Jordan Laffrenier will direct the Canadian Stage’s production of the Canadian premier of Slave Play in fall, 2025.Sandro Pehar/Supplied
Canadian Stage will produce the Canadian premiere of Slave Play, American playwright Jeremy O. Harris’s controversial work about race, sex and power dynamics, this fall.
Set on a Virginia plantation, the play follows three interracial couples as they undergo “antebellum sexual performance therapy,” which consists of role-playing exercises that see the partners pretend to be slaves and owners.
Though Slave Play prominently features simulated sex acts, the critically acclaimed work is less about sex and more about power and desire, as well as the intersectional tapestry of racism that continues to loom over the United States.
Slave Play premiered at New York Theatre Workshop in 2018 before transferring to Broadway in 2019 and earning 12 Tony nominations. The play has since been revived in New York, Los Angeles and London. The Canadian Stage production, directed by associate artistic director Jordan Laffrenier, will mark Slave Play‘s first voyage over the Canadian border.
“I saw Slave Play when it opened off-Broadway, and I knew I wanted to direct it right away,” Laffrenier said. “So much of the story is about the ways race and sex collide; I’m interested in the play aspect of Slave Play, and how through desire we can act out fantasies and learn more about ourselves and one another.”
“We’re super proud to have Jordan helming this,” artistic director Brendan Healy said. The Canadian Stage production, set to play the Berkeley Street Theatre from Sept. 27 to Oct. 19, will feature an all-Canadian cast and creative team, he added, though casting details remain to be announced.
While Slave Play was on Broadway, Harris spearheaded the first “Black Out Nights,” or performances geared exclusively toward Black audiences. At the time, Harris said he hoped these special performances would result in “more representation of Black bodies, both onstage and off.”
Since Slave Play‘s Broadway run, a handful of theatre companies – including Canadian Stage – have produced Black Out Nights of their own, often to a swarm of controversy.
In 2023, a Black Out Night for the Canadian Stage/National Arts Centre co-production of Is God Is by Aleshea Harris drew criticism from right-wing media outlets, with some commentators calling the practice “cultural apartheid.”
Former British prime minister Rishi Sunak also expressed concern about Black Out Nights when Slave Play ran on London’s West End in 2024, saying that “restricting audiences on the basis of race would be wrong and divisive.”
According to Healy, it has not yet been decided whether the Toronto run will include Black Out Nights. “We’re evaluating community interest and need,” he said.
Canadian Stage has long produced work by non-Canadian playwrights, including recent American heavy hitters such as The Inheritance and Fat Ham. With a trade war heating up, however, some Canadians have called on local arts institutions to focus on producing work by Canadian playwrights. Slave Play‘s Harris, raised in Martinsville, Va., is American.
Healy’s take is that artists should “stay open to the world” in times of geopolitical fear and distrust – especially a company such as Canadian Stage, which continues to carry an “internationalist” approach to programming.
“We are an anchor theatre inside a global city,” he said. “When we do non-Canadian work, we try to prioritize voices that are unique and necessary, that offer important perspectives. Jeremy straddles a number of communities that are currently being threatened south of the border. There’s an imperative for us to give space to those voices in response to the current geopolitical situation.”
Laffrenier agreed. “Even as a Canadian, this show feels relevant to my own history of being a person whose family has been very wounded by slavery on both sides,” he said. “The history of slavery is very present in Canada, and I think that’s true of the story of many Torontonians.
“Slave Play is a story about love,” he added. “And about how history shapes the present moment.”
