Macbeth and The Merry Wives of Windsor on deck as Bard on the Beach announces summer of 2026 programming

Goblin:Oedipus and Antigone set to hit the Douglas Campbell Theatre

The Bard on the Beach site at Sen̓áḵw/Vanier Park.

ONE OF SHAKESPEARE’S lightest farcical works joins one of his darkest in Bard on the Beach’s just-unveiled summer 2026 season.

The Merry Wives of Windsor is set to open the festival next June, featuring one of the Bard’s most famous comedic characters, Falstaff, as he woos two married women in a plot to steal their husbands’ fortunes. The production will be livened up even further with a fresh musical treatment.

It alternates with Macbeth on the BMO Mainstage in Sen̓áḵw/Vanier Park. Bard says to expect “stark design and stylized visuals” in the famous play about a murderous, power-thirsty general and his wife.

At the smaller Douglas Campbell Theatre, the fest stages Goblin:Oedipus, complete with grotesquely masked Wug, Kragva, and Moog, returning from their darkly comedic spin on Macbeth at Bard in 2023. This time out, the terrible trio takes on Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, adapted by John Murrell.

It alternates with Antigone in a new adaptation by local playwright Kate Besworth. Adapting Sophocles’ classic Greek tragedy for a contemporary audience, it portrays Oedipus’s Antigone, who sets off a chain of events that pits family loyalty against political power.

The announcements were made as Bard wrapped up its 2025 season.

Premium and Regular Season Packs are now on sale at the Bard on the Beach website, with launch pricing available until October 4.

Featured

Janet Smith

Janet Smith is founding partner and editorial director of Stir. She is a Webster Award–winning arts journalist who has spent more than three decades immersed in Vancouver’s performing arts, film, and gallery scenes. She sits on the Vancouver Film Critics’ Circle.

Articles

Dragons, drama, and tour-de-force monologues highlight Théâtre la Seizième’s 2026–27 season

The local French-language theatre company will present everything from a live video game to an emotionally intense two-hander based on a Virginia Woolf masterpiece

Western Gold Theatre's Have A Senior Moment Festival opens with Anniversary, September 25 to 27

A staged reading of Carol Shields and Dave Williamson‘s comedy takes a sharp look at life and love in middle-class suburbia

Theatre review: Postcards to my Younger Transexual Self captures the soft ache of reaching for somebody across distance

In playwright-performer Christina Cook’s new show, reality-bending correspondence plays out across a stage loosely divided between the three generations of women

To Love or Not to Love puts a modern spin on a medieval Persian epic, August 27 to 30

Majid Tafreshi’s play intertwines Nezami Ganjavi’s 12th-century poetry with the lives of contemporary theatre actors

At Metro Theatre, puppets navigate the realities of adulthood in Avenue Q, September 18 to October 10

Christopher King directs the Tony Award–winning musical comedy about a college grad finding his way in the world

Where the Blood Mixes, Bordertown Café, Benevolence as Firehall Arts Centre announces 2026–27 season

A new dance work by Kirsten Wicklund and Peter Smida, the world premiere of a musical, and more round out the lineup

Glitch Theatre's new podcast series Arc One debuts August 27

Short works by D/disability-identified artists offer compelling stories, from a literally spirited cabaret to the time-spanning medical office of Anton Chekhov

A History of Motown explores the soulful sounds that shaped popular music, August 19 to 29

Singer Krystle Dos Santos and her band celebrate the record label that brought us legendary performers including Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye

The Cultch says visa delays threaten The Horse of Jenin’s Canadian premiere

One-man show by Amsterdam-based Palestinian artist Alaa Shehada had already been postponed from last spring due to processing holdups

With Ionesco’s Cabaret, Rumble Theatre brings the Theatre of the Absurd into the modern age

The show, produced by Theatre Conspiracy in association with Pi Theatre, finds contemporary resonances in Eugène Ionesco’s 20th-century works

