Expanding the possibilities
of performance
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Performance Festival
August 6-16, 2026
Ömer Yükseker
Hello Sunshine!
Sara Porter Productions
Venue
The Theatre Centre Franco Boni Theatre
THU AUG 13, 6:00 PM*
FRI AUG 14, 9:00 PM
SAT AUG 15, 9:00 PM
World Premiere
65 Minutes
Ticket Price
$20 / $35 / $50
Celebrated for her playful, irreverent and virtuosic performance, Sara Porter brings the third of her memoir-based solos to the SummerWorks Performance Festival.
Hello Sunshine! is a one-woman “more than a musical” and multidisciplinary dance about her experience living with sun allergy—the social, personal, and logistical challenges of negotiating an invisible disability.
While living in Scotland, at the age of 27, Sara was diagnosed with Polymorphous Light Eruption (PMLE) an autoimmune condition that makes her acutely reactive to UV radiation. Developed through her travels to rainy Scotland, and 24-hour darkness in Northern Norway, Hello Sunshine! offers an absurdist account of inventive living set against a backdrop of pop songs about sunshine.
Created with the internationally renowned Blind artist Alex Bulmer as dramaturg, Hello Sunshine! is designed to be accessible to Blind audiences, through prepared audio description and a touch tour of the set.
*The August 13th performance of Hello Sunshine! will be followed by a brief post-show Q&A.
Choreographer, Writer & Performer: Sara Porter
Co-Producer: Alex Jodi Verge
Creative Collaborator: Katherine Duncanson
Video Designer & Choreographic Collaborator: Linnea Swan
Disability Dramaturge & Creative Collaborator: Alex Bulmer
Lighting Designer: Rebecca Picherack
Sound Designer: Stephen Joffe
Visual Art Contributor: Elaine Whittaker
Costume Consultant: Val Calam
Audio Describer: Lindsay Zier-Vogel
Technical Director: Franco Pang
Stage Manager: A.J. Morra
Assistant Stage Manager / Performer: Kathy Le
Accessibility Facilitator: Lorna Craig
Administrative Assistant: Cass Cabral Pucci
Presented as part of SummerWorks’ Accessibility and Community Wellness Program, generously funded by Aubrey & Marla Dan Foundation.
Created with support by Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, DAVVI Centre for the Performing Arts, The Registry Theatre Residency Program (Kitchener), the Lindy Green Family Foundation, and the KM Hunter Foundation.
The August 13th performance of Hello Sunshine! will offer Closed Audio Description. Please indicate if you require Audio Description to reserve a listening device. Priority will be given to Blind and Low Vision audience members.
The August 13th performance will offer a 20-minute, pre-show Touch Tour, led by Audio Describer Lindsay Zier-Vogel, starting 45 minutes prior to the performance start time*. Priority will be given to Blind and Low Vision audience members. Sighted Guides for Blind and Low Vision audience members will also be onsite.
*If you would like to attend the Touch Tour please arrive at the Theatre or RSVP to access@summerworks.ca.
Learn more about SummerWorks’ Access Measures HERE.
*Please note that the elevator to the Franco Boni Theatre is out of service. Audiences will have to climb stairs to access the theatre.*
Sensory: full nudity (not suitable for audiences under the age of 18), some loud and sudden sounds, lighting briefly directed into the audience.
Content Advisories for this project are available here. This link will open to a new webpage that lists Content Advisories for ALL SummerWorks 2026 projects. Please take care as you review this list.
SummerWorks Performance Festival
August 6-16, 2026
Tickets on Sale NOW!
This year’s Festival theme, Fight | Flight brings forward urgent creative responses to this troubling moment in time. Across the 2026 Festival, artists root themselves in place, community, ancestry, and practice, while also shifting perspectives, rewriting histories, and creating new narratives through the body, exploring memory, consent, transformation, and identity, through resistance, humour, and intimacy.
