Open Heart Surgery Theatre, founded in 2014, is an internationally recognized, female-led theatre ensemble based in Toronto, Canada. We create new devised work that is physical, poetic, relevant, and experimental. Led by Parsi-Irish Canadian theatre maker Coleen Shirin MacPherson, the company develops work that stretches borders and challenges boundaries, inhabiting the hyphenated space between cultures through bold, cross-cultural collaboration. Our productions have toured internationally to Egypt, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Poland, and, most recently, Germany.

We comprise of a mixture of performers including Lecoq-trained theatre makers whose interests lie in intercultural work that engages audiences in a visceral experience, often experimenting with form and multiple languages on stage.  We take a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to theatre making: merging live music, media and dance to create original theatre that opens the heart and speaks to the urgent stories of our time.

Our work includes First Draft (Camden People’s Theatre, Mimetic Festival in London (The Vaults, Waterloo Station).  This play was re-imagined and co-produced with StudioZAT at Falaki Theatre in Cairo, Egypt in November 2016.   In Silence From Dawn 'Till Dusk, a 12-hour silent protest at 2nd Floor Rear, an art festival in Chicago (Mana Contemporary) when their Iranian-Canadian musicians couldn't make it to Chicago due to Donald Trump’s EO Muslim Ban.   Open Heart Surgery Theatre was hosted in at Théâtre de L’Enfumeraie in Le Mans, France; Plateau 31 in Paris, France and Old Vic New Voices in the UK for the development of This Is Why We Live, a play that takes the poems of Wisława Szymborska to the stage. After a short run in Toronto, we toured the play to Krakow at Nowy Theatre with the support of the Miłosz Festival and the Szymborksa Foundation.  We held our U.S. premiere of This Is Why We Live at La MaMa in NYC as part of their 58th Season this September 2019 to rave reviews and later in 2022 earned an OFFIE through VOILA! Europe in London, UK.  Our work, Erased was created into a film-play and held a digital showing at La MaMa in July 2020 as part of Experiments Play-Readings, a quarantine experiment (directed by Jason Trucco). Erased’s theatrical version premiered at Theatre Passe Muraille in 2023 and was deemed one of the “top 10 productions of 2024” and "The year's most gutsy and original new play." (Toronto Star). Erased toured to the prestigious Heidelberger Stückemarkt in Heidelberg, Germany in May 2026 as one of three productions from Canada as part of their Guest Country portion of the festival.

We also create audio-drama, focusing on female painters called Wild Women Podcast with collaborator Martha Ross. We are currently developing The Greenroom Podcast drawing audiences into intergenerational conversations between company members at the Stratford Festival. This will be launched in the Fall of 2026.

In Development:  Erased /Apagado, in translation by Brazilian artist, Juliana Spínola, The Persians Reimagined after Aeschylus and Remnants, a play inspired by the disappearing spaces in Toronto.

THE COMPANY

COLEEN SHIRIN MACPHERSON

ALIX SIDERIS

ALAINE HUTTON

ELODIE MONTEAU

SARAH WARREN

YEARIME CASTEL BARRAGAN