The Café is an invitation to be a voyeur; to eavesdrop on private conversations in public; to witness intimate relationships up close and personal. Seven scenes commissioned and written by nine playwrights of various ethnicities, ages, beliefs, sexual orientations and gender identities. With content performed in various languages, The Café is a day-in-the-life exploration of the cultural mosaic of a Vancouver coffee shop.

Audiences are encouraged to sit at or near one of seven ‘performance tables’ and watch a play unfold mere inches away from them. Audience members are free to stay with one table and watch a scene to its conclusion or wander around the virtual coffee shop and experience other scenes a narrative choose-your-own-adventure. The Café seeks to blur the line between art and reality by decreasing the proximity between actors and audience, welcoming them into a story — a conversation, an experience, a life — that may be at once completely familiar and totally foreign.

The Café had a sold-out run at the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in 2023, and is now available in its digital, interactive form through The Cultch’s Re/Play where it has been viewed by over 1,800 people.