Frontmezzjunkies reports: Coal Mine Theatre Unveils Their 11th Season
COAL MINE THEATRE UNVEILS 11TH SEASON OF FOUR UNMISSABLE PRODUCTIONS; BRINGING TOGETHER THREE BUZZY CONTEMPORARY HITS & ONE EXTRAORDINARY CLASSIC
Kelli Fox directs WAITING FOR GODOT starring Coal Mine Theatre’s Artistic Director, Ted Dykstra, and Alexander Thomas as Estragon and Vladimir, with Jim Mezon, Simon Bracken, and Kole Parks
Ted Dykstra directs the Canadian Premiere of Abe Koogler’s Obie Award-winning FULFILLMENT CENTRE featuring Kristen Thomson, Evan Buliung, Emilio Vieira, and Gita Miller, all making their COAL MINE debuts
Mitchell Cushman directs the English language Canadian Premiere of Jonathan Spector’s Tony Award-winning EUREKA DAY featuring Kevin Bundy, Jake Epstein, and Sophia Walker
Diana Bentley directs Clare Barron’s DANCE NATION featuring Katherine Cullen, Amy Keating, Amy Lujan, Zorana Sadiq, and Salvatore Antonio with Movement Direction by Alyssa Martin – an immersive production co-produced and conceived with Outside the March in association with Rock Bottom Movement
Toronto, ON – On the heels of a hit 10th anniversary season for which the company has received a record 13 Dora Award nominations, Toronto’s beloved “Off-Off Broadview” stage, COAL MINE THEATRE, is delighted to announce an equally thrilling line-up for 25.26.
This announcement comes as the company wraps up a record-breaking year of growth, in which they extended all of their shows from three-week to four and five-week runs, expanded into all of the 2076 Danforth Avenue building, and launched partner company The Vault Creation Lab, helmed by COAL MINE co-founder Diana Bentley.
“We are launching our 11th season feeling stronger and more energized than ever before,” shares COAL MINE Artistic Director Ted Dykstra. “Entering our second decade, having taken over our home building and now starting to more actively develop new work through our relationship with The Vault, it feels like we are growing in all the right ways. Yet we always remain faithful to our founding vision of producing exciting, sharply produced, of the moment theatre at a scale that allows for a meaningful relationship between the artists and our amazing audiences.”
As theatre patrons have come to expect from the celebrated East End venue, the upcoming season comprises hotly anticipated premieres of must-see award-winners and internationally acclaimed playwrights, performed by illustrious ensembles of some of the most esteemed actors in the country. Inspired by the incredible success of their 2024 production of HEDDA GABLER, this year, contemporary work is again complemented by a fresh look at a timeless classic. It’s another definitive COAL MINE season, true to their mandate to present challenging, provocative, and entertaining contemporary work in a refreshingly intimate and entirely authentic setting.
The season gets underway in September with Samuel Beckett’s absurdist masterpiece, WAITING FOR GODOT. One of the most enduring and essential plays of modern theatre, exploring the fundamental questions of the human experience, this production welcomes back acclaimed director Kelli Fox, who led COAL MINE’s award-winning production of BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY in 2019. From that same production, actor Alexander Thomas, who won a Dora Award for Best Performance for his role, will play Vladimir alongside Ted Dykstra’s Estragon, joined by Jim Mezon (CS’s The Inheritance) as Pozzo, Simon Bracken (Coal Mine’s The Antipodes) as Lucky, and Kole Parks as The Boy. It has been over six years since Dykstra last performed at the COAL MINE in 2019’s HAND OF GOD.
“As an actor, I have had a few chances to explore the classics over my many years in this business, but it has been a while now, and I am itching to tackle something huge, and well, Godot is huge,” shares Dykstra. “The play is unknowable in any quantifiable way, and I love that challenge and the fear it brings up in me. Jackie Maxwell suggested I act in this, and I thank her for the idea. As for casting Alexander Thomas as Vladimir, well, I couldn’t be luckier or more excited that he said yes. The amazing Kelli Fox and Alex have already collaborated to bring BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY to Toronto audiences with incredible success, and Jim, Simon, and Kole are icing on this classical cake.”
