The Bus Stop has a rich history as a home to all types of art, performance, and gatherings. From workshops to weddings, and plays to poetry, the Bus Stop has seen it all. Take a look at our timeline of some of our favourite and most notable events of the Bus Stop’s past.
The Bus Stop Theatre opened its doors at 2203 Gottingen St in Kjipuktuk / Halifax, NS. Howard Beye bought an old shut-down drugstore and had what everybody thought was this crazy dream to turn it into a theatre.
Rumoured to be the first show produced at the Bus Stop in 2003, Dapopo Theatre’s Four Actors in Search of a Nation later went on to tour in Berlin.
Now long-time Bus Stop frequenters, suddenlyLISTEN, held their first show at the Bus Stop Theatre in 2009, nine years after the founding of the company. Media – Message was an event held in collaboration with Liberovskaya, Adams, and Pearse on February 25, 2009.
Yes, THAT Grimes. Before she skyrocketed to fame with albums Visions, Art Angels, and Miss Anthropocene, and the notable birth of her child, X Æ A-Xii, Grimes was a student at McGill University, and toured to Halifax with fellow Montreal artists Silly Kissers to play a show with Halifax band, Duzheknew. At the time of the show, Grimes had released just one album, her 2010 debut “Geidi Primes.”
This show played to a sold-out audience of 50, with one reviewer saying they’d “like to see her have a little more confidence in her winning sound.” Safe to say she’s gone on to embrace that sound.
The world premiere production of 2b theatre’s When it Rains took place at the Bus Stop in Spring of 2011. The production, which is billed as a “live action existential graphic novel,” was lit entirely by video projector and featured a cast of Francine Deschepper, Connor Green, Samantha Wilson, and the Bus Stop’s own Sebastien Labelle.
The 2011 production was nominated for nine Robert Merritt Awards, including Best Production, and Francine Deschepper won for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (female).
When it Rains has since been performed across the world, including Toronto, New York, Memphis, Edinburgh, and Mumbai. The show has also been translated into Spanish as Cuano Llueve, and premiered in Buenos Aires in 2018.
Fresh off his tour of Holland, Germany, Belgium, and the UK, Ben Caplan returned to the east coast to play as a part of Halifax POP Explosion. His Bus Stop set played alongside artists Carleton Stone, Charlotte Cornfield, and Kim Churchill.
Of the night, Caplan said, “Five or six years ago when I was playing the odd show at the Wardroom or the Grad House, Pop Explosion seemed like this impossibly far away pedestal amazingly beyond my reach.” He continues, “[a]nd even after this tour, where my biggest show was to 1,200 people, I still feel that way. I hold it in such high regard, it’s so well curated.”
In the Dead of Winter festival is an acoustic based festival that is held annually in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada on the last weekend of January and in Wakefield, Quebec on the second weekend in February. The Halifax festival began in 2006 at the legendary Khyber Club with one small stage and eleven artists. The Wakefield festival began soon after, in 2009, at the Black Sheep Inn.
The 2012 Festival featured performances by Stewart Legere, Mo Kenney, Moonshine Ramblers, Willie Stratton, Lennie Gallant, Becky Siamon, among a host of others.
As of 2020, the festival is on a permanent hiatus.
After a year hiatus, OBEY Convention returned in 2012 with its fifth iteration of the event. The 2012 convention played host to Gary War, Bill Orcutt, Eric Copeland, Bloodshot Bill, and The Pink Noise, among others, playing at The Khyber Centre for the Arts, 1313, Lost and Found, and of course, the good ol’ Bus Stop Theatre.
The annual festival has continued to this day, and is now known as EVERYSEEKER.
Starting in 2009, the Queer Acts Theatre Festival was a staple of Pride Month in Halifax. The 2012 edition of the festival included productions of NonMonog and the gray scale dwellers written and performed by Tanya Davis, Short Skirt Butch by Lee-Anne Poole, Sissydude produced by trrrash, Touch produced by The Doppler Effect, and Love Me Always by fluffer theatre.
