La Seizième

Project in creation: Boréalis (Triptyque)

Mishka Lavigne (she/her) is a playwright, screenwriter, and literary translator. Her works have been produced and developed in Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia, Haiti, and Mexico. She was a finalist for the prestigious Siminovitch Prize in 2023. Her play Havre, premiered by La Troupe du Jour (Saskatoon), won the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2019. Copeaux, produced by Théâtre de Dehors (Ottawa), received the same award in 2021, along with the Jacques-Poirier Prize. Murs, initially produced as a podcast by Transistor Média, Créations In Vivo, and Théâtre populaire d’Acadie, received recognition in France, was staged in 2023, and was a finalist for the Michel-Tremblay Prize in 2024. Mishka also writes in English. Her play Albumen, produced by TACTICS in 2019 (Ottawa), received the QWF Playwriting Prize. Her play Shorelines, presented in Ottawa by TACTICS in 2023, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award in 2024, the QWF Playwriting Award, and the Carol Bolt Award. As a translator, working both from English to French and French to English, Mishka has translated nearly twenty works of theatre, prose, and poetry. She is the playwright behing a three-piece project, Boréalis (Triptyque) gathering the texts Granite, Lichen and Loup-Cervier. The shows will be in creation throughout the 2026-2027 season, with six Canadian theatre participating.

Writing commission: Micah et la maison sous les arbres

Laurie Léveillé is an author, screenwriter, and translator who graduated from the Playwriting program at the National Theatre School of Canada and the Screenwriting Development program at the École Nationale de l’Humour. In September 2024, she published Coup bas, a short novel for young readers and one of the first three titles in La courte échelle’s new Micro collection. The book garnered multiple honours, including the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award in the Young People’s Literature – Text category and the Alvine-Bélisle Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2025 Prix des Libraires in the Young Adult Literature category. She is currently adapting Coup bas into a television series. In recent years, she has also established herself as a fiction translator through numerous theatre and literary projects. Most recently, she translated and adapted the musical parody Titanique (Just For Laughs), which was widely acclaimed by critics. Her next book, a graphic novel for teens, is slated for publication in fall 2027.

Beginning in the 2026–2027 season, Laurie Léveillé will receive support from Théâtre la Seizième to develop her young audiences play Micah et la maison sous les arbres, with a view to a production in 2027-2028 in collaboration with the Centre de la Francophonie at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Micah et la maison sous les arbres is a playful ode to children who hear adults shouting far too often. Freely inspired by Gilbert Bécaud’s song La maison sous les arbres (The House Beneath the Trees), this theatrical work for elementary school children is a modern fable about how children experience their parents’ anger.

Micah is terrified of his father, who shouts too often. His hearing is gradually fading, as though his ears are becoming selective about the sounds that pass through them. At the back of the yard stands a fragile little shack where Micah takes refuge whenever his father gets angry: the house beneath the trees. Accompanied by the imaginary adults he encounters – the helmetless bicycle courier, the old woman walking her dog in a stroller, and the jogger with extraordinarily long hair – Micah hides in his secret house and writes a letter to his father asking him to shout less. He fears that he will lose his hearing forever if his father’s voice continues to echo so loudly through the house.

This project is created with the support of University of British Columbia, UBC Community Engagement and the Centre de la Francophonie de UBC.

Currently developing Double Vie

Mateusz West (they/them) is a Polish-Canadian trans playwright, actor, and producer based on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver). Their interdisciplinary plays include Tomboy (Chłopczyca) (The Cultch and the frank theatre, Vancouver), Underground Absolute Fiction (Rumble Theatre, Vancouver), Poly Queer Love Ballad (Queer Arts Festival, Frank Theatre and Zee Zee Theatre, Vancouver; Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto), and The Café (Aphotic Theatre, ITSAZOO Theatre, and PuSh Festival, Vancouver).

As an actor, they have performed with the National Arts Centre, Orange Theatre, Savage Society, the Firehall Arts Centre, and Théâtre la Seizième, among others. As a playwright, they have been nominated for two Jessie Awards and were the 2023 winner of the national Wildfire Playwriting Competition. Their writing has also appeared in This is Beyond: A Time Capsule of Queer Experience (Playwrights Canada Press, 2023), Nuits Claires (Éditions Prise de parole, 2025), and the theatre journal JEU.

Mateusz was the Artistic Producer of the Frank Theatre from 2018 to 2026. They are a graduate of Studio 58.

Currently developing Cholestérol… et autres tendresses (working title)

In Cholestérol… et autres tendresses, these five artists celebrate love and desire while exploring what happens to the heart and the body in later life, through a series of vignettes, both seemingly trivial and deeply impactful.

Marie-Josée Bastien is an actor, director, and playwright. She has directed more than thirty productions and written around twenty works, in addition to performing in more than fifty original creations and theatrical productions on stages across Quebec and Europe. She has received several Prix d’excellence des Arts et de la Culture de Québec.

Caroline Bélisle is an actor and playwright. She is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada and the Université de Moncton. She received the Gratien-Gélinas Award for her play Les remugles ou La danse nuptiale est une langue morte, which was also a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Awards. Her work has been produced by Théâtre l’Escaouette, Satellite Théâtre, Théâtre populaire d’Acadie, Théâtre des Béloufilles, Théâtre Catapulte, and Théâtre la Seizième. She also writes the entire series of puppet shows in the Nounours series at Le Pays de la Sagouine. Her work is published by Éditions Perce-Neige and Bouton d’or Acadie.

Joey Lespérance is a bilingual performing artist working in both French and English. He has contributed to the development of several theatrical works and created his first play, Michel(le), for Théâtre la Seizième in 2023. The work will be produced for an English-speaking audience in spring 2027. Recognized for his roles with several Canadian theatre companies, Joey received the Best Actor Award for his performance in À toi pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou (Théâtre la Seizième, 2015). He is a graduate of Studio 58 in Vancouver and is now based in Montreal.

Robert Marinier is a versatile theatre and television artist; he writes, acts, directs, teaches, and regularly works as a dramaturgical consultant. He is the author of a dozen plays, including À la gauche de Dieu, L’Insomnie (shortlisted for the 1997 Trillium Book Award and the 1998 Governor General’s Literary Award), and Épinal (shortlisted for the 2005 Trillium Book Award). Robert has also written around one hundred television and radio programs. His most recent play, Un conte de l’apocalypse, was presented in co-production with Théâtre de la Vieille 17 and the National Arts Centre of Canada in January and February 2020 and published by Prise de parole in 2021. It won the 2022 Trillium Book Award as well as the 2023 Champlain Award.

France Perras is a graduate of the Theatre Department at the University of Ottawa, France works in both English and French across theatre, television and film, animation, commercials, as well as serving as a moderator/MC and bilingual live announcer. On stage, she has performed with Théâtre la Seizième in Lentement la beauté, Porc-épic, À toi pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou, Le Soulier, and Ce que je sais de vrai, and will soon appear in Dilemme. She has also travelled across the country to perform in Mani Soleymanlou’s pan-Canadian production Un.Deux.Trois., alongside 36 other French-speaking Canadian artists.