Artwork Created By: Taegan O'Bertos
The First Monday is back with Season 5!
See this years lineup below!
October Feature:
Resolve by Valerie Senyk
October 5th - 7:00pm
Persephone Theatre Lobby - 100 Spadina Cres East
Free! All Welcome
What is The First Monday?
In partnership with Persephone Theatre, we present a new Saskatchewan play every month for seven months (October through April). So, mark your calendars. It's the FIRST MONDAY of every month.
OCTOBER 2026 FEATURE: Resolve by Valerie Senyk
A successful artist in her sixties receives a marriage proposal, and discovers that she still has unresolved issues with her first husband, from whom she was never legally divorced when they parted 40 years ago. In order to move forward, she may have to face her past.
Why This Play?
I used to be a member of Playwrights Guild of Canada having written several stage plays earlier in my career, but they were either Beckett-esque or symbolic dramas. I started the play Resolve toward the end of a screenwriting class at the University of Guelph. We had to write five potential treatments for a screenplay, then choose one and use it to write a short dramatic film. I chose what was then called "At His Bedside" because it was the most accessible topic to me. I know what it's like to be a female artist; I also know what it means to have a marriage fail. Although the story in Resolve is very different from my own, I liked scoping out the premise to see what would emerge. It's been a lot like trying to solve a mystery; each character and their actions were mysteries I had to solve. It was a challenge to take what was originally for film and turn it into something that could be a live theatre piece. Clare Middleton, Sum Theatre's dramaturge, worked with me and was wonderfully encouraging on this path of discovery.
- Valerie Senyk
Valerie Senyk
Playwright
Valerie Senyk has followed an eclectic path as an artist. She received a BFA in Fine Arts and an MA in Drama at the University of Saskatchewan as a mature student, and has worked as a theatre professor, director, playwright, poetry performer and visual artist. Her first volume of poetry published by Vocamus Press is I Want a Poem, followed by her chapbook Stick. She recently returned to the prairie from Ontario, with a focus on writing, painting, learning and community building. She has three amazing sons and six grandkids.
Cheryl Jack
Actor
Cheryl Jack has been a theatre artist for many years. She was most recently seen at the Station Arts Centre in Channel Theatre's Production of 'Too Close to Home'. Cheryl is also a writer, her play 'Waiting to Breathe' was read last year as part of the First Monday series. She lives in Saskatoon with her partner Bruce and their dog Hazel.
Dwayne Brenna
Actor
Dwayne Brenna has acted at the Stratford Festival and on the Edinburgh Fringe. He has appeared on television in various nationally and internationally broadcast programs including For the Record, Judge (CBC Toronto), The Great Electrical Revolution, and The Incredible Story Studio (Mind's Eye). His movie credits include The Wars, Painted Angels (with Kelly McGillis), Black Light (with Michael Ironside), and The Impossible Elephant (with Mia Sara). A series of character-based vignettes called The Adventures of Eddie Gustafson, written and performed by Brenna, had a five-year run on CBC Radio. He is also the author of three novels, a book of short stories, and two books of poetry.re...
Alphonse Gaudet
Actor
Alphonse Gaudet is a dedicated professional artist from St-Isidore-de-Bellevue, Saskatchewan, who has made significant contributions to the Canadian theatrical and educational landscapes. A pioneering figure in Fransaskois culture, he co-founded Saskatoon's professional francophone theatre company, La Troupe du Jour, in 1985 and served as its inaugural Artistic Director, establishing a vital platform for French-language performing arts in the province. His acting career spans both stage and screen, including notable television and film roles in the late 1990s such as Father Fafard in the acclaimed mini-series Big Bear, a park officer in Black Light, and a police officer in The Lost Daughter. Alongside his performance career, Gaudet has committed himself to theatre education, translating his decades of practical, real-world industry experience into structured classroom mentorship to train and inspire the next generation of Canadian actors.