The Queer Acts curtain closed for good in 2017, but its mark on the Halifax theatre community is remembered fondly.
This adaptation of Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col’s twelve issue comic book series was collaboration between Vile Passeist Theatre (now The Villain’s Theatre), Lion’s Den Theatre, and Hal-Con Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Comic Convention. First developed by the comic’s creators in collaboration with Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre Company under the direction of Derek Boyes, the Halifax production marked the official world premiere production.
This staged-reading, radio play style show featured projections of the comic’s art as actors spoke and provided sound effects. It went on to win The Coast’s Best Show of 2012, and has been performed at theatres and conventions across the globe.
Over the 2013 Thanksgiving weekend, 27 year-old music teacher Scott Jones was the target of a brutal attack that left him paralyzed. Jones was targeted for the attack because of his sexuality.
In late November, the Halifax music and performance community came together for a one-day takeover of Gottingen St, to produce shows to benefit the Scott Jones Trust, the Bus Stop line-up included Neon Dreams, Quake Matthews, and Cam Smith. Gottingen Street for Scott Jones raised over $10,000 to go towards making Jones’ life more accessible.
Of the night Jones said, “You look at this event and the amount of people on board and it just shows that there are two things: people believe in music, and people believe in love instead of hate. Using music as a tool for change, wrapping it in this message of loving. In the face of adversity, music is monumental.”
Presented as a part of the Black Rabbit Festival, Circus of the Revolution wove together a series of curious encounters, skilled disasters and liberated alteregos. Building on 2013’s Circus of the Normal, it aimed to articulate an understanding of the world through spectacle and playfulness. The event described itself as “Where our identity, habits and the limitations fall off the edge of our comfort zone, spins a little bit and land lightly upon irony. The myth is is that there is a normal. The revolution has begun. All is possible.”
The Circus was presented in tandem with The Labyrinth, a subterranean exhibit of installation art installed in the rambling, dark corners of the basement at the Bus Stop Theatre. The space featured 15 installations, all media and multi-media forms including light and sound.
The first-ever StART Festival highlighted brief original pieces by artists of a variety of disciplines who were enrolled at post secondary institutions in Halifax. The festival was founded by Alanna Griffin and Karen Gross, two fourth year theatre students at Dalhousie and King’s, with support from the Bus Stop Theatre’s Clare Waque.
March 20th a pop-up career fair for emerging artists took place, with representatives from Atlantic Fringe Festival, Artists’ Legal Information Society, Department of Communities Culture and Heritage, Atlantic Filmmaker’s COOP, Visual Arts Nova Scotia, and Dance Nova Scotia.
On Friday, the 21st, things got underway featuring performances by Tamsin Andrews (theatre), Daniel Crawford (film), Devin Casario (film), James Duff (music), Henri Gielis and Liam Fair (theatre), and Claire Ahern (music).
Saturday the 22nd featured performances from Daniel Crawford (film), Devin Casario (film), Thomas Hoy (music), Cambria Huff (dance), Amy Hurley (theatre), Brandon MacDougall (spoken word), Maya Pathak (poetry), Malia Rogers (music).
The StArt Festival, now inclusive to all emerging artists regardless of post-secondary status, is an annual festival that still goes on.
In late June of 2014, arts venues across Halifax were the proud host of Magnetic North Theatre Festival, Canada’s only national theatre festival. The Bus Stop played home to The Tale of a Town of Nova Scotia, presented by Toronto’s FiXT POiNT Theatre. The company’s “Tale of a Town” series kicked off with the Halifax production, after interviewing community members in Sydney, Yarmouth, Wolfville, Annapolis Royal, Chester, Lunenburg, as well as Halifax.
Lisa Marie DiLiberto, co-founder of FiXT POiNT, says the performance series was born out of “a desire to celebrate neighbourhoods, independent business, community, places, where people meet and remember how important it was to build these memories.”
The Tale of a Town series is still being produced by FiXT POiNT in communities across the country.
The 2015 In the Dead of Winter Music Festival played host to The Sky Diggers, who, to date, have released an impressive 19 albums since the band was formed in 1987. They regularly play shows across Canada.
