Under the new leadership of Artistic Producer Tamara Vuckovic, Toronto’s ARC (Actors Repertory Company) has undergone internal changes.
But it’s all for potential growth and a shift.
Vuckovic is no stranger to the Toronto theatre industry. She is a multi-disciplinary artist based in the city. She is a Director, Producer, and Stage Manager in both theatre and opera, and has worked at TMU Abrams Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, Factory, Mirvish, Soulpepper, Opera Atelier, and ARC.
She is the Managing Producer of the classical music series OFF CENTRE MUSIC SALON, a Vocal Teacher at Lowe’s School of Music, and the recipient of Theatre Ontario’s Professional Theatre Training Program Grant for emerging directors.
Vuckovic says she is generally optimistic about the state of the Canadian theatre industry, particularly in co-productions now underway with many theatres. She acknowledges challenges related to ticket pricing, geographic locations, and financial precarity, driven by rising costs and shifting public funding. Post-pandemic audience hesitation has made sustainability more complex.
Our Zoom conversation then shifted to changes at ARC.
Tamara discussed how ARC experienced a transitional year in 2025 after a leadership change. There was no production last year, which is very common for small companies going through a leadership change. What changed was both the structure and the personnel:
“The structure shifted to be the Artistic Producer, Managing Producer, and an Associate Artistic Producer, a new structure we hadn’t had before.”
During the rebuilding and refocusing on setting new goals for the year, new people were brought into new roles, including Tamara. She was the Managing Producer of ARC for the previous six years and is now in her second year as Artistic Producer. She calls this time an exciting shift, and it was great to have the year to rebuild, refocus, and set goals for the upcoming year.
What’s exciting Tamara as well about the future for ARC?
She’s looking at the continued potential for growth in both membership and programming. Tamara is also excited about working in untraditional and unconventional spaces across Toronto, since ARC tends to move between venues for each of its productions. For her, this is part of how the company will continue to grow.
Vuckovic has a lot on her plate as she will direct Sam Holcroft’s A Mirror, a mischievous and explosive new play that interrogates censorship, authorship, and free speech with a series of unforgettable twists. These are themes Vuckovic says are so relevant right now.
Set to begin performances on March 10 at 918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media & Education, Tamara provides enough information to whet the appetite.
A Mirror follows a troupe of actors looking to put on a play. It’s set in a world and time under a government’s regime in which certain topics cannot be discussed in certain ways. In other words, the government controls what one can read and write.
To combat this governmental imposition, the performers disguise their play as a wedding.
Tamara clarifies that the play’s structure is not a made-up idea. It reflects what happens in certain countries today, where the government has more control over the theatre. Actors disguise their play as either a wedding or a funeral.
The audience meets the playwright, Adem, and follows his journey to have his play approved by the government at the Ministry of Culture, overseen by Mr. Celik. Adem must learn to write in this state-approved, patriotic way rather than tell uncomfortable truths about what’s actually happening.
A Mirror has a complex structure, and I asked Tamara what intrigues her most about directing the piece:
“You named it right there. The complex structure and architecture are what is so exciting. After reading it the first time, it was clear it wasn’t just a narrative or a stylistic choice, but in fact it’s the actual engine of the play.”
There’s a mirrored form in which scenes double back on themselves. Suddenly, what we thought we understood shifts. A Mirror poses the central question of how we decide what’s true and what’s real. In the first half, the audience builds assumptions. In the second half, the play dismantles them. It’s not just the audience watching a story about perception; it’s their own perceptions being challenged.
There will be technical challenges to the piece, from specific timing to choreography and musically, that will help give precision in different ways to reflect that form.
The cast includes well-known Canadian actors: Cole Munden, Rita Dottor, Jonelle Gunderson, Craig Lauzon, Paul Smith, Courtenay Stevens and Nabil Traboulsi.
Vuckovic says A Mirror marks her solo directorial debut. She co-directed in 2018 at ARC and has also directed at educational facilities at TMU and The Waldorf Schools. The experience as a solo director has been wonderful. She’s so happy to be in this position after many years of assistant directing:
“I’ve been looking to get myself to this place for quite a while.”
As an artist, Tamara says that challenging oneself feels like an engine in the theatre:
“If we’re not asking something difficult within ourselves as artists and as audiences, then we’re not fully engaging in the art form. Certainly, at ARC, we see challenge as a doorway to transformation in reaching our audiences.”
A challenging, sometimes risky taking theatre exchange between performer and audience turns passive theatre experiences into active engagement for everyone. A demanding piece can be unsettling, introduce unfamiliar perspectives, and raise different moral questions. That discomfort, rather than being alienating, is energizing for the artist and the audience. It sparks conversation and deepens empathy, which are among the most important things in theatre. Questions and conversations should take place after the curtain has come down.
While Covid brought ARC productions back to traditional spaces like Crow’s, Vuckovic wanted to start exploring unconventional spaces again, especially for the immersive A Mirror. 918 Bathurst is the best choice for the production. It’s not an empty furniture warehouse, but it’s enough of a space that can be turned into their own. For Tamara:
“The space works perfectly, given the way A Mirror is set up at the beginning, where people are invited to a wedding.”
While the play addresses an informal, casual dress code, Vuckovic states that audiences don’t have to come dressed up and dolled up for an actual wedding.
As we concluded our Zoom conversation, Tamara believes that here in the Toronto theatre ecosystem, there is the talent and infrastructure to maintain vibrancy and lead through collaboration. She says more and more of that is on the rise, which is great.
She also believes audiences have an appetite for diverse storytelling and authenticity. More and more theatres, Vuckovic hopes, are producing plays that allow people to relate to the artists on stage. For her, that’s effective. ARC will continue to find bold, inclusive work, build sustainable partnerships, cultivate younger audiences, and ground programming in community dialogue.
To learn more about ARC as a theatre company, visit www.arcstage.com.
To learn more about A Mirror, visit https://arcstage.com/happening-next/a-mirror/
To purchase tickets for A Mirror, visit https://arc-a-mirror.square.site/