Zulfia Shaikh
Actor
Zulfia (she/her) is a dramaturgist who, safe to say, has had an ongoing affair with theatre for nearly 3 decades. She claims that even now, stories and stage are what get her out of bed each morning. She has worn several hats as Writer, Director, Producer, Actor; but what fuels her soul is teaching the art of performance to young people. She holds a Licentiate in 'Planning Curriculum and Teaching Drama' and an Exhibition award in Communication Skills from the Trinity Guildhall College, London. Having produced and directed 27 plays she strongly believes that magic lives on the stage and gets turned on every time the lights come up. Though she has been a corporate Communication Coach for
over 20 years, her soul comes alive when she co conspires with a band of young actors to bring a story to life. Currently serving on the Board of Directors at Saskatoon Summer Players she is equal parts method, madness, and maverick with a penchant for alliteration. A fun fact is that she is a medical doctor who
jumped the fence to follow her heart
Miranda Hughes-McKnight
Actor
Miranda Hughes-McKnight enjoys working as a theatre artist both on and off stage as an actor and a costume designer. She was most recently on stage for The Colour of the Town (SUM Theatre in the Park), 18 Jews Order Chinese Food (Persephone Theatre) and her most recent costume design was for Blithe Spirit (Persephone Theatre.) As well as performing and designing, Miranda is the Head of Wardrobe at Persephone Theatre. You can catch Miranda onstage again for Ring of Fire (Persephone Theatre)
Season 5 (2026-27) of The First Monday will feature the following plays:
Episode 1: October 5th, 2026 - "Resolve" by Valerie Senyk
- A successful artist in her sixties receives a marriage proposal, and discovers that she still has unresolved issues with her first husband, from whom she was never legally divorced when they parted 40 years ago. In order to move forward, she may have to face her past.
Episode 2: November 2nd, 2026 - "Jaune" by David Baudemont
- "Jaune" is a fable for all ages. The main character is a birch growing alone in the midst of boreal forest, unaware of its own name. This philosophical fable spans half a lifetime, from birth to maturity. Unable to leave its spot, the young tree must come to terms with its unfriendly black spruce neighbours and the challenging climate of the North. Its journey leads it to discover its true calling: that of a storyteller. The play explores themes of resilience in a hostile setting, conflict, compromise, communal life, and the passing down of shared stories.
The workshop for Jaune is in partnership with La Troupe du Jour.
Episode 3: December 7th, 2026 - "A Very Strange Agony" by Paige Francoeur
- Laura, a young woman with debilitating sleep issues, attends therapy in the hopes of ending her increasingly disturbing series of night terrors.
In these dreams, she is visited by a mysterious woman named Carmilla, with whom she forms a torrid and complicated relationship that transcends time, space, and memory. Laura’s world is opened up, both to a magnetic, intoxicating love, but also to an obsession and darkness that threatens to consume her entirely. She can no longer distinguish between her dreams and her memories-- is Carmilla real? Or is she something more supernatural?
Inspired by the 1872 gothic novel “Carmilla” by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu.
Episode 4: January 4th, 2027 - "Hungry" by Thea Fitz-James
- Hungry is a darkly comic, Stephen King–inspired 2-hander about the first year of motherhood, where love, appetite, exhaustion, and rage become increasingly difficult to tell apart. At its centre is a new mother who is ravenous: for food, sleep, solitude, sex, recognition, and some version of herself she can still recognize. At the same time, she is being consumed: by a baby who needs subsistence, by a family that expects her to disappear happily into care, and by a world that keeps telling mothers to nourish everyone except themselves. As sleep deprivation and isolation begin to warp the edges of reality, ordinary domestic rituals take on the logic of horror. Funny, unsettling, and grotesquely tender, the play asks: what happens when everyone wants a piece of you, but no one will let you eat?
Episode 5: February 1st, 2027 - "I Am Canadian" by Ed Mendez
- "I Am Canadian" explores the concept of Third Culture Kids: people raised in a culture different from their parents' home culture during their formative years. I’m curious to see if/how other first-generation Canadians have kept their connections to their culture alive, if anyone else feels the same disconnect from their home culture that I do, and to bring to light this idea of never quite fitting into one culture entirely. I wonder if others have a sense that their cultural history will be erased by being Canadian, and if they see this as good, bad, or somewhere in between.
It will be a collection of my own observations and ramblings with a verbatim component attached. In all, 26 individuals will be interviewed as part of the writing process.