In November, Dykstra (Coal Mine’s Appropriate) steps off stage to direct the Canadian Premiere of the 2018 Obie Award-recipient for playwriting, Abe Koogler’s FULFILLMENT CENTRE. A New York Times Critic’s Pick that their critic called “quietly shattering”, Koogler’s drama is set against the backdrop of an online retailer’s shipping fulfillment centre in the New Mexico desert as four lonely lives are brought together but struggle to connect. Dykstra directs the prestigious ensemble of Kristen Thomson (Soulpepper’s Pipeline), Evan Buliung (MSC/Crow’s Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812), Emilio Vieira (Stratford’s London Assurance), and Gita Miller (The Sticky), all making their COAL MINE debuts in this raw, surprising, and funny play about the search for intimacy and meaning.
“I heard the mounting buzz about this play when it opened off-Broadway and managed to track down a copy of the script,” says Dykstra. “Within three pages, I knew that – unbeknownst to playwright Abe Koogler – the role of Suzan was written for Kristen Thomson, an old friend and someone whom I love and admire. I literally laughed out loud at the sound of her voice in my head doing the part. So, I went and got the rights, sent it to Kristen, and luckily, she wanted to do it. The rest of the cast has come together beautifully, and I cannot wait to be in the room with Kristin, Evan, Gita, and Emilio this winter!”
Next up, longtime COAL MINE collaborator Mitchell Cushman (Coal Mine’s The Effect) returns to the Danforth to direct the English language Canadian Premiere of playwright Jonathan Spector’s 2025 Tony Award winner, EUREKA DAY. An all-too-prescient story about a progressive day school in Berkeley, California, faced with an outbreak of the mumps, Spector’s satire first premiered in California in 2018, then had its East Coast premiere off-Broadway at Walkerspace in 2019. The play was revived on Broadway in the 2024-2025 Manhattan Theatre Club season, receiving Drama Desk and Tony Awards for Best Revival. The Toronto production is set with another all-star cast making their COAL MINE debuts, including Kevin Bundy (TIFT’s Cock), Jake Epstein (Goodman’s Life, After), and Sophia Walker (Stratford’s Casey and Diana).
“EUREKA DAY is about the myth of homogeneity, the fallacy of certainty, and the potential for civil war that lurks within every PTA meeting. In case that doesn’t sound like a good time, I should also say that it’s the funniest play I’ve read in I don’t know how long,” comments director Mitchell Cushman. “That Jonathan Spector had the vision to write it three years before Covid means that he should start betting liberally on the stock market. I couldn’t be more excited to be helming its Canadian Premiere at Coal Mine, with this all-star cast and team.”
To wrap up the season, the Dora-nominated team behind COAL MINE’s recent production of PEOPLE, PLACES & THINGS, director Diana Bentley and movement director Alyssa Martin, are teaming up with acclaimed immersive company Outside the March and Associate Director Lucy Coren for the Toronto Professional Premiere of Clare Barron’s 2017 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize-winner – also a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama – DANCE NATION. A groundbreaking play about an army of pre-teen competitive dancers, DANCE NATION is a ferocious and darkly hilarious exploration of ambition and friendship. Starring Amy Keating (OTM/Factory’s Trojan Girls & The Outhouse of Atreus), Katherine Cullen (OMT/Soulpepper’s A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney), Annie Lujan (Soulpepper’s King Lear), Zorana Sadiq (Crow’s Comfort Food), and Salvatore Antonio (CS’s The Inheritance), the production will be an immersive experience, taking over both floors of the building – a first for the COAL MINE. The show is a co-production with Outside the March in association with Rock Bottom Movement.
“I am overjoyed that Outside The March and COAL MINE THEATRE are joining forces for this immersive production of Clare Barron’s DANCE NATION,” shares director Diana Bentley. “As soon as COAL MINE took the whole building over, Mitchell and I started dreaming of a project that would make use of both the upstairs (now The Vault Creation Lab) and the downstairs. DANCE NATION is the perfect show for our companies to join forces on and bring this immersive dream to life. Alyssa Martin and I had such a thrilling time collaborating on PEOPLE, PLACES AND THINGS last season. I can’t wait to see where we take this project with this special group of actors and designers.”
