MADGEN Tickets

PEACHES by Elio Zarrillo

Play Synopsis

PEACHES is an irreverent, surreal, and queer exploration of the stories we grow for survival. Peach farmer Greg and his apprentice Prince make a startling discovery in the midst of their daily harvest: a play has grown from one of their trees, destroying the crop. With the orchard’s peaches spoiled by the sprouted script, the two decide to act it out. The lines between the play and their own lives begin to blur, unearthing buried histories, firmly-rooted binaries, and one long-avoided confrontation. As Greg and Prince wrestle for ownership of the script, it becomes clear that the play won’t stop growing until they’ve resolved all that’s gone bad between them. PEACHES grapples with whether harmful origins can be sites of healing and if taking control of the narrative is ever truly possible. What survives when rot sets in?

PEACHES was first commissioned in 2022 by Zee Zee Theatre’s National Queer & Trans Playwriting Unit. As a part of that unit, in November 2023 it was workshopped at Theatre Outré in Lethbridge, AB. In April 2025 a workshop reading was shared at Page1 Theatre’s OutFest in Halifax, NS, where it won the Jury’s Choice Award. It has received development support from Theatre Projects Manitoba and the Manitoba Association of Playwrights.

This play is 75+ minutes, with an intermission.

trigger warnings

Strong language, transphobia.

Creative team

WRITTEN BY

Elio Zarrillo is a prairie-born queer who spends their days making plays and poems with and for their loved ones. Originally from Treaty 1 territory, they are now based on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, having recently completed an MFA in Creative Writing & Theatre at the University of British Columbia. Recent produced works include LIAM (rEvolver Festival, Exquisite Pressure), The Outside Inn (co-written with Sharon Bajer - Prairie Theatre Exchange, Festival Antigonish), Volare (Prairie Theatre Exchange) and The Show (Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre), with If We Be Friends (in-progress), a queer and trans play about teens, zines, Shakespeare, and resistance.

DIRECTED BY

Sofia 'Stevie' Garcia (they/them) is a Butch Cuban-Italian artist who aims to break the status quo and create authentic representation wherever they can. They are an emerging graduate from the Theatre and Drama Studies Specialist program at the University of Toronto and Sheridan College, where alongside their acting, they focused on lesbian theatrical historiography and the dramaturgy of Butches and trans-masculine bodies in performance. Stevie loves feminist, classical, and musical theatre, gritty realism, slam poetry, and anything that puts butches and queers at the forefront of performance. Most of all, Stevie looks forward to creating art that is bold, brave, exciting, and new! IG: @sgarcia224._ 

PRODUCED BY

Emily Paterson (she/her) is a Toronto based theatre artist who has recently graduated from the University of Toronto with an HBA in Drama and English. Her primary focus is in playwriting, production, and dramaturgical research. She is best known for her play Butch/Femme (2025) presented by Theatre Passe Muraille, produced by her independent theatre company, The Green Couch Theatre Company, which she founded in 2025. Butch/Femme premiered at the 2025 UofT Hart House Drama Festival where it was awarded the President’s Award for Best Production. She will be attending Toronto Metropolitan University in the fall of 2026 to pursue an MFA in Scriptwriting. She is incredibly honoured and excited to continue to grow in Toronto theatre as an emerging producer with Theatre of the Beat!

CAST

Name

Name

Problematic History Teacher by MJ Kang

PLAY SYNOPSIS

Problematic History Teacher investigates the complexities that arise when specific ethnic studies courses are taught by those without lived experiences in that culture. Mike, a white male history teacher, self-proclaimed good guy, teaches Asian Canadian studies at a private arts boarding high school. On Open House Day, he presents his teaching methodology to parents and students. He has sourced great material for his curriculum and truly cares about what he teaches. He may speak off the cuff a few times and go deep into his personal history, but that's all part of being Mike, AKA Problematic History Teacher. It's a title he's given himself. The character will be played by an Asian actor who identifies as female. It's a satire that raises complex questions to prompt dialogue about teaching a culture outside your lived experiences and about who has the right to tell certain cultural stories.

This play is 60 minutes, no intermission.

TRIGGER WARNINGS:

Racist and prejudiced comments.

CREATIVE TEAM

WRITTEN BY

M.J. Kang (she/her) is a Korean-Canadian-American playwright and actor. She was the first Korean-Canadian playwright to have her work professionally produced on Canadian stages and was hailed “a wunderkind” by the Globe and Mail, Canada’s oldest national newspaper. Her recent awards include the Bulmash-Seigel Award 2026, TREAM from TAPA 2026, Walter E. Dakin Fellowship 2025, AGE Legacy Award 2025, Signpost Fellowship 2025, and Best Play at the Toronto Fringe Festival 2025. She was recently part of the Opera Creation Forum 2026, run by Opera Magnolia and Opera de Montreal as a librettist. Her plays have been produced by Son of Semele, Pan Asian Rep, East West Players, Theater Passe Muraille, Tarragon Theater, Factory Theater, Blyth Festival Theater, Shakespeare in Action, AFO Solo Shorts, Shotgun Players, and many others. Her play, Noran Bang: The Yellow Room, was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award, Toronto’s professional theater award for Best New Play, Independent Theater. As a screenwriter, she shares writing credit on the anthology feature film Moving Day, which is in production in Montreal. It received support from Telefilm Canada and the Canadian Media Fund and has a licensing agreement with CBC. She is currently an artist-in-residence at Tarragon Theatre, and her day job is adapting foreign television shows for Netflix.