Episode 6: March 1st, 2027 - "For the Birds" by Rowan Pantel & Johanna Arnott
- A new, devised play that explores the question: what happens if you are always saving your money for a rainy day, and then leave the world without actually experiencing any of it? Created with puppets and performers the story follows an unlikely friendship between Brigit, her eccentric elderly landlady Mona, and Mona’s 40 year old African Grey Parrot, Kierkegaard. When Mona suddenly passes away, her will names Kierkegaard as her sole inheritor and Brigit his. With Kierkegaard’s help, Brigit searches through Mona’s fridge magnets and mementos to find the truth about the mysterious old woman’s past.
Episode 7: April 5th, 2027 - "Riel Talk: A Play About Pretendianism" by J.T Smith
- Riel Talk is a play that grapples with the legacy of Métis Resistance in Saskatchewan and the existential question of what it means to be Michif today. In the play, a struggling Michif actor lands the role of a lifetime, the lead in the hit play The Tragedy of Louis Riel. In preparing for the role, however, he’s forced to confront his own inner ghosts as well as the ongoing appropriation and colonization of the Métis people. Drawing from a myriad of mediums and sources, Riel Talk seeks to centre Métis/Michif presence and resistance in the face of appropriation and exclusion.
Meet the Playwrights
Valerie Senyk
Valerie Senyk has followed an eclectic path as an artist. She received a BFA in Fine Arts and an MA in Drama at the University of Saskatchewan as a mature student, and has worked as a theatre professor, director, playwright, poetry performer and visual artist. Her first volume of poetry published by Vocamus Press is I Want a Poem, followed by her chapbook Stick. She recently returned to the prairie from Ontario, with a focus on writing, painting, learning and community building. She has three amazing sons and six grandkids.
David Baudemont
Originally from France, I have lived in Saskatoon with my wife for over thirty years. I enjoy writing and painting in sketchbooks in the middle of meandering walks. This practice has resulted in a variety of multidisciplinary works that have earned me numerous awards and nominations. In the field of theatre, I have been working with La Troupe du Jour for more than 25 years. My playwriting has reached the wider Francophone world with "Orange aux Pays des Angles“ (2022), a production subsequently restaged by a French company at the World Festival of Puppet Theatre in Charleville-Mézières. For the past dozen years, I have co-facilitated La Troupe du Jour’s writers’ circle. I am also the co-founder of the Regroupement des écrivains et écrivaines de l’Ouest et du Nord (RÉNOC).
Paige Francoeur
Paige Francoeur (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist and proud prairie creative. Primarily, they work as a performer and producer in the world of independent theatre, including working extensively with SUM. A self-described somnambulist and compulsive art-maker, Paige’s personal body of work delves deeply into dreams, memory, and the personal relationship with mental illness as it relates to the construction of the self.
Thea Fitz-James
Dr. Thea Fitz-James
Thea Fitz-James (she/her) is an assistant professor in Theatre, Drama & Performance Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. In her creative practice, she is a multidisciplinary performance artist, theatre maker, and producer. Her research examines the material body in contemporary performance, with particular attention to the gendered and femme body and the material conditions of contemporary Canadian stages, including Fringe and grassroots performance initiatives. She holds a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from York University, where she researched queer performance, textiles, and activism.
As a theatre maker, Thea has showcased work with FADO, Secret Theatre, SummerWorks, and the School of Making/Thinking. She has written and performed three solo shows, NAKED LADIES (2015–2017), Drunk Girl (2016–2019), and Crazy Bitch Boss Bitch (2024–present), which have toured across Canada and internationally, including the United States, Australia, and Singapore. Thea’s work often combines deep intimacy with deep research, in order to offer a delicious dialect that explores nuanced answers to contemporary questions, usually around gender, the body, and materiality.
Ed Mendez
Ed Mendez (he/him) is a multi-faceted artist based in Warman, SK on Treaty Six. Over the last 20 years he has acted at Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, Persephone Theatre, SUM Theatre, 25th Street Theatre, multiple companies with Live Five, Gordon Tootoosis Nikaniwin Theatre, and more. Ed has also worked as an arts admin for SOTS, GTNT, and Burnt Thicket Theatre over the last 12 years. Ed has lent his voice to various animated TV series’ on CityTV, in TV, digital, and radio commercials across Saskatchewan, and has performed fights and stunts on and off screen in a host of Saskatchewan-made film productions.
