UPCOMING PROJECTS
THE DIVISION COMES TO LIFE IN 2026!
Project: Humanity and Pyretic Productions Presents:
The Division
Written and Directed
by
Andrew Kushnir
Studio Theatre - Streetcar Crowsnest
April 21 - May 10, 2026
After publishing a eulogy for his renowned watchmaker grandfather in a national newspaper, Andrew is confronted by an accusation in the comments section. The charge sends him on a 19,000-kilometre journey back to Ukraine with daunting questions—and a rare timepiece in his pocket. In retracing his grandfather’s footsteps as a soldier and immigrant, he unearths a family mythology that has astonishing connections to the present.
In the stories of a shrinking Ukrainian village, in the words of heated war historians, and in the silence of the dead, Andrew discovers a landscape where history is both weapon and wound.
With his signature blend of documentary theatre and deeply personal storytelling, Andrew Kushnir faces the unspoken truths that shape both our personal and collective histories—as well as our here and now. Originally featured at Lincoln Center Theater, NYC, The Division is a gripping new work on identity, inheritance, patriotism, and the power of memory.
This project was developed with support from the Shevchenko Foundation’s REACH prize and Tarragon Theatre.
IN DEVELOPMENT
CHEW
As one competitor puts it: “It’s like a standing-still parade. We just happen to be eating food.” Over the course of several years, Montreal playwright Sarah Segal-Lazar interviewed dozens of competitive eaters in Canada and the States to figure out what drives them to stretch their stomachs beyond comprehension. Inspired by London Road and A Chorus Line, co-creators Segal-Lazar, Anika Johnson and Andrew Kushnir have discovered the ideal container for the excesses of the sport: a documentary musical. Whether it’s tucking away tamales in Texas or pulverising pretzels in Providence, CHEW examines how the reasons we do unreasonable things can be most surprising of all.
This project has been co-commissioned by PH and
Crow’s Theatre.
DAYLIGHTING
Daylighting is the term for the restoration of a stream or waterway which had at some point been diverted below ground. How might displaced streams serve as a metaphor for the hidden capacities that exist in us, our communities and the natural world? Building on his body of work on early African-Canadian life, generational healing, and his own family history, singer-songwriter-storyteller Khari Wendell McClelland is developing a multimedia work using music, sound, interviews, video, and motion graphics to explore our dormant selves and our shared potential.
TOWARDS AUDACIOUS CITIZENS
a sequel to TOWARDS YOUTH: a play on radical hope
The drama classroom can be the ultimate rehearsal hall for youth-led activism. TOWARDS AUDACIOUS CITIZENS localizes this phenomenon around a single emergency: climate justice. As collaborator Dr. Kathleen Gallagher puts it, this project will turn the public to “young people’s creative and artistic practices, their relationships with their respective local and global environments, and their hope for our world.” Starting in 2021, Andrew Kushnir will travel with Dr. Kathleen Gallagher to research sites in Canada, India, Greece, Taiwan, Colombia and England. PH is developing a way to make this project a carbon neutral creation.