Announcing the Artists of RISER 2026-2027
Since 2021, RISER has supported 13 new performance projects in productions, readings, and development workshops. Now, we’re excited to announce our newest cohort of artists participating in partnership with Edmonton Fringe Theatre, and Theatre Outré!
Artists will develop their projects over two years, with a work-in-progress showing at the 2026 RISER New Works Festival towards a full production with their partnered Festival in 2027. The two years will include mentorship in producing, development workshops for text, production, and design, and numerous in-kind resources provided by Common Ground and all our development and presenting partners.
Thank you to our independent jury members for their tireless reviewing and recommendations, and our friends at Edmonton Fringe Theatre and Theatre Outré for their partnership in the curation process. Keep reading to learn more about our three exciting new RISER projects!
Congratulations and welcome to our 2026-27 RISER Artists: Philip Hackborn, Liam Monaghan, & Rainier Pearl-Styles!
About Philip:Philip Hackborn (they/them/any), is a performance artist, actor, and poet situated in amiskwaciwâskahikan, colonially known as Edmonton. They exist and make art at the intersections of race, gender identity, and madness. Over the years, they have assisted theatre productions in abandoned warehouses, improvised live with the players of escape rooms as voice-over animatronic characters, and discreetly threaded theatrical ritual under the surface of most of their work. Select performance credits: FEED (MZD, Zero Lab #3), Hamlet in Isolation (Thou Art Here), Krampus: a Christmas Escape Adventure (Canscare), Devour Content Here (Cowgirl Opera). Select writing credits: Madness and other Ghost Stories (re:Create, Found Fest), The Shadow and the Fool (re:Create, Next Fest), Fragmented Journeys and Liminal (Skirtsafire, Expanse Festival, Alberta Circus Arts Festival). reply-create.com
About (be)Longing: (be)Longing is a devised theatre project intending to explore shared cultural experiences between multiracial individuals beyond the standard sense of being ‘in-between.’ Peering into the past and examining media from our childhood, devisers will question the authenticity of the representation in stories they once felt they could see themselves in. Sharing personal experiences with one another around this media, cultural traditions they had with their families, and times they felt most marginalized, etc… devisers will craft performances in response to those stories – after which, more conversation will be shared around those creative responses, and in turn new performances will be moulded out of those conversations. A process whose aim is to garner ever deeper understanding as we respond to one another’s experiences with creativity and likewise relate to one another’s performances through our own personal lenses. Building new creative community until realization of a sense of common cultural belonging emerges.
From Philip: RISER Edmonton has consistently proven itself as a platform that presents local, immediate, vital, and vibrant new works from under-served artists. The most exciting performance work in this city for the past few years has come from the artistic cohorts of this program, and it’s an honour to be included in this most recent one. While it is endlessly exciting to have the opportunity to explore this ambitious ensemble work that I’ve had stewing on the back burners of my brain for years, I am equally grateful to know I have the support of the immensely skilled and knowledgeable producing team of RISER to back me up and help shape me into the producer I’m becoming. Join us as we chart our craving for cultural common ground and plunge into the depths of be-longing!
be(Longing) will be presented in partnership with Common Ground Arts at the 2027 RISER New Works Festival.
About Liam: Liam Monaghan is a writer, theatre artist, and emerging indie producer. His past plays include “Strange/Familiar,” winner of the 2023 Sharon Pollock Prize, and he has written for HowlRound Theatre Commons, Alberta Views Magazine, and The Dalhousie Review, among other publications. He holds an M.A. in English from Dalhousie University and an M.F.A. in Theatre Practice from the University of Alberta, and has taught in writing centres and arts classrooms at the University of British Columbia, University of Alberta, and MacEwan University.
About The Light of Other Skies: “The Light of Other Skies” is an adaptation of the lives of the Canadian architect Arthur Erickson (1924-2009) and his lesser-known romantic and professional partner, Francisco Kripacz (1940-2000). The play takes their extraordinary life stories as an opportunity to investigate the relationship between architecture and theatre and to demonstrate the importance of cultural memory and historical conservation, in this case of Canada’s midcentury queer and architectural heritage.
Artist Statement: Liam’s practice is currently focused on life writing and biographical adaptation; archival research; the intersections of architecture and theatre; and the revitalization of the queer past. Since earning his M.F.A. in 2023, Liam has diversified his approaches to playwriting, borrowing from the methods of devising, theatre design, and the visual arts. RISER is an exceptional opportunity not only because it will allow Liam to produce and tour a new play, but also because it will support him in implementing a model for sustainable, long-range, process-based, and collaborative new play development–a rarity in the contemporary theatre economy. He hopes to conceptualize this model for other artists and share it through workshops and publications, highlighting the essential role of production in new play creation.
The Light of Other Skies will be presented in partnership with Theatre Outré at the 2027 their Quaint, Quirky & QUEER Cabaret & Festival.
About Rainier: Rainier Pearl-Styles (she/they) is a deviser, director, teacher, and applied theatre practitioner based Amiskwacîwâskahikan/Edmonton, but she calls Boston and San Francisco home too. She received an MFA in Applied Theatre/Theatre Education from Emerson College, where her coursework focused on embodied practice as a tool for social justice, community engagement, and deconstructing “classical” texts. Rainier is a proud co-founder of the Fork & Shoe Theatre Co-op, a production company focused on scrappy, DIY, accessible puppet theatre, where they have directed and devised shows since 2020. Since moving to Edmonton, Rainier’s been deepening their performance practice through the development of a new show, “100 Foreskins for my Hand in Marriage,” which recently won the Jester’s Cap Award at Calgary Fringe Festival. rainier-pearl-styles.com
About 100 Foreskins for My Hand in Marriage: “100 Foreskins for my Hand in Marriage” is a 60-minute solo performance about what it means to live with a legacy of violent religious hegemony. Through the perspectives of five women, Eggla, Michal, Ahinoam, Batsheba, and Tamar, “Foreskins” sheds light on the forgotten stories from arguably the world’s most popular novel. Equal parts hilarious and heartfelt, Rainier Pearl-Styles blends physical comedy, ancient texts, and charming anecdotes to dissect society’s hangups about women, religion, and relationships. Rainier is excited to expand the show with the support of RISER! Sarah Emslie will return as director of “Foreskins” for the development and presentation over 2026-27.
From Rainier: As a queer, Jewish artist, my artistic through-line is a blend of cultural practices with reconstructing processes to create and deepen community. Through questioning text (a cornerstone of the Jewish culture within which I was raised), I found engaging with “hegemonic text” to be liberatory. In developing “100 Foreskins,” I’ve been asking, “what does it mean to construct identity outside narratives and histories of violence? Who’s body is considered worthy? What is personhood after it has been violently taken away?” I am so excited to deepen my artistic community in amiskwacîwâskahikan through RISER. I hope to broaden my skillset as an artist to ensure long term, generative success in producing!
100 Foreskins for My Hand in Marriage will be presented in partnership with Fringe Theatre at the 2027 Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival.
Stay tuned in early 2026 for more details about the RISER New Works Festival and your chance to see these incredible artists in action!