Sandra Laronde’s novel She Holds Up the Stars (Annick Press, 2025) was born in print, but is expanding sonically, visually, and emotionally into a multi-sensory experience at Roy Thomson Hall.
It’s the realization of a burning ambition to scale her work. “When I was first writing She Holds Up the Stars, I knew that I didn’t want the words to only sit on the page; I wanted them to lift, to move, to breathe and to be embodied,” she shares during a conversation over Zoom. This desire finds full expression in the world-premiere stage production by Red Sky Performance, in collaboration with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO). It will transform her Horace Mann Upstander Award-winning novel into a multidisciplinary, immersive work for all ages that she has created, written and directed.
The production brings together theatre, large-scale puppetry and live orchestral music in a coming-of-age story centred on Misko (Julia Davis), a 12-year old Indigenous girl searching for the truth about her mother. While Misko spends one summer with her kokum (Marsha Knight) on the reservation where she was born, she forms an unexpected bond with a spirited horse that is broken by a rancher (Mike Shara) and his son, Thomas (James Gerus). In the story, Misko navigates a world that is shaped by both beauty and injustice, and guided by relationships with land, family, and community. Rounding out the cast are Hilary Wheeler (Shoshana), Geoffrey Pounsett (Mr. Turner), and Kehew Buffalo (Nelson).
For Laronde, who is the founder and artistic director of the acclaimed Red Sky Performance and a member of the Teme-Augama Anishinaabe, the story is deeply personal. “It’s based on my life growing up,” she explains. As a young reader, she searched for tales that reflected the fullness of her experience—for “a story that was full of hope and complexity and passion and humor and everything else”. Instead, she found narratives centered on Indigenous protagonists that were steeped in sadness. Her novel, and now the stage work, emerged from that absence. “I thought I would love to write a story for this generation and the next generation coming up, so that they can find the kind of book that I was looking for.”
The desire to offer young people something expansive, rather than reductive, shapes the work at every level. Misko is not simplified for her audience; instead, Laronde describes her as “sensitive, complex, emotional, and also very intelligent.” The story deliberately resists condescension: “I think young people need books and stories that don’t speak down to them. They should speak up to them,” she smiles. For this reason, the narrative functions “a little bit like a compass,” helping audiences navigate a world that is “both beautiful and cruel.”
If the novel invites readers inward, the stage production pushes outward into a bigger, more collaborative and immersive experience. The trust built over a 25-year relationship with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra made this collaboration possible, allowing the company to support a project of truly unusual scope, which includes a 65-person ensemble combining musicians and performers; an original orchestral score by Eliot Britton, performed by TSO musicians under conductor Trevor Wilson; intricate puppetry and large-scale visual design. Laronde has long worked across disciplines, but this production represents one of her most ambitious integrations to date: “I’m really interested in multidisciplinary… theatre, dance, media, and music,” she enthuses. “To create something that has all those different disciplines that feed each other—and the seams don’t show—that’s the hard part of it. And that’s the exciting part of it.”
At the centre of the production’s visual world is the horse Mishtadim, a life-size creation by puppetry designer Nick Barnes, with movement direction by Scarlet Wilderink and embodied by three performers working in precise physical union: Troy Feldman (heart), Brad Cook (hind), and Dayna Tietzan (head). “They make that horse run, gallop, trot, canter, scream, whinny, bray, and fall in love,” marvels Laronde. “You will soon forget that it’s a puppet. You’ll actually start to believe it’s just a horse!”
This effect is emblematic of the production’s broader aim: to dissolve the boundaries until story, movement, and sound function as one. And part of this is the work’s relationship to land as a living presence, not a simple backdrop—an effect achieved through shifting perspectives and theatrical language that invite audiences to feel the land as active and relational. “When you think about land… it’s the stars. It’s the trees. It’s the river. It’s the water. It’s everything,” she notes. “It’s quite epic and large”, which pushes deliberately against the historically “small” framing of Indigenous stories. “I wanted to blow that apart, and make it big in scale and scope.”
She also examined fixed notions of family. Drawing on Anishinaabe worldviews, the story emphasizes community as something fluid and sustaining. “You have a circle, and someone steps in if there’s a piece that is missing,” Laronde explains. “We’re always adopting people… that’s Anishinaabe love.” This vision of belonging resonates across generations, much like the novel itself, which Laronde notes has been embraced by both young and adult readers.
At its deepest core, however, the work is anchored in character. Misko’s search for truth, her resilience, and her curiosity carry the deepest emotional weight. “She’s always pushing to find truth,” Laronde says. “She’s a seeker… she has incredible courage and resilience.” And these are not abstract ideas: they are lived qualities, which refract the artist’s own younger self through the large-scale theatrical lens.
In the end, Laronde is delighted “to feel children and adults be moved by her, and be moved by her story”. And her aspiration for the work is both simple and appropriately vast: “I hope [it will] inspire people to also have courage. To be brave and stand up for things. To use their voice, be curious in the world, and love the land.”
She Holds Up the Stars runs April 13–18, 2026 (school performances), with public performances on April 19 at 1:30 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. at Roy Thomson Hall. Tickets and information are available at tso.ca.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
