Groundswell Festival 2025

GROUNDSWELL FESTIVAL 2025

November 17 – 20, 2025
Nancy & Ed Jackman Theatre – Performance Hall (877 Yonge St)
Tickets: Single tickets are $12, available online or at the door.

Join us as we celebrate creation, conversation and community at our 40th annual Groundswell Festival! This November, our annual Groundswell Festival is coming to the Nancy & Ed Jackman Theatre Performance Hall to spotlight brand new works from Nightwood Theatre’s Write From The Hip playwright’s unit (WFTH) led by Program Director Intisar Awisse and Program Associate Mya Wong. Hear new plays from Beck Lloyd, Mason McDonald, Tanvi Vyas, Renée Wong, and Brianna Wright.

GROUNDSWELL 2025 Schedule

Monday, November 17

Tuesday, November 18

Wednesday, November 19

Thursday, November 20

Monday, November 17

This evening’s reading will begin with excerpts from work by Curtain Raisers.

7:00 PM – Magnus is Eating Birds by Beck Lloyd

Show Description: Magnus is Eating Birds is a new play that blends myth and domestic realism into a gothic family fable. It begins with a mythic union between a man and a woman, where silence and power take root. From this origin, a son, Magnus, emerges into a troubled household where cycles of harm repeat. Through shifting tones, sometimes poetic, sometimes naturalistic, the play explores inheritance, silence, and the impossibility of fully breaking from the past without understanding it.

Content Warnings: Family violence, symbolic depictions of harm toward women, and themes of silence, coercion, and intergenerational trauma

Runtime: 45 minutes

Tuesday, November 18

Join us in celebrating 40 years of Groundswell with special excerpt readings from playwrights of Groundswell past!

Wednesday, November 19

This evening’s reading will begin with excerpts from work by Curtain Raisers.

7:00 PM – BABEL by Brianna Wright

Show Description: In a world where social media draws us closer together and AI has the answer for most things, Nim, compelled by circumstance, uses the tools at her disposal to build a connection with a father she has never met. As difficult conversations are brought to the table, secrets are unearthed and unrealized desires are examined, Nim is confronted with many questions, should she welcome The Man she never knew into her life with Open arms or face a reality where certain connections may never develop after a significant amount of time has passed?

Content Warnings: Adult Language

Runtime: 45 minutes

8:00 PM – 02: 靈異 by Renée Wong

Show Description: In a quiet Toronto home, D lives under the weight of their parents’ traditions. When their parents turn to a self-proclaimed healer, the home is filled with rituals and endless attempts to cure what cannot be named. When J, a mysterious woman enters D’s life, they are pulled toward each other in a force that feels both healing and destructive. As their connection deepens, the family is drawn into a world where the line between the living and the dead, love and haunting, begins to blur.

Content Warnings: Assault, Sexual Assault, Homophobia, Physical Violence, Gore, Sexual Scenes, Suicide, Murder

Runtime: 45 minutes

Thursday, November 20

This evening’s reading will begin with excerpts from work by Curtain Raisers.

7:00 PM – boyhood by Mason McDonald

Show Description: When a trans man faces an unexpected and unwanted pregnancy, he must confront a medical system ill-equipped to address the intersections of gender-affirming and reproductive healthcare. “boyhood” exposes the tender solace of queer love and chosen family in the age of individualism.

Content Warnings: transphobia, bodily fluids, abortion, sex, sexual violence, coarse language, the f-slur, and gender dysphoria.

Runtime: 45 minutes

8:00 PM – Kasuku by Tanvi Vyas

Show Description: In August 1972, as Idi Amin begins his expulsion of South Asians from the country, two sisters – Chitra and Nishi – meet in the dead of night along the Ugandan-Kenyan border. Unable to cross the border to safety with her sister, Nishi entrusts Chitra with Kasuku, an African Gray Parrot the sisters have cared for since their teenage years. Kasuku becomes a constant companion as Chitra raises her twin children – Priya and Pravesh – in Kenya.

As Priya and Pravesh grow, tensions from the expulsion spread across East Africa. They learn to navigate the shifting relationships of the Native African and Indo-African communities. Meanwhile, Chitra struggles to understand her children as both seek to step outside of their expected paths. Their greatest challenge arises when the family is thrown headfirst into the violent Coup D’etat of August 1982 and its aftermath. The world shifts rapidly around them, and sacrifices must be made or they risk being separated forever.