Theatre review: Gleefully chaotic Goblins dismantle Oedipus at Bard on the Beach

Wug, Kravga, and Moog deliver a take on Sophocles’ Greek tragedy that, in addition to copious amounts of crude humour, has its share of chillingly effective moments

Theatre review: A Streetcar Named Desire unsettles with mix of charm, fragility, and violence

Ensemble Theatre Company taps into the humid haze of a Tennessee Williams classic where love and self-deception mingle

Theatre review: The Little Mermaid dives into glittering storybook setting at Theatre Under the Stars

Standout performances and design bring infectious energy to Disney’s tale of love and self-discovery

Theatre review: Bard on the Beach’s adaptation of Antigone opens new paths through timeless tragedy

Bold update by Kate Besworth brings mythic figures closer to us while continuing to ask the ancient questions posed by Sophocles

Theatre review: Theatre Under the Stars’ Sister Act soars on joyous sounds and heartfelt story

Fierce company transforms characters by committing to the popular musical’s blend of disco, soul, and gospel

Anita Majumdar’s Why We Work Out is an exercise in understanding, at Indian Summer Festival

Presented by the fest and Boca del Lupo, the multifaceted one-woman show carries long-standing reflections on workout culture and the life-altering effects of a pandemic

Local theatre artists’ project King Arthur’s Night culminates in a buoyant new film that blurs documentary and fantasy

Now streaming on Knowledge.ca, John Bolton–helmed movie stars Niall McNeil, Marcus Youssef, Veda Hille, Nathan Kay, and more, in a mix of artists with and without Down syndrome

Dark, funny, and a little weird, The Apiary brings offbeat buzz to summer theatre scene

With live music and innovative touches, a collective of established Vancouver stage artists brings eco-horror play about disappearing bees to life at the Vines Den

Ensemble Theatre Company’s Peerless riffs on Shakespeare and affirmative action

Part of Ensemble’s summer festival, Jiehae Park’s play references Macbeth as it takes on the power dynamics of U.S. college admissions

Theatre review: Arts Club production of The Play That Goes Wrong goes hilariously right

Great performances and impeccable set design and stage management ensure that the comedy about a hapless theatre company is a chaotic mess in all the right ways

Antigone gives ancient Greek play a modern feel at Bard on the Beach, to September 18

In playwright Kate Besworth and director Ming Hudson’s adaptation, contemporary language highlights the continuing relevance of Sophocles’ 5th century BC tragedy

Theatre review: Horror resonates in Bard on the Beach’s dystopian Macbeth

Bold and bloody new take on “the Scottish Play” speaks effectively to an era of intense societal fears, with postapocalyptic atmosphere to burn

Kat Reynolds channels her inner disco diva for Theatre Under the Stars’ Sister Act

The Vancouver performer straps on the platform shoes and readies her powerhouse voice for musical based on the movies she grew up watching

Ionesco's Cabaret mixes absurdist theatre with a playful art party, July 23 to 25

Homage to Eugène Ionesco is presented by Rumble Theatre and produced by Theatre Conspiracy in association with Pi Theatre

Theatre review: Bard on the Beach's spirited, soccer-mad take on The Merry Wives of Windsor builds a wonderfully no-frills sense of place

In a shamelessly fun update, the comedy’s colourful schemers, lovers, and busybodies are regulars at a Vancouver community centre during World Cup fever

Bard on the Beach stages a riotous Goblin:Oedipus in the Douglas Campbell Theatre, launching July 5

WUG, KRAGVA, and MOOG return to the Shakespeare festival for a hysterical take on the titular Greek tale

Josh Epstein’s job is to ensure everything goes right in The Play That Goes Wrong

The Arts Club director says the smash-hit U.K. show is one of the most technically demanding comedies ever written

Theatre review: Sophie's Surprise 29th throws the season’s wildest party, mixing offbeat laughs and high-calibre acrobatics

At The Cultch’s York Theatre, wonderfully weird characterizations meet gravity-defying feats in a raucously unpretentious banger that has “hit” written all over it