Johanna Arnott
Johanna (she/her) is a Métis-Settler multidisciplinary theatre artist, born and raised in Saskatoon. She’s an actor, stage manager, director, playwright, and clown. She received a BFA in Acting from the University of Saskatchewan and trained at One North Clown and Creation under John Turner, Jenny Hazelton and Michael Kennard. Her writing explores stories of human connection and self-identity; always with an element of the fantastic. Her script A Brontë Without Genius was produced in 2024 as part of Live Five and was awarded the 2023/24 SATAward for Excellence in New Work. Other writing includes: Well, Well, Well (Dr. Frightful Presents: A Podcast Season 1), The Tragedy of Gregory and Balthasar (Sum Theatre’s First Monday), The Photocopier (Saskatoon Fringe Festival).
Rowan Pantel
Rowan (she/her) works with a variety of media, with a focus on puppetry and printmaking. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Regina, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Saskatchewan. For Puppetry she has trained with the Old Trout Puppet Workshop at the Banff Centre, and at the Eugene O'Neill Puppetry Conference in Connecticut. Past design credits include Breathe (SUM, 2025) The Adventure of Young Turtle (S.E. Grummet, 2024), Cakewalk (The Garrys, 2023), Aiden Flyn Lost his Brother so he Makes Another (Theatre Howl, 2016), and Our Four Walls (Thigh High Theatre and MuD Collective, 2015). As an artist, she wants to acknowledge the benefit and gift I receive to live, create, and raise a family on Treaty 6 Territory and the homeland of the Métis.
J.T. Smith
J.T. Smith dishinihkawshoon. Lloydminster d’oshcheen, maka Saskatoon niweekin. maa parantii Michif si lii Prudens, lii Delormes, pi lii Pichés. ma parantii aypayweeekit si lii Smiths, lii Harris, pi lii Youngs. aen Michif neeya. My name is J.T. Smith. I’m a Michif from a mixed family. I am originally from Lloydminster, but my family and I are now living in Saskatoon. I’m a citizen of the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan and a proud member of Gabriel Dumont Local #11. In addition to writing plays, I am currently pursuing a B.Ed. through SUNTEP and the wîcêhtowin Theatre certificate through the University of Saskatchewan.
Many thanks to our funders!
And our partner!
Season 4 (2025-26) of The First Monday featured the following plays:
Episode 1: October 6th, 2025 - "Table in the Shade" by Gordon Portman
- An ambitious political science professor invites a well-known/populist conservative Western economist to the Maldives, to teach a course in comparative economics, and sway her opinions about the relationship between capitalist economics and climate change.
Episode 2: November 3rd, 2025 - DOUBLE FEATURE!
- "A Mixtape for the Man I Was/Am" by Blair Pisio: A Mixtape is a deeply personal one-person show about a father in his 30s navigating a late-in-life coming out in rural Saskatchewan. Framed through a shoebox of mixtapes, the play moves between high school hallways, kitchen tables, and the first vulnerable steps of dating men after years of hiding. Each track underscores heartbreak, humour, and hope, with music as both soundtrack and metaphor: Side A, a life built for others; Side B, a life long kept secret. At its core, A Mixtape is about reclaiming time and finding courage to live openly.
- "Waiting to Breathe" by Cheryl Jack: Emma, a young mother, finds herself overwhelmed on an isolated acreage. Unable to cope, she reaches out to her sister, Christina, who does her best to support Emma. Maybe it’s too late for her little sister... or maybe it’s not.
Episode 3: December 1st, 2025 - "Tomato Pie" by Marley Duckett
- Tomato Pie is a spooky Christmas story inspired by a chilling yuletide holiday from my youth! It explores illness, loss, and the complicated dynamics of a family suffocated by grief. I wrote the play while considering familial abandonment and my struggles to reclaim some semblance of self in the aftermath of parental loss. The play follows Bertie, a haunted, lonely college student returning home for the holidays. Bertie dreads another Christmas with her broken family, but when she arrives, she finds a house alive with color, joy, and something else ... How can her family abandon her to her grief? How could they possibly have moved on? And who is this new woman standing in her family's living room?