Content Warnings: Implications of violence, coarse/hateful language

Runtime: 45 minutes

Nightwood’s Write From The Hip playwright unit is generously supported by RBC Emerging Artists.

Meet the Groundswell Festival 2025 Team

Intisar Awisse

Program Director

Intisar Awisse

Program Director

Intisar Awisse is a theatre-maker, playwright, dramaturg, and creative producer. She has been creating theatre for the last ten years with a focus on new plays, devised ensemble work, adaptations, and dance-based performance. Her work includes projects for theatre companies such as Dancemakers, Shaw Festival, Stratford Festival (Meighen Forum), Greenlight Arts, Why Not Theatre, and the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. She was an inaugural ThisGen Dramaturgy Fellow with Why Not Theatre and is currently ThisGen’s Artistic Producer where she supports theatre artists from across Canada. She often leads dramaturgy and creation workshops and has been a guest lecturer and facilitator for various institutions on topics such as Contemporary Dramaturgy and Performance Practice, Script Analysis, Canadian Theatre History, and Black British Theatre. Outside of performance, she regularly works as an editor and educator with experience in both book publishing and arts education.

Mya Wong

Program Associate

Mya Wong

Program Associate

Mya Wong (she/her) is a queer, Chinese-Vietnamese artist based in Toronto, Ontario. She loves to explore all the messy, silly, vicious parts of humanity, and to invite audiences to do the same with her. Since graduating from Toronto Metropolitan University with a BFA in Acting, Mya has been developing her dramaturgy practice with a focus on new work that centres underrepresented identities and perspectives. Select theatre credits include: Dramaturg, Playwrights in Process (Doormouse Productions); Production Dramaturg/Assistant Director, Ordinary Days (Shifting Ground Collective); A Perfect Bowl of Pho (Toronto Fringe Festival); Risk! A Climate Cabaret (United Nations with Live Canon).

Beck Lloyd

Playwright

Beck Lloyd

Playwright

Beck Lloyd (she/her) holds an MFA in Performance from York University, she teaches acting, text, and Shakespeare across Ontario, and is a graduate of the Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre. Beck writes because she is interested in the use of story creation as a radically inclusive art form creating pathways for critically engaged communities. Living in Toronto where she was born and raised, Beck works as an actor, educator, and part-time playwright.

Mason McDonald

Playwright

Mason McDonald

Playwright

Mason McDonald (they/them) is a multidisciplinary Métis artist from Treaty 6 Territory, Saskatchewan, now based in Tkaronto. As an actor, filmmaker, choreographer, and writer, Mason’s work aims to challenge reductive stereotypes by celebrating the depth, humanity, and unique experiences within queer and trans communities. Their creative practice is deeply rooted in themes of identity, belonging, and the intersections of community and self. They are a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University's Performance Acting Program, a proud member of ACTRA Toronto, and represented by Play Management.

Tanvi Vyas

Playwright

Tanvi Vyas

Playwright

Tanvi Vyas (she/her) is a writer and stage and production manager based in Toronto. Her passion for history informs and inspires her goal to bring underrepresented stories to life. A graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University, Tanvi continues to explore the various forms of live performance and challenges systems of oppression by supporting thoughtful and inclusive art/spaces.

Renée Wong

Playwright

Renée Wong

Playwright

Renée Wong (she/they) is a queer, non-binary Hong Kong-Canadian actor, playwright, arts administrator, and emerging filmmaker based in Toronto, Ontario. A graduate of Humber College's Theatre Performance Program, Renée also holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Toronto. They are deeply passionate about exploring marginalized stories within Asian diasporas, blending elements of theatre and film to bring these narratives to life.

Brianna Wright

Playwright

Brianna Wright

Playwright

Brianna Wright (she/her) is a Jamaican-Canadian artist based in Toronto, Ontario. Since completing a BFA in Performance: Acting from Toronto Metropolitan University, Brianna’s artistic journey has led her to engage with storytelling through acting, directing, producing and playwriting. Brianna strives to create immersive experiences that engage with all who encounter them, encouraging participants to deeply interrogate their own thoughts and beliefs, while also fostering a space of reflection, empathy, and connection.