Two must-see indie plays are showing in Halifax this May

While it’s over 100 days until the return of the Halifax Fringe Festival—the yearly celebration of unjuried theatre and DIY plays—fans of indie theatre will have lots to tide them over in late May.

First up, over at Neptune Theatre’s Scotiabank Stage, is the world premiere of local playwright Katerina Bakolias’s ‘Til Death Do Us Part. Showing from May 25-29, the play bills itself as a farce that explores the limits of love, marriage and devotion when a couple that’s about to wed wakes up to a dead stranger in their bed. It’s being produced by Halifax’s Kick At The Dark Theatre, which won the 2016 Merritt Award for Outstanding Production by a New or Emerging Company and also took home the Halifax Fringe Fest award for best performance for its last play.

Meanwhile, at Propeller Brewing’s Gottingen Street outpost, a site-specific, outdoor staging of The Aliens will be held from May 24-29. The Atlantic Canadian premiere of the landmark work by MacArthur Fellow and Pulitzer Prize-winner Annie Baker will happen in the brewery’s back lot, which is accessed from Maitland Street. The play deep-dives into how young men form identity as it traces the friendship of two 30-somethings at their favourite hangout. It stars actor and director Taylor Olson, who’s been making a name for himself in Halifax with his films and plays that question and challenge toxic masculinity (his feature film adaptation of Catherine Banks’s landmark, Governor General’s Award-winning play Bone Cage cleaned up at the 2020 FIN Atlantic International Film Festival, taking home four of the fest’s seven awards).