The IDOW set also included performances by Greg MacPherson, Brinleigh, and Alana Yorke.
Inspired by the true story of New Brunswick teenager, Ashley Smith, Watching Glory Die is A riveting yet deeply compassionate portrait of three women – Glory, a chronically disturbed young offender; Rosalee, the girl’s mother; and Gail, a prison guard – inextricably linked by shared helplessness in the face of tragedy.
Originally produced in 2014, Mulgrave Road Theatre’s original production features a script by Canadian theatre legend, Judith Thompson, and starred Stephanie MacDonald playing all three roles. The 2015 production was nominated for three Robert Merritt awards, with MacDonald winning for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (female). The production has since toured to New Brunswick, Ontario, and Manitoba.
Founded in 2009, Mayworks Kjipuktuk/Halifax is Nova Scotia’s largest social justice themed cultural event and continues in a long tradition of building bonds of solidarity between artists and labour organizations. The multi-disciplinary nature of the festival draws followers from multiple arts communities including theatre, dance, visual art, film and music.
How Often Do I Dream was a unique multi-sensory experience. Using touch, tastes, scent and sound, Katie Dorian constructed an interactive show designed to stimulate personal memories, all to demonstrate how memory is evoked, and how elusive it can be to hang on to. The show premiered at the 2014 Atlantic Fringe Festival, and played at the Mayworks Festival before doing a cross-Canada Fringe festival tour.
The Work of a Dancer, meanwhile, was an audio installation and performance piece that shared dancers’ perspectives on their labour. It endeavored to present a better understanding of the dance profession and the many physical, mental, and emotional demands that are placed on the workers of this industry.
In the tradition of “Broadway Backwards”, the annual NYC show where musical theatre numbers are given an LGBT twist, Halifax Summer Opera Festival kicked off its now annual tradition of Opera Backwards. The show featured a line-up of gay and lesbian stories told through the great arias and duets of opera and operetta, sung by the participants of the Halifax Summer Opera Festival.
During the 25th Atlantic Fringe Festival, the Highland Arts Theatre’s debut production of The Wakowski Brothers was remounted for a new audience off the island of Cape Breton. The show, which is the brain-child of HAT Artistic Director, Wesley J. Colford, has had numerous productions over the years. In 2020, the HAT became Canada’s first fully-community funded theatre, with their Radical Access campaign.
Traveling to a different Halifax venue every night, Workshirt Opera’s production of Sarah Ruhl’s show hit the Bus Stop stage in February 2016. This adaptation of the Virginia Woolf novel follows Orlando, a typical Elizabethan Man: a favourite of the Queen, madly in love with a Russian Princess, fleeing an Archduchess, who wakes up one day to find he has become a woman. Workshirt’s production featured Colleen MacIsaac as Orlando, Clare Waque as Sasha, and Dan Bray, Jake Willett, and Garry Williams as the Chorus, and was directed by Michael Lake.
Walter Borden’s one-man show played at the Bus Stop Theatre for three nights in 2016. The show, rewritten and reworked many times in the 40 years since its original draft, then known as Tightrope Time: Ain’t Nuthin’ More Than Some Itty Bitty Madness Between Twilight and Dawn, was one of the first Canadian plays to discuss male homosexuality from a black perspective.
Borden himself originally hails from New Glasgow, NS, and has won the Order of Canada, the Order of Nova Scotia, and the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal.
We Bring the BIPOCalypse was a two night event showcasing the stories of local Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) who are queer, trans or two-spirit. The first night’s audience was reserved for those who are Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Colour, while the second night’s performances were open to all. It featured performances by Coco Marie aka Mike Hunt, Jade Peek, Cristina Raquel, Carmella Farahbakhsh, Nick Dourado, Bria Miller, Jessica Dempsey, Kehisha Wilmot, Rena Kulczycki, Sharestha Drall, and Solmaz Asheri.
