I See You is an ambitious new immersive performance coming to Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children in November.
The collaboration brings together three of Toronto’s top theatre companies: Outside the March, The Musical Stage Company and Crow’s Theatre. The production was commissioned by SickKids Foundation and it will transform parts of the hospital into a theatrical experience, taking audiences through reimagined patient rooms, laboratories, operating theatres and other spaces rarely seen by the public.
The play has been created to introduce audiences to Precision Child Health, SickKids’ new approach to paediatric medicine. The production will highlight the initiative with personal stories about the children, families, clinicians and researchers who make up the SickKids community.
For Outside the March artistic director Mitchell Cushman, the collaboration represents a particularly meaningful opportunity.
“After 17 years theatrically transforming spaces at Outside the March, I’ve never worked anywhere with a fraction of the magic as SickKids,” Cushman says. “We’ve had the up-close privilege of witnessing that behind every child and every door at SickKids lies an intimate epic. The hospital’s revolutionary vision for Precision Child Health has found a perfect partner in immersive theatre — united by a belief in engaging with each and every person as a true original.”
A group of young performers drawn from SickKids’ own patient ambassadors and alumni will take the stage alongside 16 of Canada’s leading actors, bringing their own experiences and perspectives to the production.
The creative team includes Mitchell Cushman, Tanja Jacobs and Kristen Thomson, with writing by Cushman, Jacobs, Thomson and Rosamund Small, lyrics by Akiva Romer-Segal and music by Suzy Wilde. Producer Michael Rubinoff is also part of the project.
I See You isn’t a regular ticketed theatre production. It’s an exclusive experience created for SickKids clinicians, researchers, volunteers, patients, families and supporters. However, members of the public across Ontario can enter a draw for a limited number of tickets.
To enter, visit SickKidsISeeYou.ca and answer the question “Why is now the moment?” Entries close Nov. 13.