Stage Left: Simmer Short Works Performance Festival
Imago Theatre
March 12, 2026
TEXT CONTENT FROM GRAPHIC ABOVE
Title of production: Simmer Short Works Performance Festival
Run dates: March 20th - 22nd
Performance venue: Théâtre La Comédie de Montréal (1113 Blvd de Maisonneuve Est - Montréal QC)
Answers provided by: Imago Theatre’s 2.0 Project Cohort and producers of Simmer Fest - Laurie Dumont-Bal, Lily Chang, Charly Cartier, Espérance Love, Meijing He, Lewis Badun, Sarra Mirghani, Dana Prather
Give us an elevator pitch of your show.
Presented by Imago Theatre, the Simmer Festival is a short works performance festival in Montreal that showcases experimental, intersectional, and innovative works-in-progress by local emerging artists. These works are produced by a cohort of emerging producers mentored by Murdoch Schon as part of the 2.0 Project producing mentorship program.
What is your favourite part of this production?
The process of starting as a cohort of emerging producers, learning more about the craft, and expanding into collaborating with a diverse group of innovative artists has been deeply inspiring! We hope audiences are excited and eager to discover these original short works!
— Laurie Dumont-Bal
Being able to learn about producing and apply the knowledge immediately in a real-world context with a cohort of creative and inspiring emerging producers.
— Lily Chang
The chaos of combining multiple minds in one great event.
— Charly Cartier
My favourite part about this whole production is the 2.0 project itself. I loved learning about producing and putting together a show that will help uplift diverse artistic voices in our city. I think the Short Work Performance festival fills a void in our city while at the same time offers new opportunities for artists
— Espérance Love
My first time to put theatre production in life together with a diverse and amazing producer cohort!
— Meijing He
In a sentence, tell us about the vision or the message for this production.
Our dream is to stage works that would otherwise be difficult to find – things that are odd, in progress, visceral, and made by emerging local creators.
— Lewis Badun
This festival seeks to remove barriers in art making and professional advancement by providing a platform and resources (financial and non-financial) to marginalized creatives so they can express themselves creatively, experiment artistically, gain festival experience, and connect with professional artists.
— Lily Chang
How has the current social or political climate influenced this production?
Our festival is a response to several unmet needs in our city’s cultural sector. These needs are unmet largely due to factors caused by our current socio-political climate. Like many other cities at the moment, Montreal is experiencing a time of economic unrest due to both domestic and international issues. As a result, many artists find themselves in economically precarious situations which aren’t conducive to artistic creation. Our festival offers emerging artists and marginalized communities a platform and an opportunity to share their work while receiving support, resources, monetary compensation, and payment.
— Sarra Mirghani
We are living in extremely challenging times in which art is crucial to provide meaningful representation for diverse artists, to inspire positive change in the world, and to uplift and support communities. Simmer offers a space to dream, innovate and build a sense of community!
— Laurie Dumont-Bal
What has been this production’s greatest challenge?
Money, money, money! Like so many theatres, our greatest challenge has been balancing the budget. Fair compensation for everyone involved—producers, artists, technical crew, mentors—is really important to our cohort, but that goal is difficult when relying on ever-dwindling government arts funding. The silver lining is that this incentivized the 2.0 Project cohort to focus on honing our grant-writing skills and seek out a variety of alternative funding sources, including our universities and alma maters, smaller government organizations, and even our local MPs.
— Dana Prather
One of the greatest challenges is managing time and logistics across multiple artist and producer groups, especially while balancing other commitments. Like bringing everyone together, coordinating schedules, keeping communication clear, and etc require a lot of care, teamwork, and flexibility.
— Meijing He
How does this production align with your company’s mission or artistic vision?
The team of producers not only created the festival’s structure and values of Experimentation, Intersectional Feminism, and Community together in a collaborative, thoughtful way, but also evaluated and selected the pieces that align with the festival’s values in the same way.
— Lily Chang
The Simmer festival is an experimental festival of Intersectional Feminism that centers community. I believe it to be a beautiful platform that responds to Imago's mission of “amplifying voices that risk being unheard, whose stories risk being untold.”
— Espérance Love
BONUS QUESTION: If the show’s characters formed a band, what would their name be?
To the Inuk Diri Kole-Eating Gut Girl called Willow with the Mommy i$$ueS in a Room Full of Qallunaat: when you come to me, This Is It, we trees will say “Thank You for the Nightmare”
Catch Imago Theatre’s Simmer Short Works Performance Festival, running March 20th to 22nd at Théâtre La Comédie de Montréal.
Friday, March 20
6:30PM - Program A
8:30PM - Program B
Saturday, March 21
2PM - Variety Show
6:30PM - Program B
8:30PM - Program A
Sunday, March 22
2PM - This Is It
6PM - Program A
8PM - Program B
Simmer Short Works Performance Festival
By Imago Theatre
Running March 20-22, 2026
At Théâtre La Comédie de Montréal