MAINSTAGE PRODUCTIONS

TILT by Jean-Michel Cliche and Alex Rioux

Thursday, July 24 and Friday, July 25, 7:30 PM nightly, at Memorial Hall, UNB, 9 Bailey Drive.

Tickets: $20 General; $15 Students/Seniors/Underemployed, available at the door.

A couple’s rocky domestic life takes a turn when a shocking secret comes to light. What secret? You decide! Part physical theatre, part improv comedy, each performance of TILT is different as a prompt from the audience sends the story – and performers – into an improvised tailspin!

Written and performed by Jean-Michel Cliche and Alex Rioux, with live technical improv by stage manager Georgia Brown.

Festival OPENING NIGHT PARTY to follow July 24th performance of TILT (starting approximately 8:45 PM) at The Grad House, 676 Windsor Street (free, all welcome!)

Join the NotaBle Acts collective as we raise a glass to celebrate the opening of the festival at The Grad House at UNB, 676 Windsor Street. Meet and mingle with the companies of all sixteen (!) new plays that will be premiering over the next ten days and enjoy some complimentary snacks

Crane Girl by Alexa Higgins

Saturday August 2 at 7:30 PM and Sunday August 3 at 2 PM and 7:30 PM. Memorial Hall, UNB, 9 Bailey Drive.

Tickets: $20 General; $15 Students/Seniors/Underemployed, available at the door.

Inspired by a real event, Crane Girl is a fictionalized exploration of what might cause a woman with no training, experience, or equipment to climb a crane. Jane, a young married woman who suddenly finds herself feeling untethered, can see no way out of the cage she has built around herself until she realizes she shouldn’t be looking for a way out, but rather, up. As Jane continues her thrilling ascent, she comes face to face with the very people and the past she is trying to climb away from. Crane Girl explores rage, women’s bodies, reproductive rights, and what it means to find your voice in a patriarchal nightmare. And it’s funny! Plus, the real kicker? The titular Crane Girl won’t touch the ground until curtain!

Written by Alexa Higgins and performed by Ian Goff, Kira Chisholm, and Alexa Higgins.

Taking it to the Streets and Street Scenes:

The seven winners of the 2025 NotaBle Acts Ten-Minute and Site-Specific Playwriting Contests

Sunday, July 28 through Wednesday, July 31, beginning nightly at 7:30 PM in the Beaverbrook Art Gallery Courtyard. Performances are outdoors and weather-permitting. Patrons may wish to bring a seat cushion for Taking it to the Streets (seating is in the concrete amphitheatre of the BAG courtyard) and a cushion, blanket, or lawn chair for Street Scenes.

Run time: Taking it to the Streets: approximately 50 minutes.

Street Scenes: approximately 50 minutes.

Admission: by donation.

Taking it to the Streets: Four Ten-Minute Plays:

Folie a Deux by Dani Brun

Confined to adjoining cells but unable to see each other, best-friend prisoners Jules and Marie decide to dig a tunnel—but not for the reason you might expect.

Directed by Emily Bossé and featuring Jordan Comeau, Rachel Rowan, and Karlie Curtis.

Bus Stop Breakup by Kyla Brewer

Sadie and Carol have been picking their kids up at the bus stop together for years. But today, Carol’s got some bad news for her friend.

Directed by Alex Dawson and featuring Kelsey Price, Brenda Madill, and Ali Dejong

Don’t Shoot Your Mother! by Brandon Hicks

A mother tries to reconnect with her sullen and withdrawn teenage son by joining him in his favourite video game—literally.

Directed by Kat Hall and featuring Felix Nocera, Dino Andriani, Ryca McCullough, and Kat Hall.

Lavender Brews and Patchouli by Erin Russell

Two feuding vendors, one selling lavender and the other a hodgepodge of new age medicinals, engage in an epic grudge-driven battle for customers at the Garrison Night Market, back-biting as only artists can.

Directed by Sophie Brander and featuring Ella Murphy and Diana Chavez.

The four ten-minute plays in Taking It to the Streets will begin at 7:30 PM at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery Courtyard, and will be followed immediately (approximately 8:25 PM) by the three plays in

Street Scenes: Three Site-Specific Plays:

The Happiest Day of Their Lives by Alex McAllister

As they pose for their wedding photos, a bride and groom recount the ups, downs, and moments of laughter and absurdity that have brought them to the happiest day of their lives.

Directed by Brie Sparks and featuring Isaac Gilbert and Sophie Brander.

Location: the Green beside the Beaverbrook Art Gallery Courtyard.

