Here For Now Announces 2025 Season
Stratford’s Here For Now Theatre has announced a 2025 season of five one-act plays, all premieres of one sort or another, running from May 28 to August 31.
This will be the company’s first season in its new indoor space in Stratford’s former Registry Office near the library in downtown, which has now been renovated into an intimate 65-seat performance space. It promises to have all the charm of the company’s former tented venues, minus the mosquitos and mud.
As befits a self-described feminist theatre, all the plays are by female playwrights. The theatre says the plays reflect “a trend towards turning away from a world of chaos and destruction to what strengthens us at our core: family, and the many shapes those relationships can take.” Amen to that!
New this year is a series of Monday afternoon play readings, including two by Stratford Festival star Steve Ross, who is emerging as one of Canada’s best new playwrights.
Here For Now productions offer a not to be missed chance to see some of Canada’s best actors up close and personal. Tickets are just $32.50 CDN making Here For Now perhaps the best theatre bargain in Ontario. Casting and designers will be announced March 1, 2025.
What follows, lightly edited, is from the Here For Now press release.
Here For Now Theatre | Summer Season | May 30 – August 31, 2025
Stick Around
World premiere | Comedy
Written by Rebecca Northan | Directed by Kevin Kruchkywich
May 28 – June 8 | Opens May 30
Rachel is about to turn 46 and is not happy about it. Whose face is that in the mirror? Whose butt? Whose boobs? Rachel would love to complain to her mother about all this. But she can’t. Can she?
Stick Around is a moving comedy about a mother, a daughter, and an eight-week goodbye. It’s also living proof that yes, cancer sucks. But some families crack the code: the only way to handle it is to laugh as long and loud as possible.
[Note: The past few seasons HFN has opened with a side-splitting comedy. Cancer hardly seems a likely theme to continue that tradition, but in the hands of Northan, a brilliant improviser and comedian, who knows? I’m really looking forward to this one.]
Forget About Tomorrow
Ontario premiere | Dramatic comedy
Written by Vancouver’s Jill Daum | Directed by Peter Pasyk
June 18 – 29 | Opens June 20
Jane has a demanding low-wage job, two adult kids who can’t manage their own lives, a best friend who can’t keep it in her pants, and a husband who’s distant and forgetful. Somehow she keeps it all together. But then a handsome stranger walks into her life, and things get really complicated.
Humour Me
World premiere | Romantic comedy
Written by Beverley Cooper | Directed by Miles Potter
July 9 – 26 | Opens July 18
Evalyn Traynor does what any normal woman does when she loses her ability to laugh: she consults a nerdy grad student who studies how brains process humour. Naturally, things spiral out of control immediately.
The Rules of Playing Risk
Live stage premiere | Dramatic comedy
Written by Kristen Da Silva | Directed by Sheila McCarthy
July 30 – August 16 | Opens August 1
Garfield Lyons is quite possibly the grouchiest man in Canada. And now he’s stuck in his remote rural cottage recovering from a heart attack under the eye of a grimly observant nurse. Just when he’s positive things can’t get any worse, a letter arrives announcing the imminent arrival of his estranged 14-year-old grandson.
Apples in Winter
Canadian premiere | Drama
Written by Jennifer Fawcett | Directed by Robert Ross Parker
August 22 – 31 | Opens August 22
Miriam’s son is on death row and wants just one thing for his last meal: the apple pie she’s made since he was a little boy. As Miriam makes this last terrible pie, she must come to terms with her son’s actions, with society’s judgement, and with the devastating power of a mother’s love.
Limited Engagements
(pre-built shows hosted by HFN)
Space Age Motel: A Best Western
Quirky two-hander by Booth Savage, performed by Booth and his partner Janet-Laine Green. Four performances: June 12 – 15
Bangs, Bobs & Banter: Confessions of a Hairstylist
A one-woman play written and performed by Joanna Rannelli. Four performances:
August 7 – 10
Monday Afternoon Readings
Early Genius, by Steve Ross: Monday July 21
Monte Cristo, by Roy Lewis: Monday, August 4
Wolf, by Steve Ross: Monday, August 18
Not Just Empty Space, by Sarah Danielle Pitman: Monday, August 25
Tickets go on sale March 1, 2025 on the Here For Now website or via the box office at (519) 272-4368.
[image: Mark Uhre, with the collaboration of SJ Hosie, courtesy of Here For Now Theatre.]
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