DART students Deborah Howey, Gianna Lupparelli Nash, Talyn Knokhinova, Adia Buckle, Angelina Anello, Ariya Ullah and Milan Fernandez (l-r) discuss the Secret Service of the Stars during a recent DART PRI intensive.
Students, faculty and guest artists recently launched the creative research projects of the 2026 DART Performance Research Institute (PRI). From June through August 2026 the PRI welcomes four projects, ranging from Research Explorations through to a Summer Institute Residency. These projects typically provide up to 5 weeks of in-studio and online development to test or develop early drafts and ideas and sometimes result in a work-in-progress sharing to an invited audience.
This year’s PRI program launched on June 15 with a one-day intensive workshop called The Agony and The Ecstasy led by Trevor Copp (Tottering Biped Theatre, Burlington) and faculty member David Vivian. During this third workshop about the project, DART students worked with texts drawn from a landmark study of heterosexism and Transphobia in Canadian Catholic Schools. Their reading from the redacted interviews of the research subjects generated a creative investigation to support dramaturgical and play-making development.
DART students Tejay Morley, Deborah Howey, Angelina Anello and Gianna Lupparelli Nash (l-r) discuss the Agony and the Ecstasy with Trevor Copp, Artistic Director of Tottering Biped Theatre (Burlington), during a recent DART PRI intensive.
Students provided feedback on the draft texts, contributed to discussions about content, and engaged in discussion about design choices for a simple, low tech and in-the-field province-wide research tour that Copp will be launching this autumn. The day concluded with a generous and thoughtful consultation with the Dean of the Faculty of Education, Dr. Mary-Louise Vanderlee, and the imagining of future development opportunities that may involve the Faculty of Education.
The June program of the PRI concluded with a four-day studio-based intensive with the new draft script of Secret Service of the Stars, led by DART faculty David Fancy and David Vivian and a diverse group of students including those who have just completed their first year of studies through to a graduate who will be commencing her Masters program in the fall.
Secret Service of the Stars, written by Fancy, is a historical-metaphysical espionage drama inspired by the extraordinary real-life story of Louis de Wohl, the queer Hungarian-German playwright, novelist and astrologer hired by British intelligence (MI5 and MI6) during the Second World War to produce horoscopes for psychological warfare against Hitler and the Nazi elite.
The play reimagines De Wohl’s recruitment by Churchill’s Ministry of Information as part of a covert campaign to weaponize the stars—using astrology not only as propaganda but as a mirror of the cosmic anxieties of a world rife with fascism, political extremism, conspiracy, and war.
DART students Talyn Knokhinova, Milan Fernandez and Adia Buckle (l-r) discuss the Secret Service of the Stars during a recent DART PRI intensive.
The Secret Service of the Stars workshop was a vital success, offering students a focused and generative encounter with a new theatrical world. After reading the play, participants followed their own interests and emerging areas of expertise to shape artistic explorations for the group.
Fancy observed that the PRI workshop afforded “the student leadership the opportunity to initiate fresh pathways into character, image, space, ritual, and dramaturgical possibility, while building a strong sense of shared ownership around the project.”
Playwright and professor David Fancy, DART students Deborah Howey, Talyn Knokhinova, Ariya Ullah, Angelina Anello, Adia Buckle, Gianna Lupparelli Nash and Milan Fernandez (l-r, with consultant Beverly Orser in foreground) discuss the Secret Service of the Stars during a recent DART PRI intensive.
Key to the creative exploration of the text, the astrological insights offered by consultant and critical sociologist Beverly Orser brought a distinctive depth to the process, expanding the students’ understanding of the symbolic and social forces animating the play.
Vivian’s contribution as scenographer brought pedagogical clarity and key suggestions of the eventual scenographic vision as part of the workshop’s artistic outcomes.
He remarked that “the students’ enthusiastic and ambitious exploration of the theatrical and imaginary space of the story, combined with their thoughtful, creative illumination of the developing characters was a testament to the success of their learning in the DART program….These are emerging artists to keep an eye on!”
DART students Gianna Lupparelli Nash, Milan Fernandez, Angelina Anello, Ariya Ullah (in mirror), Talyn Knokhinova (foreground) and Adia Buckle seen during an imaginative reading of the script of Secret Service of the Stars during a 2026 DART PRI Intensive.
Together, these collective contributions helped establish a robust foundation for the ongoing creative production development that will proceed online and in subsequent PRI intensives in anticipation of the DART mainstage production of Secret Service of the Stars to be directed by Fancy in the fall of 2027.
Subsequent PRI projects in July and August include ‘subh kuch theek hai’ (everything’s fine), a funny play about being depressed, to be led by Alison Wong, Waleed Ansari and their team. ‘subh kuch theek hai’ is a collective sensorial experience showing how much work it actually takes to do nothing, just to make it through the day. The play takes place immersed in MAN’s subconscious as his internal processes come to life through a multimedia environment.
The PRI residency workshop of Wife of Bath, 1998, the DART mainstage for the winter 2027 session, will be led by Independent Auntie Productions with Anna Chatterton, Evalyn Parry, U of Waterloo Feminist Think Tank, & DART Chair Jennifer Roberts-Smith.
This is an original, two-act play that explores the challenges of intergenerational feminism. As the Monica Lewinsky scandal of 1998 plays out in the background, a group of women-identified, trans-gendered, non-binary, and racially diverse theatre students wrestle with how to adapt Geoffrey Chaucer’s 600-year-old story about a protagonist (the Wife herself), who has been the focus of centuries of feminist and pre-feminist debate.
Drawing on the Aunties trademark sensibilities and absurdist, clown-inspired style, this will be a subversive comedy about young, political artists attempting to make a “revolutionary” piece of theatre, while behind the scenes, interpersonal relationships and tensions simmer, threatening to explode. This residency will pilot a partnered, industry-academic approach to teaching theatre through a new play creation process that centres diversity, equity, and inclusion at all stages.
For more information about the DART Performance Research Institute, see the DART PRI webpage. The Department welcomes expressions of interest from theatre makers and scholars for future PRI programming. The formal call for submissions is typically circulated in August/September of the preceding year. Students may apply to become creative research participants beginning in January.
(all photos by David Vivian)