On the Grounds of the Assembly by Brent White

A tourist couple’s encounter with an with an out-of-touch MLA on the grounds of the Legislative Assembly shines a cutting and satirical light on New Brunswick’s unique—and at times baffling—political culture.

Directed by Len Falkenstein and featuring Scott Harris, Joe Everett, and Kat Hall.

Location: New Brunswick Legislative Assembly, front west side lawn, Queen and St. John Streets.

For Whom the Troll Tolls by Andrew Allen

When a hapless visitor unwittingly wanders into the lair of a pair of troll brothers long starved for human flesh, things don’t quite go as expected.

Directed by Alex McAllister and featuring Dino Andriani, Ryca McCullough, and Beatrix Culligan.

Acting Out:

The two winners of the 2025 NotaBle Acts One Act Playwriting Competition

Wednesday, July 30 through Friday, August 1, 7:30 PM nightly, at Memorial Hall, UNB, 9 Bailey Drive.

Post-show reception to follow opening night performance on August 1 at The Grad House, 676 Windsor Street (all welcome).

Join us for a post-show Talkback conversation with the playwrights, actors, and directors after the performance on July 31.

Tickets: $15 General; $10 Students/Seniors/Underemployed, available at the door.

Sinking by Brandon Hicks

Aided by a shady real estate agent, a son tries to convince his aging mother to sell her house to cash in on the wave of Upper Canadians looking for cheap seaside property. But the water rapidly rising outside the windows and filling the basement might mean that global warming has made waterfront more than just a figure of speech for the ole family homestead.

Directed by Rhett Ellis and featuring Millie Everett, Dillon Matchett, Ella Coulombe, and Alex Fullerton.

32 Short Plays About Fredericton by Gillian Salmon

Have you heard about the porn-related reason the stripes got painted on the Playhouse flytower? The time the boa constrictor got loose on the Green? The Cocaine Plane? The theft of Wilmot Church’s giant hand? Surely you know about the Coleman Frog? 32 Short Plays About Fredericton gathers all your favorite Freddy Beach lore, real and imagined, into a heady, 70s-era ball of fun, with aliens to boot.

Directed by Naomi McGowan and featuring Brennan Garnett, Brenna Gauthier, Shannon Munn, Maddax Hughson, and Gillian Salmon.

Play Out Loud: Readings of New Plays in Development

Two events, five new scripts!

Saturday, July 26:

Hollow Peace by Aaditya Verma

Winner of the 2025 NotaBle Acts High School Playwriting Contest

Three survivors struggle to maintain their sanity and not fall victim to paranoia months after a great calamity.

AND:

Trinity General by Merrit Johnson

Runner up for the 2025 NotaBle Acts High School Playwriting Contest

A Nurse and the mother to a teenage son who has sustained a brain injury first bond, then clash over his treatment.

Directed by Neomi Iudit and featuring Acasha Knowles, Grace Sappier, and Raine O’Connor.

Followed by:

The Two Hour Bride by Stacey Richardson

A runner-up in the 2025 NotaBle Acts One-Act Playwriting Competition

The Two Hour Bride is a dramatic imagining of a true story from Ireland’s history, that of Grace Gifford, who married one of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rebellion just two hours before his execution by the British Army in Dublin’s Kilmainham Prison.

The Enemy of the Mind, Trinity General, and The Two Hour Bride will be performed starting at 2 PM in the Jim Myles Auditorium, Charlotte Street Arts Centre, 732 Charlotte Street.

Admission: by donation

Sunday, July 27:

Amber Hope Porter by NotaBle Acts Playwright in Residence Beth Graham

Amber and her mother have moved from the suburbs into a downtown apartment building. It’s a strange new world for Amber with secret lives, lived behind each identical door. A story of unlikely friendship, and the possibility of new beginnings.

Directed by Beth Graham and featuring Mary Walker, Rebekah Chassé, and Len Falkenstein.

The Day the Universe Felt a Little Smaller by Joshua Burke

A runner-up in the 2025 NotaBle Acts One-Act Playwriting Competition

A group of friends and strangers gathered outside Picaroons to witness the total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 make new connections and discover a universe of change and possibility.

Directed by Mary Walker. Featuring Scott Harris, Raine O’Connor, Devin Rockwell, Brie Sparks, Sara Hughes, and Jordan Comeau.

Amber Hope Porter and The Day the Universe Felt a Little Smaller will be performed starting at 2 PM in the Jim Myles Auditorium, Charlotte Street Arts Centre, 732 Charlotte Street.

Admission: by donation