The Haunting is a collaborative performance-meets-séance that asks what happens when we invite our ghosts into the room with us.
The Haunting is a performance that draws on “the spectral turn” and legacies of automatic painting to explore how we respond to our ghosts. The performance examines how we tell our ghost stories, the traces they leave on us, and the requests they make of us.
This 45-minute piece is performed for one audience member at a time, meaning that the entire piece is performed for you and with you.
Drawing on the work of scholars like Avery F. Gordon and Christina Sharpe, I’m thinking about ghosts as personal curiosities as well as social phenomena. Reckoning with ghosts is seeking justice; it’s about looking closely at what we’re told to ignore, about paying attention to what’s been invisibilized in our dominant narratives.
Beginning with my own teenaged hauntings and spectral sites, I’m using this performance to consider how political narratives have worked on me, and how a cast of ghosts and spiritualists—including Frederick Banting, a “registered psychic” named Bunny, and a house full of ghost dogs—have asked me to look more closely at what I’ve refused to consider.
The performance invites audiences to summon their own ghosts into the room with us, as we experiment with ways to make them visible and to contend with their appeals.
This performance can be adapted to meet a range of physical and sensory access needs. Please send me a message via the comment page if you’d like to talk about how you can have the best possible experience at the show.
Tickets are $15 each and are available here. Each show is for one audience member at a time. There are numerous shows each week, from April 3 - 29, 2026 at 88 Nassau Street, Toronto ON.
We acknowledge the support of the toronto arts council for the 2026 production.
development support was gratefully provided by Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Council, along with the generous support of The Birthing Body Project and Theatre Direct/Balancing Act Canada.
the haunting was developed as part of tarragon theatre’s 2024 greenhouse residency and festival.
written and performed by shira leuchter
outside eye, creative collaborator and audio/visual/tech support by chris hanratty
