As The Cultch wraps its current season with Haus of Yolo June 5-15 at The York theatre it looks ahead to its recently announced 2025/26 Season.
From October 2025 to June 2026, The Cultch brings another season filled with local premieres and touring hits—theatre, circus, poetry, comedy and music will reverberate through the York Theatre, Historic Theatre, and Vancity Culture Lab from October 2025 to June 2026!
photo: Andy Phillipson
“Our work is to tell stories through a Canadian cultural lens, amplify the voices of artists, provide reciprocity by welcoming performances from other countries, and to share these remarkable events with the community,” says Cultch Executive Director, Heather Redfern. “Canadian cultural identity is healthy when artists and arts organizations thrive and create social cohesion.”
This 2025/26 Season will feature four local world premieres, including a multidisciplinary work from Carmen Aguirre, Fire Never Dies: The Tina Modotti Project; frank theatre’s Tomboy (Ch?opczyca), a queer dance theatre hybrid by Anais West; End of Greatness, a new play from East Van legends Veda Hille and Maiko Yamamoto; and Corey Payette’s latest musical, On Native Land.
Other local and Canadian theatre to look out for are Hazel Venzon and Darren O’Donnell’s Everything Has Disappeared, a co-presentation with PuSh International Performing Arts Festival and Live Biennale, that celebrates and explores the unique relationship the Filipino diaspora has to the global economy; and Itai Erdal’s Soldiers of Tomorrow, another personal story from the celebrated local storyteller and lighting designer.
In addition to Payette’s On Native Land, The Cultch will continue to spotlight exciting Indigenous creators—thanks to the support of the Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation—with works like Santee Smith’s The Mush Hole and UPU, a M?ori and Pasifika poetry show from Aotearoa/New Zealand, which is also part of The Cultch’s 2026 Warrior Festival.
This season’s Warrior Festival—The Cultch’s festival showcasing liberating and boundary-breaking theatre—will showcase six shows, including UPU and Tomboy. The other four shows in the festival are Leah Shelton’s Batshit, Hannah Moscovitch’s Red Like Fruit, The Search Party’s presentation of Duncan Macmillan’s People, Places & Things, and The Horse of Jenin, by Palestinian actor and comedian Alaa Shehada.
Warrior Festival isn’t the only festival in the schedule for this season, TRANSFORM Festival is back. This collaboration with Urban Ink will once again feature works of collaboration between Indigenous and non-indigenous artists at the Vancouver Playhouse. Further details will be announced by Urban Ink.
The Cultch’s commitment to bringing Vancouver audiences the best innovative theatre from around the world continues with hits like the wildly energetic Burnout Paradise from Australia’s Pony Cam Collective and Lost Dog’s (UK) Juliet & Romeo, a comedic dance-theatre production which imagines a world where the star-crossed lovers did not die.
In addition, there will be three International circus shows, Paradisum, this season’s annual cirque/dance co-presentation with DanceHouse; Sophie’s Surprise 29th, from Three Legged Race Productions (UK); and Wolf, from Australia’s renowned Circa (Sacre, Duck Pond) which will launch the season with a bang on October 1, 2025.
The season wouldn’t be complete without the annual production of Theatre Replacement’s East Van Panto—Vancouver’s favourite hyper-local holiday tradition. This year, Theatre Replacement presents East Van Panto: West Van Story. Playwright Marcus Youssef (who wrote East Van Panto: Wizard of Oz and East Van Panto: Pinocchio) will return, teamed up with Panto newcomer Pedro Chamale to create the Romeo and Juliet/West Side Story retelling, and renowned Vancouver director Chelsea Haberlin will direct the Panto for the first time.
With so much happening across The Cultch’s three stages, there is much for Greater Vancouver audiences to look forward to this year. Season subscriptions and ticket packages are available now at thecultch.com