In June 2020, the Stratford Festival handed its social media accounts over to Black company members, amid North America-wide protests against anti-Black racism. What followed was the hashtag #InTheDressingRoom, spearheaded by Black artists at the Festival. BIPOC theatre artists across Canada quickly took it up, using it to share accounts of the discrimination, tokenism, and microaggressions they had long endured inside Canadian theatre institutions. The conversation was vast, painful, and overdue.
Sara Farb was paying attention. “It became a much larger conversation about the deep problems with the theatre industry in general,” she recalls. Love Us Most, the biting and darkly funny new play that marks Farb’s debut as a playwright, is the result. Playing in its world premiere production at Stratford’s Here for Now Theatre, “the play deals with the kinds of stories that were shared—and also ones I’ve witnessed and heard about.”
Audiences who know Farb primarily as one of Canada’s most celebrated stage actors—a Stratford Festival mainstay whose Broadway debut came in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and whose Funny Girl at Shaw Festival this season (here reviewed for Sesaya Arts) is a great example—are about to encounter a different side of her artistry. She previously wrote the books for musicals including Kelly vs. Kelly and Way Out There, but Love Us Most is something different and more personal: a sharp insider’s reckoning with the industry she has inhabited for years.
Set backstage during a production of King Lear, the play follows three actresses (Shannon Taylor, Jasmine Case, Zara Jestadt) who are navigating ambition, power, and survival in a system not built for them, alongside a fourth cast memberulian Jeffrey (Kevin Bundy) with a more privileged vantage point. The play takes its title from Lear’s prideful question, “Which of you shall we say doth love us most?”, which catalyzes the tragedy. The choice of King Lear as the play-within-this-play was, Farb admits, a practical one. “When I started writing it, I knew I wanted it to be a play with three women and lots of men. King Lear was one I’d done and knew well, so I didn’t have too much research to do.” She pauses, reflecting on what followed: “Obviously, that decision allowed for themes from King Lear to bleed into the play I was writing, which helped. But the thing wasn’t clearly planned when I started writing—it was only in the writing, and the hasty decision to make it King Lear, that the possibilities of what could be happening interpersonally emerged.”
Those possibilities—who takes up space, whose stories get told, and who gets to stay in the room—are ones Farb handles with wit and candour. And Here For Now Theatre is exactly the right home for them. “Its proximity to the Stratford Festival is valuable for a play that is in direct conversation with that company’s initiative in 2020. The intimacy of the space is also critical for the claustrophobia of the circumstances.” There’s also another obvious and practical benefit: “Theatre lovers populate the town, so many of them will understand the content well.”
The production is directed by Sabryn Rock, who Farb warmly notes is “one of my best friends and has been a collaborator on this play from the beginning.” This was still another smart, friction-removing choice because “working with her is easy and wonderful…. Her work is always so clear, and we have similar taste in art.” Of the cast, Farb is equally warm: “These four actors are ones I’m a huge fan of. Each of them is consistently a standout in whatever I see them in, so to have them all in this play together is amazing. Their work is so generous, and the way they listen to each other inspires me as an actor.”
That last phrase is telling. For Farb, acting and writing have never been separate pursuits. Asked specifically about the shift between these modes, she explains, “I wouldn’t say there’s a particular moment. The two have always co-existed. I like to offset one with the other: writing informs my acting, and vice-versa.” Love Us Most perfectly embodies this dual consciousness: it is the work of someone who has spent decades inside large institutions, watching how they distribute power and protection, and who has now found a form in which to say what she’s seen.
Asked about what audiences should expect from that form, she is blunt: “I hope that people walk away understanding that, while the theatre industry continues to strive toward a work environment that makes every person feel safe and seen, it will never be fixed. The foundation is corrupt, and rebuilding it entirely will take a very long time. There is progress, but there are also unshakable flaws.” She catches herself, and acknowledges the weight of her diagnosis: “I know that sounds fatalistic, and maybe it is. It’s not by any means to dissuade continued action: it just so often feels like such a massive undertaking, with not a huge amount to show for it.”
In the end, practicality wins one final time: “I guess things happen little by little. Obviously, the alternative—to not do anything—is not an option.”
Love Us Most is her something … and an invitation to make it ours.
Love Us Most continues until June 28, 2026 at Here For Now Theatre in Stratford. Tickets are available at herefornowtheatre.com.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