**January's Reading has been re-scheduled to May 4th. There will be no event in January.
Episode 4: February 2nd, 2026 - "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Skye Brandon & Carla Orosz
- Gabriel Utterson, a respectable London lawyer, embarks on a quest to unravel the odd connection between his good friend and client, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and the mysterious Mr. Edward Hyde. When the murder of an esteemed MP shocks the city, the search for a killer takes us through the streets of Victorian London. Adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, the play explores ambition, duality, and class, as the characters not only struggle to bring a killer to justice under the oppressive city fog, but their own moral responsibilities as well.
Episode 5: March 2nd, 2026 - "A Nightmare in Uncle’s Place" by Shawn Cuthand
- Just when you thought it was safe to go to Uncle's place, there's a presence, that's doing Uncle things!!
A Nightmare in Uncle's Place follows Taylor as she inherits her Uncles Place after he passes away. Once she moves in she finds out her Uncle is still around and doing benevolent hauntings. Can they coexist or does she throw her Uncle out?
Episode 6: April 6th, 2026 - "Infinite Jest" by Kenn McLeod
- Before he was the most famous skull in literature, Yorick had a tongue—and an audience.
Denmark’s court jester teams up with an eight-year-old Hamlet to explore the world through games, jokes, and tender mischief. Together they navigate the confusing weight of growing up while raising bigger questions: Can laughter really fix a broken heart? How do you raise strong and hopeful children in a world of conflict? And what happens when a joke goes too far—or not far enough?
Infinite Jest is a story about parenting, perseverance, and doing the unexpected.
Episode 7: May 4th, 2026 - "Our Most Precious Demons" by Adam Pottle
- Our Most Precious Demons follows two women, Clover and Azura. Clover is Deaf, while Azura is her best friend and interpreter. When the two visit a medium for a reading, an unwelcome presence infiltrates their session, and what began as a simple exercise in curiosity becomes a horrifying fight for survival. Using silence and Deaf perspective to build suspense, this play will leave audiences soaked in dread and will suggest new possibilities for generating horror onstage.
Season 3 (2024-25) of The First Monday featured the following plays:
Episode 1: October 7th, 2024 - "66 No Exit Lane" by Jonathon Pickrell
- When the wealthy heiress Angela Winters passes away, her surviving family, close acquaintances, and employees are all invited to the reading of her last will and testament at her old, and slightly crumbling, estate on No Exit Lane. Once they are gathered, a loophole is discovered in her will which some worry might encourage foul play. When their concerns turn out to be warranted, and the presiding attorney winds up dead, it’s up to the cast-of-characters to put aside their obvious disdain for one another to oust the culprit and survive the evening! Who done it? Why they do it? Who can you trust when everyone is out for themselves? Find out in Jonathon Pickrell's love letter to the genres of murder mystery and farce comedy, No Exit Lane!
Episode 2: November 4th, 2024 - "Weyburn 1959" by Arthur Milner
- In the 1950s, Weyburn Mental Hospital in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, was a world centre for research into the use of LSD in the treatment of mental illness. By the mid-‘60s, LSD was a popular street drug and was made illegal, even for medical research. And in 1971, the massive mental hospital closed its doors. Weyburn 1959 is a fictionalized account of a transformational night in the lives of the researchers.
Episode 3: December 2nd, 2024 - "A Christmas Play" by Nathan Howe
- On stress leave from her office job, CAROLINE signs up to apprentice backstage for the annual local theatre production of A Christmas Carol. Through a twelve-hour tech rehearsal, sparks fly and misunderstandings pile up between her and theatre-school crush CHRIS, playing Fred for the fifteenth year in a row. A Christmas Play is a farcical backstage rom-com with wacky double-casting that pulls back the curtain to reveal the magic of love and theatre.