As a part of the 2016 Atlantic Fringe Festival, the Bus Stop played host to several notable productions. Among them was The Princess Show, produced by Angels & Heroes Theatre, now known as HEIST. This lip-synced mash-up of Dungeons & Dragons, Attack on Titan, Legend of Zelda, and Rupaul’s Drag Race follows the show’s titular character, performance artist Princess Edward, a bearded sequinned wonder who takes the audience into a world where anime heroes, bass guitarist rock stars and pop epics meld into one.
The Princess Show was nominated for five Robert Merritt awards, winning for Outstanding Sound Design. It has since been performed in Vancouver; Victoria; Lethbridge, AB; Toronto; and was livestreamed as a part of Ottawa’s National Arts Centre’s Canada Performs series. A sequel to the show, Princess Rules, premiered in 2017.
Black Cop, the feature-length directorial debut of Halifax multi-disciplinary artist Cory Bowles, filmed in the fall of 2016, using the Bus Stop as one of the many locations across the city acting as a backdrop to the film (in this case -a black void).
Bowles’ film follows a black police officer pushed to the edge, who begins taking his frustrations out on the privileged community he’s sworn to protect. The film has won several awards at film festivals around the world, including the John Dunning Discovery Award at the Canadian Screen Awards.
Whale Song Theatre’s debut production landed at the Bus Stop Theatre in early 2017. Heathers, a musical adaptation of the 1989 cult classic film of the same name, follows the story of misfit Veronica Sawyer as she and her new boyfriend, JD, plan to put the girl group, the Heathers, in their place, or grave. Same difference.
The Whale Song production sold-out weeks before its run, an almost unheard of feat for a new theatre company, especially in the Halifax winter. The success of the show lead to its remount at the 2017 Stages Theatre Festival, which was a yet again sold-out run. The show won the Bronze award for Best Theatre Production in the Best of The Coast 2017 awards.
As a part of Whale Song’s commitment to community engagement, the production also acted as a fundraiser for Phoenix House and their work with at-risk youth. The production was able to donate $500 to the cause.
This art exhibit featured the work of six local Black Nova Scotian artists, including narrative performances by local arts organization, iMOVE. Audience members were reminded of resilience through instrumentalists and vocal performers.
This event was a collaboration between CUPE and Working While Black, a project of community groups Ujamaa, Solidarity Halifax and the Kwacha House Cafe.
Groupthink, created and performed by Nostos Collectives, asked and the questions “how much of what we do is an expression of our individuality, and how much is a form of mimicry?” Performed by Georgia Skinner, Jessica Lowe, Chelsea Dahlgren, Gwen Chiasson, Leandra Ziegler and Alyson Miller, reviews of the performance say “the choreography shows the dancers imitating and influencing one another, sometimes evoking a marionette and puppetmaster, or a game of follow-the-leader, but with much deeper and darker undertones.”
Presented as a part of the 2017 Mayworks Festival and created by iMOVE, Mug revolved around the mug shots of three formerly incarcerated people – photographs that span collectively almost 50 years of being in conflict with oneself and the justice system. Through Mug, four people relived their past by offering their stories and invited the audience to take the challenge of giving.
In the tradition of Once Upon a Theatre Collective’s short play nights, the Bus Stop Playwrights’ Unit began producing evenings of short plays in 2016. The 2017 rendition, Summer Lovin’, included works by Colleen MacIsaac, Kevin Hartford, Keelin Jack, Brandon Lorimer, Rebecca Falvey, and Ailsa Galbreath. The night included stories of missed connections, hipster Blanche DuBois, and Eros the Love Clown.
The group, now known as the Bus Stop Theatre Writers’ Circle, continues to foster the creations of local artists.
Co-produced by Terra Novella Theatre and Conjurer’s Court, this was a magic filled evening featuring performances by some of Halifax’s most talented professional and amateur magicians. The two groups have since collaborated a number of times to bring magic to the Bus Stop.
Matchstick Theatre presented the ten-year anniversary production of Catherine Banks’ Governor General’s Award-winning show. Banks’ show offers a savagely frank look at the lives of seven ordinary people living in rural Nova Scotia, each with their own desire to escape.
