With its technically demanding production of Heist, the Arts Club aims to wow the audience
Arun Lakra’s play is like a caper movie crossed with a whodunit, and director Andrew Kushnir says pulling it off requires the combined forces of an A team of designers and actors
Heist cast members Charlie Gallant (left), Alexandra Lainfiesta and Tainui Kuru (centre), and Jennifer Tong (right).
The Arts Club Theatre Company presents Heist at the Stanley BFL CANADA Stage from September 17 to October 18
THE LIST OF TECHNICAL requirements for Heist reads more like specs for a Hollywood film production than for a stage play. According to the official Heist website, the show calls for “lasers, drones, sensors, fog, flashing lights, high-tech toys…on screen graphics, rapid-fire sound cues” and of course “several scenes incorporating aerial sequences, requiring wires, harnesses, and actors dropping from the grid”.
Playwright Arun Lakra has acknowledged that Heist—about a team of criminals attempting to steal a highly prized diamond from the lair of an international jewel thief—draws much inspiration from big-screen capers like Ocean’s 11. It’s the play’s movie-like aesthetics that make staging it a daunting prospect for any theatre company.
The full cast of Heist.
“I’ve always tried to braid the design of a show really intricately with all the other storytelling, but I’ve got to say, this is next-level,” says Andrew Kushnir, who’s directing the Arts Club’s upcoming production of Heist. “The number of cues for this show—across lighting changes, sound changes, video changes, aerial changes, laser changes—it’s in the hundreds and hundreds. It’s at an operatic level. I’ve worked on shows that are intricate, but I’ve got to say that this is the most complex in terms of integrating all those design elements, and it kind of befits a heist story. Any heist movie has you wondering, ‘Can these people actually pull this off?’ And I’d say the play is no exception.”
Kushnir admits he hasn’t actually seen the play, which is a relatively new one, having premiered in Lakra’s hometown of Calgary in 2024.
“I haven’t even watched any archivals of it,” Kushnir says. “I’ve really taken on the opportunity to create an original version for the Arts Club. I’m aware of it. I’ve followed the success of the play, and even right now, I think there are two other productions that are at about the same spot as we are, in Cincinnati and in Arizona. So there’s uptake of the show, but I will say ours is really independent. We’re doing our own thing out here.”
Like the Heist character Marvin, also known as “the Boss”, Kushnir knew he would need to assemble a behind-the-scenes crew of master criminals, each one hand-selected for their specialized skills. “Not unlike in a heist movie, you want to have your A team, and it feels like we’ve done a comparable thing with Vancouver’s design community,” the director tells Stir.
They’re not actually criminals, of course, just some of the local theatre scene’s top craftspeople, including some familiar names to regular attendees of Arts Club productions.
“Ryan Cormack is our set designer, and he just did The Play That Goes Wrong for the Arts Club, so in him I have somebody who’s just deeply thorough about a tricked-out set,” Kushnir says. “And when people come see the show, they’ll realize that it is indeed a feat to figure out how to make all the jump cuts and all the tricks and all the surprises that we need. How do you make a set carry of all of that? So Ryan’s really been phenomenal.”
The director lavished equal praise on the rest of the production’s design crew, including Barbara Clayden (costumes), Sophie Tang (lighting), Malcolm Dow (music and sound), and Wladimiro A. Woyno Rodriguez (projections).
Each has a unique set of technical challenges to tackle, but at least none of them will be required to act while also descending on an aerial harness. That job falls to Alexandra Lainfiesta, who plays Angie.
“It all sort of lined up quite cosmically, that she’s the right actor for the role, and it just so happens that she has a background in doing some acrobatics, doing some rock climbing, all that sort of stuff that gives the director a big sigh of relief, because you get to have your cake and eat it too,” says Kushnir.
The cast also includes Patti Allan, Charlie Gallant, Tainui Kuru, Andrew McNee, and Jennifer Tong. None of them will have to hang from the ceiling either, but they will have to keep the audience guessing. That’s because Heist isn’t just about, well, a heist; it’s also a whodunit, in which one of the gang has secretly betrayed the others.
“It’s truly an ensemble piece, and if we’ve done our job right, I think audience members ought to follow every character line very, very carefully, because there are a lot of bread crumbs,” says Kushnir. “Arun, the playwright, has done a really phenomenal job of creating a real puzzle, not only for the characters, but I think for the audience—the satisfaction of having all of these clues and all of these possibilities. I think Arun has really succeeded in creating a story that authentically surprises.”
In other words, while they’re being dazzled by the production’s technical aspects, audience members will also have a job to do. Fortunately for ticket holders, their work will be entirely mental. The cast and crew of Heist won’t have it quite so easy.
“We’re using every calorie we’ve got and every muscle we have,” Kushnir says. “It is a really ambitious piece of writing, and our production is really ambitious. We’re trying to transform the Stanley Theatre and really take audiences on what I would almost call an implausible ride. I don’t think people would believe it. We aim to wow.” 
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