written by Richard Sheridan Willis & Heidi Reimer,
performed by Richard Sheridan Willis

29 Oct 2026 – 15 Nov 2026  
All in regular ticket prices $27.70 – $58.70

When English/American actor Richard Willis married Canadian writer Heidi Reimer, they applied for his Canadian residency. One gruelling immigration form demanded a list of Richard’s location and activities each month since his eighteenth birthday. Thus, this grueling utilitarian activity gave birth to Strolling Player, recalling a life dedicated to the vagaries and upheavals of life as an actor.

Age eighteen was a long time ago- from entranced boy at his father’s seaside theatre to actor bringing Shakespeare to the White House, through death and divorce, Oscar Wilde and Harvey Fierstein, falling off the stage and falling in love, Strolling Player recounts the passions and absurdities of one actor’s life.

Richard Sheridan Willis, performer & writer. Richard trained at RADA. He has performed in London’s West End, Broadway, Los Angeles, Toronto... and theatres all over the world. Recent roles include Malvolio in Twelfth Night and Chorus in Henry V at the Folger Theatre in Washington DC; The Father in The Railway Children in Toronto; Kemp in Vigil and Mann in The Clockmaker for The Sudbury Theatre Centre; and Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady for STONC.TV includes Dr. Who, Law &Order, Flashpoint, Lost Girl, and Nikita. This summer, he has been swimming every morning in the St Lawrence river. For Theatre Kingston, you have seen him in These Deeds, Boy Beatle, and I Take your Hand in Mine.

Heidi Reimer, writer. Heidi Reimer's short stories and essays have appeared in Chatelaine, Little Fiction, Literary Mama, Stealing Time, Hip Mama, The M Word: Conversations About Motherhood, and Outcrops: Northeastern Ontario Short Stories. She is the winner of the 2015 Write for Chatelaine creative non-fiction contest. She is currently revising one novel, writing a second one, and putting together a collection of personal essays.

written and performed by Tracey Erin Smith,
directed and co-created by Sarah Garton Stanley

10 Mar 2027 – 20 Mar 2027
All in regular ticket prices $27.70 – $58.70

After years of stripping in retirement homes, Barbara Baumowitz — aka The Burning Bush! — gets fired…for being too old to take it all off.

Outraged and in need of inspiration, Barbara, also a failed Rabbi, heads straight to the Tenement Museum to understand how things got to be so bad. Her desperation opens a portal in the space-time continuum bringing Barbara face to face with Fredericka "Marm" Mandelbaum, a real life mob boss who ruled the lower East Side back in the day.

Renowned solo performer and creator of SOULO Theatre Tracey Erin Smith and theatre director (and co-founder of the Baby Grand Theatre, Kingston) Sarah Garton Stanley reunite after their critically acclaimed The Big House, which played to sold-out houses at Toronto's Factory Theatre. This creative team has garnered multiple awards on stages across Canada, the U.S. and beyond.

When the Stripping Rabbi meets America's first female crime boss, lives are going to change.

by Samuel Beckett, directed by Rosemary Doyle

6 May 2027 – 16 May 2027
All in regular ticket prices $27.70 – $58.70

Samuel Beckett's absurdist masterpiece Waiting for Godot

Directed by Rosemary Doyle and starring Cassel Miles, David Frisch, Sean Roberts and Nicholas Rice. Premiering in 1953, Waiting for Godot centers on two men waiting for the titular Godot, engaging in a number of discussions in the meantime. The work has become a theatrical classic.

Waiting for Godot is a play by Irish playwright and author Samuel Beckett. It was

written (1948–1949), first published (1952), and first performed (1953) in French as En attendant Godot. The play is Beckett's own English-language adaptation of the original. Subtitled "tragicomedy in two acts", it is his best-known literary work and is regarded by critics as "one of the most enigmatic plays of modern literature". In a public poll conducted by London's Royal National Theatre in the year 1998, Waiting for Godot was voted as "the most significant English-language play of the 20th century."

In Waiting for Godot, the two main characters, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), spend their days waiting for someone named Godot, who they believe will provide them with salvation. They pass the time with conversations, physical routines, and philosophical musings, but their hope fades as Godot never arrives. They encounter three other characters, Pozzo and his servant Lucky, and a young boy. As the play unfolds, the repetition of actions and dialogue suggests the cyclical nature of their lives, and though Godot is promised for "tomorrow", he never appears in the play, leaving the characters in a state of existential uncertainty.

The original French text was composed between 9 October 1948 and 29 January 1949. The premiere, directed by Roger Blin, was performed at the Théâtre de Babylone, Paris, in January 1953. The English-language version of the play premiered in London in 1955. Though there is only one scene throughout both acts, the play is known for its numerous themes, including those relating to religious, philosophical, classical, social, psychoanalytical, and biographical settings. Beckett later stated that the painting Two Men Contemplating the Moon (1819), by Caspar David Friedrich, was a major inspiration for the play. Dramatist Martin Esslin stated that Waiting for Godot was part of a broader literary movement known as the Theatre of the Absurd, which was first proposed by Albert Camus.

The play has received widespread acclaim. Due to its popularity, significance, and cultural importance to modern literature, Waiting for Godot has often been adapted for stage, operas, musicals, television, and theatrical performances across most of Europe and the Americas. As one of the foundational works of theatre, the play remains widely studied in academic and literary circles.