DIRECTED BY

Himanshu Sitlani is a Dora Mavor Moore Award-nominated playwright and performer. Originally from Mumbai, Himanshu has been deeply involved in supporting the creative arts in Canada. He currently serves as Managing Director at Native Earth Performing Arts while also pursuing his goal of building a bridge between creative artists in Canada and India. This vision led to the formation of Nautanki Bazaar, a South Asian theatre company that focuses on South Asian arts and artists.

PRODUCED BY

Jenylle Rufin is an emerging theatre professional based in Toronto. She’s a graduate from the DAN school of Drama and Music at Queen’s University and has since gained a great amount of experience and knowledge in festival and production work. Her recent work includes Apprentice Production Manager at the Grand Theatre, Project Coordinator for Mammalian Diving Reflex, and Associate Producer for the Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA). Central to Jenylle’s work is her passion for accessibility and inclusivity within theatre spaces. She is very excited to work as an emerging producer with Theatre of the Beat and is looking forward to this year’s MAGDEN festival!

CAST

Name

UPROOTED by Kabrena Robinson

PLAY SYNOPSIS

What happens when the dream of a better life becomes a slow erasure of your identity?

Uprooted is a surreal solo performance that follows Crystal Wataz, a young Jamaican woman navigating the quiet realities of migration in Canada. As the weight of displacement unravels her sense of self, the veil between dreams and reality dissolves. She is drawn into “Wanda Lan,” a liminal world of folklore and ancestral spirits, where water carries memory and truth. 

Blending dub poetry, movement, and Afro-Caribbean storytelling and mythology, Uprooted explores the emotional and generational impact of displacement, colonization, and identity through a distinctly Jamaican diasporic lens. The play honours the rhythms and voices of Caribbean life while illuminating the resilience, survival, and cultural inheritance carried by those who migrate.

At once deeply personal and profoundly political, Uprooted invites audiences into a story of remembrance, healing, and the enduring search for belonging.

This play is 60 minutes, no intermission.

Trigger Warnings

NA

CREATIVE TEAM

WRITTEN BY

Kabrena Robinson is a queer Afro-Jamaican multidisciplinary storyteller of Accompong Maroon lineage whose work lives at the intersection of theatre, dub poetry, journalism, and cultural education. Rooted in Afro-Caribbean spirituality, ancestral memory, and decolonial storytelling practices, she creates work that explores identity, belonging, and the enduring echoes of history across generations. Kabrena is currently an Artist-in-Residence with Necessary Angel Theatre Company for the 2026/27 season. Her debut play, Uprooted, was developed in residency at Black Theatre School and continues to evolve through the MADGEN Theatre Festival as part of a growing body of interconnected works rooted in myth, memory, and Caribbean storytelling traditions. When she is not writing, performing, facilitating creative spaces, or raising a tiny dreamer with a big imagination, Kabrena can usually be found collecting stories, chasing rivers, and dreaming up worlds where ancestors, folklore, and contemporary life meet.

DIRECTED BY

Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah is a Toronto based actor, writer, and director. Living her life at a multitude of intersections, Khadijah's work is motivated by a pursuit of artistic expression that aims to challenge understandings of visibility and inclusivity. Whether working alongside like-minded artists or producing work through her company, 2Skins Entertainment, Khadijah strives to create art that amplifies the voices of those who exist in the margins of our society. Khadijah co-wrote and starred in her first short film, P!GS, in 2018 and followed it up with her second short, DEFUND, which she co-wrote/ produced/ directed, and starred in. DEFUND premiered at TIFF 2021, was named one of TIFF’s Top Ten Canadian Short Films, and is available for streaming as a Vimeo Staff Pick. Notable acting credits include; The Second Life of Samuel Tyne and The Book of Negroes for audiobook narration, Corrina in Primary Trust, G.K. Marche in How to Catch Creation, Lila in Bang Bang, Laertes in Prince Hamlet, Claudette in How Black Mothers Say I Love You, and three seasons at the Stratford Festval for the theatre, Slo Pitch, Coroner, Y The Last Man, The Last of Us, American Gods, What We Do In The Shadows, and Workin Moms for television, Really Happy Someday, Sugar Daddy and Body So Fluorescent for film.

PRODUCED BY

Rais Clarke-Mendes is a Trinidadian-Barbadian performer, director, playwright, and emerging producer based in Toronto. She is a graduate of the Acting Program at the National Theatre School of Canada. Rais made her directorial debut with X and Da Spirit by Donovan Hayden at Theatre Passe Muraille in association with b current performing arts. She has also served as Assistant Director on Fat Ham at Canadian Stage and Red Velvet at Crow’s Theatre. Beyond her work on stage, Rais is engaged in arts education and community programming through her collaboration with Nia Centre for the Arts. She is currently developing her original play, Carnival Queen, as part of Nightwood Theatre’s Write From The Hip program. Rais is thrilled to be working with Theatre of the Beat as an Emerging Producer Fellow, building her producing toolkit with the goal of supporting Black and Caribbean artists to bring their stories to the stage.

CAST

SOUND DESIGNER