You Should Have Stayed Home Too

Tommy Taylor spent a decade working overnight shifts in Toronto shelters, drop-ins, encampments and overdose prevention sites - then the pandemic hit. You Should Have Stayed Home Too is the documentary performance built from those years in crisis, a system in collapse and lives lost - blending first-person testimony with live folk music, projected photographs, and immersive audience experience.

Running through the piece is the story of his late aunt Vikky Taylor, who was performed in a duo with best friend Joni Mitchell in 1960s Yorkville (while also dating Neil Young), and whose surviving recordings are being brought to life by JUNO-nominated, multi Canadian Folk Music Award-winning musician Abigail Lapell. This workshop presentation offers an early look at the piece days before the Toronto's municipal election - followed each night by conversations and debates about issues at the heart of the piece (issues that are increasingly urgent across the city) as we head to the ballot box.

*A workshop preview