The Neighbours by Nicolas Billon (Part One)

Everyone has a party story. Host and creator of Personally: Discount Dave (and the Fix) Rebecca Auerbach’s involved in a run-in with rock icon David Lee Roth (you know, from Van Halen). At least, that's who he said he was. It’s Vancouver. 2005. Becca, a young actor who loves hard and parties harder gets her first big break at a Shakespeare Festival. She’s young, she’s having fun, party girls are FUNNNNN… Rehydrate, recuperate, recalibrate, repeat. But when her best friend goes on a date with the aging rocker, Becca is on a mission. To get a piece of the action. And maybe it's because she loves rock and roll, or maybe it's because she’s trying to fill a hole, but she holds onto that night. And it ultimately leads to her own reckoning. A harrowing and hilarious blend of memoir and auto-fiction, Discount Dave (and the Fix) is the true-ish story of a fake rockstar, a real trial and what it means to stop running, face yourself and fight to heal. Episode one of this series, "I Runneth with the Devil" is an Official Selection of the 2026 Tribeca Audio Festival.More episodes of Discount Dave (and the Fix) are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/DDxPM

Governor General's Award-winning playwright Nicolas Billon joins Laura Mullin to talk about his play The Neighbours and why the thriller form is the best tool he has for asking the questions that haunt him. Billon traces his love of suspense back to Hitchcock and explains why dread is one of the most honest ways to get an audience leaning in. He breaks down his choice to use direct address, what it does to an audience when a character looks right at them, and how becoming a father has changed him as a writer.

Denise and Simon have lived on Stanley Court for thirty-one years. They know their neighbours, they wave hello, and they throw a barbecue every May. But seven months ago, their next-door neighbour was exposed as the man who kidnapped ten-year-old Kayla Brown and kept her locked in a cage in his basement for twelve years. Now, as the couple pieces together the aftermath, the uncomfortable questions are just beginning.Featuring: Ordena Stephens-Thompson, Tony Nappo and Richard Tse.And if you are looking for more thrillers by Nicolas Billon, check out Butcher available on PlayME in our archives.

When Denise and Simon are called to the police station, what they find there will connect their family to Kayla's story in ways they never could have imagined and force them to reckon with a question with no comfortable answer: how much did they really know?Featuring: Ordena Stephens-Thompson, Tony Nappo and Richard Tse.

In this special PlayME episode, host Chris Tolley sits down with Brian Quirt of Night Swimming as the company celebrates its 30th anniversary.Brian shares insights into the long, collaborative process of developing new plays, Night Swimming’s philosophy of “faith over hope,” and the re-release of Boys With Cars by Anita Majumdar—exploring how the work resonates with audiences today.

Playwright and actor Pamela Mala Sinha joins Chris Tolley to talk about NEW, her play about a generation of South Asian immigrants who came of age in 1970s Winnipeg. Sinha shares how a box of old photographs and her mother's stories sparked the idea, and why she felt compelled to tell the story of a generation that built this country but has been largely skipped over in our cultural narrative. She talks about casting her own mother as cultural consultant, what it means to take notes from a parent, and the unexpected rehearsal room moment that unlocked the emotional truth of a key scene. She also reflects on writing trauma without centering it, the role of comedy in her work, and what she wishes she had known at the start of her writing life.

It's 1970 in Winnipeg, and a young Bengali bride has just arrived in Canada to marry a man she's never met. But the husband waiting for her is hiding a secret, and the tight-knit immigrant community she's stepping into is holding more than a few of its own. Three couples. A doctor with a double life. A marriage frozen by grief. Two students being pulled apart by the new world around them. And one unexpected arrival who refuses to behave the way anyone needs her to. Theatre critic Glenn Sumi calls New by Pamela Mala Sinha "specific in its details but universal in its themes" and one of the best new Canadian plays in years.And if you're looking for more great plays to listen to, we highly recommend our PlayME recording of Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov, adapted by Liisa Reppo-Martell, featuring some truly incredible performances, including actor Ali Kazmi, who plays Qasim in this production of New.NEW features: Ali Kazmi, Lisa Ryder, Zorana Sadiq, Ellora Patnaik, Shelly Antony, Fuad Ahmed and Pamela Mala Sinha.

Two months after her arrival, Nuzha is beginning to understand that something is deeply wrong in her marriage. Qasim comes home late every night, and has never once reached for her. She arrived ready to build a life and instead finds herself waiting in a cold apartment in a city she doesn't know yet, wondering if she's about to be sent home. As she confides in the women around her, the close-knit community that welcomed her starts to reveal its own cracks. And Abby is still in the picture.NEW features: Ali Kazmi, Lisa Ryder, Zorana Sadiq, Ellora Patnaik, Shelly Antony, Fuad Ahmed and Pamela Mala Sinha.

Laura Mullin talks to actor Tom Barnett about Michael Healey’s celebrated Canadian play The Drawer Boy. Barnett was part of the original 1999 Theatre Passe Muraille production, where he played the young actor Miles in a play inspired by the creation of the groundbreaking documentary theatre project The Farm Show.In this conversation, Barnett reflects on discovering the play as a young actor before anyone knew it would become a classic, touring it across Canada, and returning decades later to play Angus, the farmer at the emotional centre of the story. He shares what it was like to experience the play from two very different characters and why The Drawer Boy continues to move audiences around the world.

Morgan begins to share the story of the wartime accident that changed everything for him and Angus. But as the past comes into focus, the careful world the two farmers have built together starts to crack, forcing all three men to confront the consequences of turning memory into story.Cast: Tom Barnett, Patrick McManus, Stephen Jackman-TorkoffThe Drawer Boy by Michael Healey