Andrey Tarasiuk, Artistic Producer
Ash Knight, Artistic Producer - Designate
What We Do
PLEIADES THEATRE believes that Canadian lives are enriched by the shared stories of world cultures expressed through theatre.
Toronto is home to Indigenous Canadians and people from around the world, and Pleiades gives home to their theatre. Whether as translations, adaptations, or original works, join us and explore great plays that raise the curtain on some of the rich cultures that make up Canada today. Everything at Pleiades is about cultural encounters and bridging divides. What could be more Canadian?
Andrey Tarasiuk
Artistic Producer
PLEIADES produces outstanding works of theatre that celebrate various cultures from around the world and in Toronto. To do so, we produce plays that have either been translated into English or are new works written in English and which explore life in one of Canada's many cultures . We also engage and support youth and New Canadian adults through educational outreach.
Our plays are drawn from the Canadian and international repertoires. We present them in modern, innovative productions, usually in the form of new, Canadian translations, while on some occasions they are new works. New or classical, they are selected for their entertainment value, because they reveal something of a specific culture and because they remind us of the universality of the human experience. In addition, they often introduce writers and styles not widely known to Toronto audiences.
Also, through our unique educational program, Speak the Speech!, available in both English and French, we make a concerted effort to ensure that the creative process of theatre is accessible to young people of all cultural backgrounds. Parallel to this, our adult program, Play Upon the Word, is designed to help newcomers to Canada who are enrolled in school board ESL classes, to master their English and communications skills more quickly and New Land: New Language, (particularly designed for refugee high school students arriving in Toronto).
This work is integral to our operation and our philosophy.
The Pleiades
(pron. play-a-deez), is a group of stars, also known as “The Seven Sisters,” that appears in the Taurus constellation. In my imagination, The Pleiades invokes an image of the seven arts: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry and dance which, all combined, make up the last one, theatre. Also, the Pleiades are a reminder for me of the seven wonderful women in my life: my wife, my five sisters and my mother, all of whom give me inspiration as a creative artist. Theatre is a public art form—no audience, no theatre—but it has to come from a very personal place, beginning with the name of the company.
