TO Live and Luminato Festival invite audiences into a dreamlike world of risk, intimacy, and exhilarating physical performance with Play Dead by People Watching (Montreal, QC), running June 25–28 at the Meridian Arts Centre’s Lyric Theatre, as part of Luminato Festival’s 20th edition.

Tickets are now on sale at tolive.com.

Part contemporary circus, part movement theatre, part fever dream, Play Dead is a genre-defying work that explores the fragile and complicated ways we connect with one another. Set within a shifting landscape of domestic spaces and surreal encounters, the production blends acrobatics, dance, theatrical absurdity, and cinematic imagery into an immersive meditation on youth, change, and the beauty of human imperfection.

Created entirely through collective collaboration Play Dead showcases six multidisciplinary performers moving as a single organism, sharing risk, trust, and vulnerability in real time. The result is a visceral and poetic performance that reimagines what circus can be.

With a soundtrack ranging from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to Brenda Lee, Play Dead balances tenderness and chaos, humour, and melancholy, inviting audiences to reflect on mortality, desire, and the fleeting intensity of being alive. As the performers hurl themselves through space and into one another’s arms, the work becomes both a celebration of collective resilience and a reminder to dance fiercely before the party ends.

TICKET & PERFORMANCE DETAILS

Play Dead

Presented by TO Live and Luminato Festival

Thursday June 25, 2026: 8 pm

Friday June 26, 2026: 8 pm

Saturday June 27, 2026: 4 pm

Saturday June 27, 2026: 8 pm

Sunday June 28, 2026: 4 pm

Tickets - $68.25 - $97.00 (additional fees may apply)

Tickets are available online at www.tolive.com, by phone at 416-366-7723 and 1-800-708-6754, and in person at the Meridian Hall box office (1 Front Street East) and the Meridian Arts Centre box office (5040 Yonge Street), Monday to Friday, 1 pm to 6 pm.

TO Live box office phone and email support operates 1 pm to 6 pm Monday to Friday. Online sales operate 24 hours a day.

Runtime: Approximately 70 minutes

Audience Advisory: Partial nudity, stylized violence, and themes of dying and death.

Recommended for ages 10+.