Tickets for the 25.26 season are available now, including a limited number of $25 tickets for folks twenty-five years and under, preview and arts worker tickets for $40, and general admission tickets ranging from $65 – $75. Season passes, offering tickets to all four productions at a discounted price of $57.50 per ticket, will be available until September 22. For more information, visit www.coalminetheatre.com
COAL MINE THEATRE 2025/2026 SEASON:
WAITING FOR GODOT
September 14th – October 5th
Written by Samuel Beckett
Directed by Kelli Fox
Starring Ted Dykstra and Alexander Thomas as Estragon and Vladimir with Jim Mezon as Pozzo, Simon Bracken as Lucky and Kole Parks as The Boy.
Written in 1953 by Samuel Beckett, WAITING FOR GODOT is an absurdist tragicomedy in two acts about two friends waiting for the arrival of the mysterious Godot, who continues to send word that he will appear, but he never does. It was originally written in French and titled En attendant Godot. It premiered January 5th, 1953, at the Théâtre de Babylon in Paris and remains an essential work of modernist drama.
“ESTRAGON: I can’t go on like this.
VLADIMIR: That’s what you think.”
FULFILLMENT CENTRE (Canadian Premiere)
November 16th – December 7th
Written by Abe Koogler
Directed by Ted Dykstra
Starring Kristen Thomson, Evan Buliung, Emilio Vieira, and Gita Miller
In the New Mexico desert, a down-on-her-luck folk singer takes a job at a giant online retailer’s shipping center. Her young manager struggles to connect with his girlfriend newly relocated from New York. And a drifter living at a local campground dangerously links them all. A raw, surprising, and funny play about four lonely lives coming together in the search for fulfillment.
“[A] quietly shattering play…though you’re likely to feel the pressure of unshed tears when [it] is over, FULFILLMENT CENTRE is also an unexpectedly inspiriting work. …The [play] is steeped in a luminous and illuminating empathy that feels both uncommon and essential…” —The New York Times
EUREKA DAY (English Language Canadian Premiere)
February 1st to February 22nd
Written by Jonathan Spector
Directed by Mitchell Cushman
Starring Kevin Bundy, Jake Epstein, and Sophia Walker
The Eureka Day School in Berkeley, California, is a bastion of progressive ideals: representation, acceptance, and social justice. In weekly meetings, Eureka Day’s five board members develop and update policy to preserve this culture of inclusivity, reaching decisions only by consensus. But when a mumps outbreak threatens the Eureka community, facts become subjective and every solution divisive, leaving the school’s leadership to confront the central question of our time: How do you build consensus when no one can agree on the truth?
Eureka Day, Jonathan Spector’s prickly satire of vaccine skepticism, has only grown more relevant since its 2018 premiere. Which is great for comedy, if less great for social trust.” – New York Times
DANCE NATION (Toronto Professional Premiere)
A Coal Mine Theatre and Outside the March Production, in association with Rock Bottom Movement
April 12th – May 3rd
Written by Clare Barron
Directed by Diana Bentley with Movement Direction by Alyssa Martin
Starring Katherine Cullen, Amy Keating, Amy Lujan, Zorana Sadiq, and Salvatore Antonio
An army of pre-teen competitive dancers plots to take over the world. This groundbreaking play by Clare Barron is a ferocious and darkly hilarious exploration of ambition and friendship. As they fight to win a national championship, these young dancers catapult toward finding themselves and unleashing their power.
“If you were ever a 13-year-old girl, Clare Barron’s daring, raw Dance Nation will probably hit you hard […] It’s a brave, visceral, excitingly off-kilter barbaric yawp of a play. And it gets at something excruciatingly tender: the burden of modesty on young American women.” – New York Magazine
ABOUT THE COAL MINE THEATRE
Since this artistic home for Toronto’s East End was founded in 2014 by co-artistic directors Diana Bentley and Ted Dykstra, The Coal Mine Theatre has become one of the most talked-about and critically acclaimed theatres in Toronto. It was modeled after the Off-Off Broadway theatres in New York and branded as Toronto’s Off-Off-Broadview Theatre. In its intimate space on the Danforth, The Coal Mine has presented some of the most challenging, stimulating, and award-winning scripts from Canada and around the world.
In 10 seasons, each consisting of only 3 or 4 shows, The Coal Mine theatre has amassed over 50 Dora nominations, over a dozen Doras, many Toronto Theatre Critics’ Awards, and a fiercely loyal subscriber base. Their new home on the corner of Woodbine and Danforth, after a devastating fire in their old location, has already become a source of great neighbourhood pride. Partnerships are being formed with local businesses, making The Coal Mine, truly, a community theatre to be proud of.
