May Can Theatre

Over the last 6 years, May Can Theatre has established itself as an exciting and prolific source for independently produced new works within Ottawa. Led by Co-Artistic Directors Tony Adams, Madeleine Boyes-Manseau and Cory Thibert, May Can creates theatrical productions and events that exist somewhere between performance, storytelling and improvisation.

What interests us most as creators is celebrating the ‘live-ness’ and intimacy of a theatrical event; creating collaboratively through a devised process that encourages risk, impulse and play; and making work that challenges us as well as our audiences.

Since 2009, May Can has created and produced a total of 15 new creations. Highlights include: two coming-of-age romps (Sounds from the Turtle Shell, 2011 & Wolves > Boys, 2012); a punk rock musical (The Tragicall Historie of Nick Wade (and other fuck ups), 2013); a site-specific performance in a series of kitchen cupboards (It's About our Goldfish) as part of SubDevision at the 2013 Magnetic North Theatre Festival; and most recently, a satirical product launch gone off the rails (Happiness™) as part the inaugural 2014/15 TACTIC series.

In 2014, May Can produced an event a month including a cross-Canada Fringe tour of our award-winning show Wolves > Boys (named one of the top ten Canadian fringe shows of the summer by CBC) and Jerk It, a performance series of anonymously crowd-sourced stories about masturbation, which we were later invited to present as part the 2015 undercurrents Theatre Festival.

Company awards and nominations include:

• Winners of 2015 Ottawa Theatre Challenge
• Future of the Fringe Award (Ottawa Fringe, 2013) for The Tragicall Historie of Nick Wade (and other fuck ups)
• Outstanding Duo Performance Award (Ottawa Fringe, 2012) for Wolves > Boys 
• 2 Outstanding New Creation Nominations (Prix Rideau Awards, 2011 & 2012) for Sounds from the Turtle Shell and Wolves > Boys
• Emerging Artists of the Year Nomination (Prix Rideau Awards, 2012)