The production, directed by Jake Planinc, was nominated for a Robert Merritt Award for Outstanding Production by a New or Emerging Company in 2018. Taylor Olson notably went on to direct and star in the feature film adaptation of the play, reprising his role as Jamie. The film adaptation had a clean sweep at the 2020 FIN Atlantic International Film Festival, including Best Atlantic Feature and Best Atlantic Director, and is now continuing its way around the festival circuit.
Produced by Carmalina Naturals Bath, Body and Hair products, the Black Affair Fashion Show, showcased new, emerging and established fashion and jewelry lines in the Halifax Regional Municipality, including Taylor Made Clothing, Art Pays Me, TREV, Winners Circle, Mae Lyn Creations and Maybe Now Collections. The event featured performances by MAJE and Truth Williams.
Founded in 2008, the Prismatic Arts Festival is committed to prioritizing the work of artists who identify as part of communities that are under-represented in Canadian professional arts
The 2018 festival, which took place from September 11-16, included events at venues across the city. The Bus Stop line-up included Broken English Karaoke and RencorVivo: The Mariachi Ghost.
Thom Fitzgerald’s queer, Canadian comedy film follows the story of a conservative church choir director who inherits a drag club in San Francisco started by her deceased son, from whom she was estranged after he came out as gay.
For two days in September 2018, the film used the Bus Stop Theatre as a back-drop for their movie magic. Stage Mother premiered in theatres in August 2020.
Same Boat’s aptly titled Maiden Voyage marked their first performance as a troupe. The group, which has now grown to several members of the Halifax comedy scene, started with the much smaller duo of Erik Garf and Brody Wilkinson-Martin. They now play regularly at the Bus Stop and have since toured to Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival.
For one night only in December 2018, Theatre DesAssimilés put on a production of Eugene Ionesco’s Les Chaises, fully performed in the show’s original French. The play revolves around two characters, known as Old Man and Old Woman, frantically preparing chairs for a series of invisible guests who are coming to hear an orator reveal the Old Man’s discovery, implied to be the meaning of life.
The production was remounted in February 2019.
Part performance, part town hall meeting, Halifax DisabilityX featured six speakers with challenges ranging from deafness to autism spoke to a sold-out show at the Bus Stop Theatre and raised funds for a literacy group for LGBTQ+ youth in Sackville, N.S.
“The media, and social media especially, loves different ideas of people with disabilities, where we’re either superheroes or we’re objects of pity,” said Paul Vienneau, the event’s co-organizer and a prominent accessibility advocate in Halifax. “And while these things do exist, and that’s OK, the goal is to humanize disability and disabled people because we’re in this — this is a time for our civil rights.”
The event also acted as a “show and tell” for what an accessible event should include. A silent, short film about The Halifax Explosion was produced by people in the deaf community to help hearing people understand their world. As each storyteller came forward, an American Sign Language interpreter appeared beside them. A computer-assisted program projected their words in bold typeface on a screen behind the stage.
Vienneau said he hopes to make Halifax DisX an annual event and, eventually, to tour it around Nova Scotia schools, with involvement from students with disabilities.
Syrian-American singer Bedouine graced the stage at the Bus Stop as a part of the 2019 In the Dead of Winter Festival. Bedouine, who since released her second album, Bird Songs of a Killjoy, has notably been featured on the famed NPR Tiny Music Desk. She has toured alongside Fleet Foxes, Kevin Morby, Jose Gonzalez, Father John Misty, Michael Kiwanuka, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Waxahatchee and Real Estate.
Her IDOW set also included Nova Scotian singer-songwriter Jennah Barry.
The Wearable Art show is an annual event at NSCAD, that welcomes artists from all disciplines and experience, to showcase works, with incorporation of the body and performance. The theme of the 2019 show was Prototyping: a theme that celebrated jumping into new elements of art practice that might otherwise remain unexplored.
