The Live-In Festival—2 weeks, 20 events—offers readings, workshops, performances, and more! Purchase a Festival Pass, a 3-Event Pass, or Pay Per Event (suggested donation/PWYC).
This year’s theme, Making light, is about survival. We approach weighty situations with playful levity. It is a cornerstone of resistance – political satire, comedy, parody, and queer resistance. It is a process of illumination, as in ‘light in dark times’, but it is also a semantic trick, erasing colour, shadow, depth, and complexity in favour of brightness, or whiteness. Many hands also make light work, so we focus on community-building and collaboration. In DaPoPo’s 2026 Live-In Festival, we wish to explore the idea of making light as a poetic, political process, embracing the fun of artistic creation, while owning our responsibility as artists.
DaProgram
Th 01 | 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM | Opening: Cottage Garden
We launch the Festival with a Gallery Opening in collaboration with Colleen Arcturus MacIsaac, exhibiting works by Nova Scotia artist Jordyn Bochon. Previous work includes Gene Day Award nominated Finnegan Strappe and The Claw of the Earth, and The Day After Vday, as well as contributions to Nova Graphica (Conundrum Press), Workshop: (Image), Spera (Archaia), Monstrosity (Alterna), and Comics in Transit (Cloudscape Comics). In addition to her work in comics, she is a costume designer for theatre, and a designer and bg artist for animation.
Fr 02 | 7:30 PM – 9:30 PM | HITS!
Halifax Indie Theatre SINGS – a festival favourite! A joyous, celebratory evening of musical performances by emerging and established artists ranging from jazz to Musical Theatre with Kristi Anderson, Mac Freeman, Henri Gielis, Diego Guerrero, Al Newling, David Reid, Tara Taylor, Rowan Avery White, Garry Williams, et al.
Sa 03 | 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Cryptic Clue Scavenger Hunt
Embark upon a maddening adventure that relies on teamwork and thinking outside the box from the head of Garry Williams—with riddles, fun, and prizes!
Sa 03 | 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM | Light Fare
Join us for homemade bread, soup, & conversation—tasty vegan soup and hearty bread—to discuss life and art.
Sa 03 | 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM | SING THING
Choir practice meets Sing-Along Show Tunes, no previous singing experience or knowledge is required. Belt out those big Broadway numbers—known and less known—in a laid back, supportive, and fun atmosphere with Garry Williams. Music and lyrics provided.
Su 04 | 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Situated Scenography
Ian McFarlane is a scenographer, a theatre maker and a puppeteer whose work fosters a fusion of landscape poetics, regenerative invention and performative alchemy. Ian has worked with the Canadian Academy of Mask and Puppetry (Calgary, AB), Bread and Puppet Theater (Vermont), DaPoPo Theatre (Halifax, NS), and co-founded Mudfoot Theatre (Calgary, AB) the River Clyde Pageant (New Glasgow, PEI). He received an MFA in Mo Contemporary Art from Simon Fraser University and co-created North Barn Theatre.
Su Oct 4 | 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM | Strangers At A Bus Stop
Strangers At A Bus Stop is the working title of a new screenplay by emerging screenwriter Molly McWhinnie. River Landry is late for an audition and Jenny Connors is on her way to visit family for the holidays when both are stranded at the same bus shelter in an unprecedented white-out blizzard. The two start out as strangers, yet the longer they’re trapped and the higher the snow piles up around them, the more they begin to form an unexpected bond. But if they can’t even see two inches beyond the edge of their shelter, where are they going to go when the past comes back to haunt them?
Mo 05 | 6:30 PM – 7:45 PM | Breathexperience
Drop-in breath work with Margaret Hild. Breathexperience, or Middendorf Breath Work, is a somatic practice in which participants are invited to shift awareness from thinking and doing, and direct their attention to presence, sensation, and allowing. Specifically, the physical sensation of the breath. By giving ourselves the time and permission to do this, we cultivate a feeling of inner safety and with it a positive domino effect of rejuvenation, communication, self-expression, connection, and emotional processing.
