Saturday at noon, involving both a craft and some beginner level theatre exercises sure to inspire and indulge any child’s imagination.
The festival is about coming together with an intergenerational love for theatre. In this spirit, Geordie is committed to extending the accessibility of the festival. Tickets are pay-what-you-decide, in an effort to open up to anyone who might normally be turned away by a steep ticket price, particularly after the holidays. Free childcare is also offered for kids and infants who might not fit the age bracket of a certain show. Finally, Geordie and its venue Maison Théâtre also frame certain showtimes as relaxed performances, where kids are not expected to sit still, where you can get up and come back, where fidget toys are provided for antsy fingers, and where harsh lighting and sound effects are avoided. Everyone is welcome.
The Playground Festival runs January 21–25 at Maison Théâtre in Montréal’s Quartier des Spectacles.
Playground Festival
By Geordie Theatre
Running January 21-25, 2026
At Maison Théâtre