JUNO nominated singer-songwriter Khari Wendell McClelland and Project: HUMANITY teamed up for a second time to create We Now Recognize, a timely concert that explored the power of apologies, the nature of community and the redemptive potential of music. We Now Recognize toured five Canadian cities in celebration of Black History Month 2019.
What is the value of an apology? What makes an authentic apology? Khari created a musical storytelling performance that weaved a path toward deeper and more heartfelt relationships amongst the varied peoples and communities of Canada and – in his distinct way – brought people together around music and questions of justice.
The High Heel Awards marked the Queens of the Glamazon’s first event at the Bus Stop after making the switch to a more accessible venue. With awards in categories such as Best in Costuming, the Horizon Award, Best Production, Entertainer of the Year, and many more, this was an event filled to the brim with glamour and excitement. Hosted by Queens of the Glamazons themselves, Eureka Love, Rouge Fatale and Farrah Moan, this night featured performances by the award winners and was a showcase of some of the best drag of the year.
Keep Good (Theatre) Company produced the Atlantic Canadian premiere of Lucy Kirkwood’s play, The Children, at the Bus Stop in May 2019. The show takes place after a nuclear meltdown, when large portions of the UK are uninhabitable. In a cottage by the sea, two retired nuclear scientists tend to their cows and practice yoga until an unexpected visitor forces them to confront their choices. Each performance of Keep Good’s production also included a unique opening act by an Atlantic artist.
The production won the Merritt award for Outstanding Production by a New or Emerging Company, in addition to its nominations for eight other awards.
Performing alongside X and Zamani, T. Thomason released his single “Pleasure,” to the crowd at the Bus Stop Theatre.
T. Thomason’s music career began at the tender age of 14, and has included the release of four albums. Earlier in 2019, T. appeared as one of 5 artists on an episode of CTV’s hit music-reality show The Launch, supported by mentors Scott Borchetta, Marie-Mai, and Sarah McLachlan. His single from the show, “HOPE” reached #4 on the Canadian iTunes Pop charts and #11 overall, gaining over 40k Spotify streams in the first 4 days of release.
This Villain’s Theatre and Terra Novella Theatre co-production penned by Dan Bray hit the Bus Stop stage just in time for Halloween 2019.
Zomblet’s comedic adaptation took the world-famous script through a wild ride full of hilarity and horror. In the wake of his father’s bizarre death, Hamlet and his Danish friends were confronted with a new evil bent on destroying the kingdom. With the help of some Marlovian professionals, Hamlet and his fellow tragedians had to get their doublets dirty in order to restore the kingdom and defeat this unholy plague.
The spooky production landed itself a Robert Merritt nomination for Outstanding New Play by a Nova Scotian.
Kick-at-the-Dark Theatre Co-Operative presented Duncan MacMillan and Johnny Donahue’s heartwarming story of hope, resilience, “every brilliant thing worth living for.” The Andrew Chandler-lead one person show was nominated for a Merritt award for Outstanding Production by a New or Emerging Company. And we think that’s brilliant.
In summer of 2020, following a wave of Black Lives Matter protests across the globe, Gottingen Street was transformed into an independent market featuring the businesses of Black creators. Following a successful first edition of the initiative in July, the BSTC joined in as a pop-up location for vendors and artists to populate.
“So I think taking up space on the street is really important for the community, people who were displaced to (Uniacke) Square from Africville. The gentrification has been really drastic and visible over the past few years, so doing this feels really powerful. Having the support of the businesses that exist here now is a major push for them to contribute to Black economy and share space.” said Bria Miller, artist and Taking BLK Gottingen organizer.
Taking BLK Gottingen went on to have several other events throughout 2020, adapting to a virtual platform as necessary amidst the global pandemic.
Continuing their mission to provide space for artists who have amazing talent, but not many places to showcase their work, the BSTC launched Art Arena, organized by Mariah Pelley-Smith. The first event, which took place on September 25, 2020, was focused on BIPOC Female, Trans and Non-Binary Artists. The artists featured in the livestreamed event were Eriana Willis, Nat Chantel, Moneesha Bakshi, and Mayumi Lashbrook.