We 07 | 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM | Even the Muse
Garry Williams is a composer, lyricist and music director. Original scores include Pinocchio, The Wizard of Oz (SBTS), King of Berlin (Doppler Effect), KAMP (EFT/Neptune), Rain On the Parade (Villains Theatre), Beauty and the Beast (SBTS), and So… What ELSE ABout Love? (DaPoPo Theatre). Since 2023, he has been the Music Director for the River Clyde Pageant. Through illuminating lecture, discussion, and hands-on music making, participants will review rudiments of music theory, songwriting, and song analysis in fun, drop-in sessions.
Th 08 | 7:15 PM – 9:00 PM | Mystery Event
Let yourself be surprised—or ask one of our festival coordinators for more information about this event!
Fr 09 | 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM | DaPanel Discussion
Experts discuss Humour & Dissonance As Political Tools and Growing and Sustaining Audiences in Times of Crisis. Panelists include Saf Haq, Raeesa Lalani, Gabrielle Papillion, and Tara Taylor.
Sa 10 | 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM | Light Fare
(See Sa 03)
Sa 10 | 7:30 PM – 9:30 PM | The Collab Lab
Come hear excerpts from collaborative projects—songs, scenes, and poetry—and stories about co-creation, the collaborative process, and how many hands can make light work, including stories and excerpts from Bottom Dwellers, Rain On the Parade, So… What ELSE About Love?, et al.
Mo 12 | 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM | Nestluck
Potluck at the Nest! Bring a little something to share and join us for a delightful afternoon feast of levity, community spirit, and good cheer.
We 14 | 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM | Even the Muse
(see We 07)
Th 15 | 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM | Iris
Laura Burke is a mad-identified writer/actor/performance poet based out of Halifax, NS. She debuted her first play, called Voices, in San Francisco in 2011. Since then, she has written Heartwood, a confessional one woman show about her journey as a psychiatric survivor. Laura was a member of the Eastern Front Theatre Playwright’s Unit, and the Bus Stop Theatre Playwright’s Unit. In 2018, Laura worked with Tangled Art + Disability’s Flourishing Project to create an early draft and workshop production of Mad Ones. Iris is about a woman in 1990s rural Newfoundland who believes she is a witch, and is thus doomed to alienation, but who finds her way curiously back to herself in front of an audience.
Fr 16 | 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM | Die, Die, Lavinia
Jay Whitehead brings a queer memoir about the selves we invent to survive—and what happens when those selves refuse to stay dead. Jay Whitehead is an actor, performer, drag personality, choreographer, director, writer and teacher. Whitehead holds a Diploma in Musical Theatre from MacEwan University, a BFA from the University of Lethbridge and an MFA in Acting from York University. Most recently, his award-winning play 333 enjoyed a celebrated Maritime Tour.
Sa 17 | 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM | Play As Practice
A process-oriented workshop with DaPoPo’s core artists—a chance to play, upend, and explore, bringing playful irreverence to serious work.
Sa 17 | 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM | Light Fare
(see Sa 10)
Sa 17 | 7:30 PM – 9:30 PM | Closing: Art to Eradicate Poverty
To mark the International Day to Eradicate Poverty, we present songs, readings, poems, and performances that engage—seriously and playfully—with wealth, poverty, and revolution.
DaPeople
DAPOPO THEATRE: Ivy Abbott-Charles, Kristi Anderson, James Thornton, Garry Williams
POSTER IMAGE: Colleen Arcturus MacIsaac
GUEST ARTISTS: Laura Burke, Zach Faye, Henri Gielis, Diego Guerrero, Saf Haq, Raeesa Lalani, Dylan Amadeus Martin, Ian McFarlane, Molly McWhinnie, Gabrille Papillon, Nye Pascoe, David Reid, Amy Reitsma, Tara Taylor, Rowan Avery White, Jay Whitehead, Elevator Theatre, et al.
THE NEST: Villains Theatre, Around + Out Theatre, Halifax Theatre for Young People, Halifax Fringe Festival, Unnatural Disaster Theatre, Strategic Arts Management, Emma Lamont, Taryn Hanrahan, Lee-Anne Poole, Nolan Natasha, Tessa Pekeles, Margaret Hild, DaPoPo Theatre
For more information, reach us at admin@dapopotheatre.com
