Open Heart Surgery Theatre  was founded in 2014 and is an international, female-led theatre ensemble based in Toronto and London, UK.  We create new devised work that is physical, poetic, relevant and experimental. Led by Parsi-Irish Canadian theatre maker, Coleen Shirin MacPherson, we create work that stretches borders and moves boundaries, dangling across the hyphenated space and engaging with cross-cultural collaboration.  Our work has toured to Egypt, U.S.A, UK, France and Poland.

We comprise of a mixture of performers including Lecoq-trained theatre makers whose interests lie in intercultural work that engages audiences in a visceral experience, often experimenting with form and multiple languages on stage.  We take a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to theatre making: merging live music, media and dance to create original theatre that opens the heart and speaks to the urgent stories of our time.

Our work includes First Draft (Camden People’s Theatre, Mimetic Festival in London (The Vaults, Waterloo Station).  This play was re-imagined and co-produced with StudioZAT at Falaki Theatre in Cairo, Egypt in November 2016.   In Silence From Dawn 'Till Dusk, a 12-hour silent protest at 2nd Floor Rear, an art festival in Chicago (Mana Contemporary) when their Iranian-Canadian musicians couldn't make it to Chicago due to Donald Trump’s EO Muslim Ban.   Open Heart Surgery Theatre was hosted in at Théâtre de L’Enfumeraie in Le Mans, France; Plateau 31 in Paris, France and Old Vic New Voices in the UK for the development of This Is Why We Live, a play that takes the poems of Wisława Szymborska to the stage. After a short run in Toronto, we toured the play to Krakow at Nowy Theatre with the support of the Miłosz Festival and the Szymborksa Foundation.  We held our U.S. premiere of This Is Why We Live at La MaMa in NYC as part of their 58th Season this September 2019 to rave reviews.  Our work, Erased was created into a film-play and held a digital showing at La MaMa in July 2020 as part of Experiments Play-Readings, a quarantine experiment (directed by Jason Trucco).  In COVID-19, our play Surrealist Women based on the works and life of Leonora Carrington, was transformed into a digital podcast called Wild Women, through the support of the Digital Originals Grant with the Canada Council for the Arts.

In Development:  Erased at Theatre Passe Muraille and Apagado, the Brazilian co-production with Juliana Spínola, Wild Women Podcast, we are developing more episodes on female painters with Martha Ross through the support of the Canada Council for the Arts Digital NOW grant.  On November 4th at 7:00 pm UK time, This Is Why We Live will be part of a Digital Watch Party as part of VOILA! Europe at the Cockpit Theatre in London, UK.

THE COMPANY

COLEEN SHIRIN MACPHERSON

ALAINE HUTTON

ELODIE MONTEAU

SARAH WARREN

YEARIME CASTEL BARRAGAN