Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia
SideMart Theatrical Grocery
Anglophone professional theatre, founded in Montreal Quebec by Andrew Shaver, Patrick Costello, Graham Cuthbertson, Trent Pardy and Sarah Yaffe in 2006, and now based in Toronto.
Its mandate was “the creation of revelatory, intelligently crafted theatre that’s not afraid to let the seams show and that believes in magic”; and “to build a strong and confident English theatre community in Montreal” as a “shared event.”
The first two productions were site-specific: Mamet’s American Buffalo in an alley, and Morris Panych’s The Dishwashers in a wine bar basement. The first two original texts were one-man shows by Costello and Cuthbertson, entitled The Apartment Plays (2008), and performed in an apartment above Theatre Ste-Catherine. In 2009, the company launched an English-language premiere of Gerard Vasquez’s Oooo!, followed by a collective work, Whiteman’s Whiskey Comedy Revue. SideMart then scored a big success with an original musical entitled Haunted Hillbilly, which also played to sold-out houses at the SummerWorks Festival in Toronto. It was remounted at the Centaur Theatre in 2012.
In October 2010, SideMart premiered Gordon a new play by Morris Panych, directed by Andrew Shaver and designed by Ken MacDonald, which was a theatrical coup for the new and small company. In 2012, the Company produced Scientific Americans by John Mighton (dir. Andrew Shaver) in the studio space at the Segal Centre for Performing Arts.
In 2013, Sidemart relocated to a storefront location on Queen Street East in Toronto. In March 2014, the company produced A Woman's a Secret by John Patrick Shanley in association with Rim Jaw Productions and the Storefront Theatre at The Theatre Space. In 2017, it presented the English-language premiere of Illusions by Russian playwright Ivan Viripaev.
The Artistic Director is Andrew Shaver.
Website: https://sidemart.com
Source: Kelly Nestruck. “One small Anglo company. One big coup de theatre,” Globe and Mail 29 Sept 2010: R1.
Last updated 2021-10-18
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