“There’s untapped beauty in our beleaguered democratic institutions”: Chris Abraham of Crow’s Theatre on turning the Sidewalk Labs fiasco into a hit play

How does a colossal bureaucratic boondoggle become a breakout play about the heart and soul of Toronto? Ask Crow’s Theatre artistic director Chris Abraham and playwright Michael Healey. The duo adapted Josh O’Kane’s 2022 book, Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy, about Google’s failed attempt to build a smart city on the waterfront. After selling out at Crow’s last year, The Master Plan is back for another run. We spoke with Abraham, who’s also the show’s director, about turning the Sidewalk Labs fiasco into an award-­winning play, what it taught him about the city and how to tell Toronto stories to the world.

Crow’s went from an itinerant theatre to a mainstay in just under 10 years. What was the secret sauce? We got a $1.5-million gift from the Slaight Family Foundation, which allowed us to do big-budget shows. We came out of the pandemic committed to going big—last year’s Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 was the most expensive, ambitious show we’ve ever done. I let two ideas guide me: first, I wanted to make seasons for people who love theatre. Second, I wanted to make a case for why theatre is cool, especially to those who have been turned off by it in the past. The key was to think about pleasure, delight and surprise. No one is born liking anything, but if you focus on those three things, you can bring people into your orbit.

Not only has Crow’s grown, but it’s done so despite the pandemic. How do you bring people back to the theatre? By reminding them that a great night at the theatre is a great night out, period. We used to have a restaurant on-site, which is now closed, but we’re opening another one this year. To have a meal and see a show where you surrender your attention for three hours alongside a whole group of people—it’s the deepest kind of participatory pleasure. It’s a magic trick that’s hard to come by in our modern attention crisis. We’re helping people rediscover the pleasure of a collective experience.

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You wear two hats: artistic director and director. How do you balance the two? I was miserable during the pandemic, thinking, That’s it! Theatre is done! When I came back, I said, “I’m going to have fun and find pleasure in everything, from answering 500 emails a day to rehearsing with my favourite actors.” I love theatre and the opportunity and privilege of building this thing. The balancing act is to try to enjoy the balancing act. I try to mix it up—I still do a lot of directing, because I get pleasure out of that. But I also get it from building a theatre company and seeing audiences double every year.

Sidewalk Labs feels a bit like ancient history. Why tell that story now? When you’ve got a hit, you bring it back. We kept extending it last year, but we had to stop seven weeks in because we had another show to do. We were turning away droves of people. It was a surprise success for us. We realized there was a pattern: our audience likes shows about Toronto.

Did this production teach you anything new about the city? It showed me how much of a small town Toronto is. I don’t mean that in a pejorative way—it’s made up of a lot of people working very hard to make the city work. When you’re making a play, you have to understand each character’s drive and the nobility of their ambitions. That means viewing them with good faith. I saw the hard work that people in the bureaucratic layer of the city do within our beleaguered democratic institutions. There was a kind of untapped beauty there.

Can you tell us about the process of bringing Josh O’Kane’s book to the stage? We re-interviewed many of the people Josh spoke to for the book, and Michael got to know him, which is why Josh is a character in the play. Michael had his own thesis about the book, which is that Waterfront Toronto was this strange creature attached to three levels of government. That differed from Josh’s bigger questions about privacy. But Josh was gracious about that.

What did you personally think about the Sidewalk Labs proposal? Crow’s was one of the cultural consultants for Sidewalk Labs, and my personal reactions ran the gamut. It was terrible, then great, then terrible again. I knew it had something interesting to say about Toronto’s relationship to doing big things. In the play, we always get a big laugh from the audience when we call NIMBYism Toronto’s superpower. We have a characteristic cautiousness around big projects—Ontario Place, the Greenbelt, the Ontario Line. But, as Michael points out in the play, it’s okay not to know sometimes. This stuff is complicated, and while the grassroots opposition movement said, “We haven’t thought this through enough,” others said, “This is how we think it through.” If we had more humility when it comes to taking a position, we might be more open to complexity.

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Crow’s is also putting on The Bidding War, about an open house for the city’s last affordable home. How do you translate that experience into theatre? I gave Michael Ross Albert, the playwright, carte blanche to write a big, fat comedy. Right away, he said, “I’ve got one!” What stands out to me is how the housing market has become the last place for class mobility, and as such it engenders behaviours that would be unacceptable in any other situation. Suddenly, behaving in a cut-throat way is okay because getting into the market is practically the only way to generate wealth in Toronto. The play exposes that mad dash for security—and the desperation that underlies it.

Is it risky to stage plays that tackle such local subjects? The world loves Toronto! We have a touring version of Fifteen Dogs, which is set here but happens in “Your Town, USA” on the road. Specificity is always interesting. We’re still at the beginning of that journey with The Master Plan, but Toronto is like a lot of other cities that are looking for investment from elsewhere and trying to understand how to solve big infrastructure problems.

What’s the next hyper-specific Toronto problem you’d like to see Crow’s make a play about? Ontario Place? The Eglinton Crosstown? Racoons? We’ve commissioned Michael Healey to write a play based on a book—it’s a business story that grapples with competition law. We’re also looking at an adaptation of a famous Canadian novel about the history of the city. That’s where I’m at right now—learning about the city’s history and how it shapes the present. When the present seems chaotic, go back to history and find the pattern.

It’s been a rough few years for Toronto’s artistic institutions. What’s going on? It’s all a bit overstated. I’ve got colleagues at Canadian Stage, Coal Mine and Soul­pepper, and they’ve all been finding their way back and seeing meaningful success. That’s not to say there aren’t real problems. But ballet is doing great. And opera. ­Mirvish is having its best two years ever. The negativity bias has afflicted us a bit, but I try to be loud about the successes. I’m proud of how the community has come back. The live arts are a big part of the city. There’s a lot to be optimistic about.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.