The rise of RISER: a new works festival from Common Ground

RISER has risen. Again, and in a new, expanded form.

To help support .ca YEG theatre coverage, click here.

Edmonton, where theatre is the leading arts industry, was always the right place for the visionary national initiative — launched by Toronto’s Why Not Theatre — to support, profile, mentor multi-disciplinary indie artists and companies. And Common Ground Arts Society, well-connected in indie circles, was, from the start, RISER’s natural host company.

RISER has expanded, as Common Ground’s indefatigable executive producer Mac Brock explains. Learning how to produce indie theatre, and learning from the experience, takes time. Which is why RISER lives on a two-year model now. At the inaugural RISER New Works Festival, coming to the Backstage Theatre Thursday through Sunday we’ll be seeing four new works-in-progress that will each premiere in 2026 at one of Edmonton’s major festivals: Azimuth’s Expanse Fest, SkirtsAfire, or the Edmonton Fringe.

Says Brock, “80 per cent of learning happens at the end of the first (showing). Now there’s a second kick at it!” The new festival is a way for the playwright to assess the audience response and adjust accordingly before a full premiere.

First up is Calla Wright’s Binding, a solo show by and starring the playwright, and destined for the 2026 Expanse Festival. “Campy, wildly funny, surprising,” says Brock of the piece, first seen at last year’s Fringe. Design choices have been expanded since then. There are, as billed, “elements of clown and puppetry,” as Wright explores questions of “queer and trans bodies, trauma and dysmorphia, in a very personal way,” as Brock puts it. “Challenging,” yes, but “there’s joy, silliness, playfulness in Calla’s work…. talking between Calla and their body!” Sarah Emslie directs the RISER workshop production.

playwright Jameela McNeil, whose play Ms. Pat’s Kitchen is at RISER New Works Festival. Photo supplied.

Ms. Pat’s Kitchen, by actor-playwright Jameela McNeil, had an initial outing at the 2024 Nextfest. And it’s been expanded since. It’s a large-scale multi-generational piece that takes us into the heart of the Edmonton Jamaican community, a family, and the fractious relationship between a mother and her 18-year-old daughter. Sue Goberdhan directs.

POCBS: Tales of the Diaspora, is, says Brock, “a huge undertaking,,” on a scale that will challenge the Fringe when it premieres there in 2026. It’s a cabaret fusion of “comedy, poetry, music, dance” by multi-disciplinary artists Alexis de Villa and Topkunbo Adegbuyi.

Postal Prophets by D’orjay Jackson, RISER New Works Festival. Photo supplied

The Postal Prophets is the playwriting debut of singer/songwriter D’orjay Jackson. A “musical play” it’s set in a dystopian future in the aftermath of a great war.”

In addition to hosting RISER Common Ground produces the annual Found Festival in July, devoted to unexpected meetings between artists and audiences in unconventional spaces. The full lineup of this year’s edition awaits announcement. But the Fresh AiR mainstage presentation is a new play by Louise Casemore (Gemini, OCD, Undressed). Lucky Charm, which got its first audience tryout in the basement of the Black Dog pub at last year’s Found Fest, takes us this time to “a secret residential location in the Ritchie neighbourhood.”

That secret is safe with Brock, who does divulge that (a) a basement is involved and (b) he production, a partnership between Defiance Theatre and Theatre Yes directed by Max Rubin, is the only Found show with a magic consultant.

We meet Bess Houdini, the widow of the global magic star who’s been trying via séance to make contact with the great man. And Casemore’s show is an invitation to join in at the table (or watch). The alluring mystery of whether there is life after death is ours to jointly explore. “Big surprises and effects,” says Brock.

Like last year’s Fresh AiR production Brick Shithouse, Lucky Charm will get an extended two-week run July 10 to 20. Tickets go on sale in June.

In the fall Common Ground launches a new “Prairie Mainstage Series.” As Brock explains, the goal is to enhance touring opportunities for “stories built on the prairies,” by giving two or three shows from here and across the prairies a full production debut. “We’re starting this year with two shows that are near and dear to us,” he says. Both were initially developed at Found Festival.

Kris Alvarez’s Banana Musik gets its title from the name the playwright’s father gave his original music from the ‘70s, recorded on 8-track in the family basement. And it’s fuelled by a strong connection between the generations. It’s an invitation into playwright’s family home to meet her parents and see their stuff. Brock calls it “a powerful and memorable experience,” the first touring show created by the Regina artist. Banana Musik runs Sept. 16 to 27 in the Backstage Theatre. Judy Wensel directs.

Elisa Marina Mair-Sánchez’s Ecos, an immersive dance-theatre piece which runs at Mile Zero Dance Warehouse Oct. 30 to Nov. 9, was called El Funeral when it first ran at the Fringe in a Strathcona funeral home. The play, a multi-generational exploration of the immigrant experience, has been transformed since then, says Brock. “It’s gigantic! Folks can expect a more linear experience and a much bigger technical design,” he says of Andrés F. Moreno’s production, which will have a cast “in the six-to-10 actor range, and a creative team that might (total) 30 or more.”

RISER New Works Festival runs Thursday through Sunday at the Backstage Theatre in the Fringe Arts Barns (10330 84 Ave.) Further information and full schedule: commongroundarts.ca. Tickets:  fringetheatre.ca.