Episode 4: January 6th, 2025 - "Antorcha" by Lautaro Reyes and Mitchell Larsen
- A melding of secrets, desires and despair. Antorcha follows the journey of Teo as they struggle to understand themself and the world around them in the wake of a traumatic breakup. Current Content Warning: Violence and Sex
Episode 5: February 3rd, 2025 - "Stage Moms" by Oli Guselle & Annika Tupper
- It’s opening night— the children of Sacred Heart Inter-Regional Theatre are awaiting their big moment, while behind the curtain, Stage Moms are pulling the strings. Will the show go on without a hitch, or will the company crumble under the pressures of perfection? This is our love letter exposé to community theatre.
Episode 6: March 3rd, 2025 - "Fissure" by Kevin Moxley
- Every evening the young fisher went out upon the sky, and threw the nets into the abyss…
But the evening’s catch brings change that ripples through their whole world in this speculative futuristic fairytale retelling of Oscar Wilde’s “The Fisherman and His Soul”.
Episode 7: April 7th, 2025 - "Personal Space" by Leanne Griffin
- Bernie and Jillian are at odds - he wants to keep the 1970’s style house he inherited from his Granny, while she hates the clutter and feels lonely and isolated in their new location. Mandy hides in the root cellar - but are they a dangerous vagrant, an old imaginary friend, or a potential ally?
Episode 8: May 5th, 2025 - "That's Life" by Darius Kiskotagan & Julia Kowalski
- Can failure be defined by a singular definition? Or is there more to it than simply ‘a lack of success’? ‘That’s Life’ is a verbatim play on the topic of ‘failure’ and what it means to members of the local Saskatoon community.
Season 2 (2023-24) of The First Monday featured the following plays:
Episode 1: October 2nd, 2023 - "One Night" by Paige Francoeur & Bob Wicks
- A new take on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams. A family gathering descends into chaos when truths are told. A story about the lies we tell each other and the lies we tell ourselves and the lies we need to believe in order to make it through.
Episode 2: November 6th, 2023 - "The Boat" by Todd Devonshire
- Canada. 1964. Abortion is illegal.
But 15 miles off the coast, The Boat is ready to challenge everything.
Episode 3: December 4th, 2023 - "The Tragedy of Gregory and Balthasar" by Johanna Arnott
- Gregory and Balthasar are two men from two houses, both alike in dignity. They are told that they should be enemies, and so they are. But on the shore of Lake Verona Ontario, they are just two dudes who want the same thing: to catch the big fish. Narrated by the big fish himself through a Big Mouth Billy Bass and adapted lines from Romeo and Juliet, The Tragedy of Gregory and Balthasar is a love story dealing with the issue of the impact those with power have over the people who do not.
Episode 4: January 8th, 2024 (SECOND MONDAY) - "I AM WHO I AM" by Peace Akintade-Oluwagbeye
- I Am Who I Am follows the poetic and philosophical exchange between A-kin, the embodiment of storytelling and poetry, and Ọrunmila, the embodiment of guidance, knowledge, and divination. The play is largely based on Yoruba philosophies of death, life, deities, and the abstract concepts of identity.
Episode 5: February 5th, 2024 - "Matriarchy" by Jacelyn Perret
- With the counsel of her ancestors a young Métis woman contemplates motherhood, the significance of the matriarch in Métis culture, and what it means to leave a legacy while grappling with a quickly approaching secret.
Episode 6: March 4th March 11th, 2024 - "The Olive Suitcase" by Jalisa Gonie
- The outside world is terrifying, especially when you haven’t left the house in over a decade. But Olive always has her suitcase packed and ready for any danger that could come knocking and when it does, Olive will learn if she is truly prepared for the outside world.
Episode 7: April 1st, 2024 - "Final Notice" by Jordan Harvey
- Final Notice centers around a university house and its tenants as they prepare for an impending eviction following a failed rental strike, and their one last party before vacating. Storylines intersect in a barely post-adolescent cacophony of drugs, sex, queerness, and those perilous half-understandings which accompany such a time in life.
Episode 8: May 6th, 2024 - "My Name Is..." by Megan Zong
- Xiao Tong is on a quest to reclaim what has been taken from her, and take down the bad guy in school. Alongside her friend, Diva Dave, she discovers hidden superpowers. But to use them, she will have to embrace a part of herself that she has pushed away for too long. First developed with Persephone Theatre's TYA Playwrights Unit, this play is about embracing our unique differences and finding a sense of belonging when faced with adversity.