Crow’s Theatre and the Grand Theatre have teamed up to present the Ontario premiere of Primary Trust by Eboni Booth. Primary Trust won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama.
It’s an intimate drama about second chances, loneliness, resilience, and hope. The production, which ran at London’s Grand Theatre from January 20 to February 7, takes the stage at Toronto’s Crow’s Theatre from May 26 to June 21, 2026.
Primary Trust is directed by Cherissa Richards, whose production of Red Velvet in Crow’s 2022/23 season netted six Dora Mavor Moore Award Nominations and won both Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Production in the General Theatre category.
It stars Durae McFarlane, who took a some time out of rehearsals to talk to LV about the play.
Primary Trust
Primary Trust is an intimate play where characters and relationships take precedence.
The story revolves around McFarlane’s character, Kenneth. Kenneth is a 30-something who lives in Cranberry Lake. For years, he’s worked at a local bookstore, and crafted a careful life around his job. It’s safe and comfortable. And quite alone.
When he finds himself suddenly and unexpectedly unemployed when the store closes, it sends him spiralling into self-doubt and prodigious mai tai consumption with his bestie, Bert. Corinna, a waitress at the tiki bar, mentions a job lead, and Kenneth prepares himself to launch a new chapter in his life.
But, it’s not as easy as it sounds.
During the play, Kenneth finds both ups and downs, and tentative new connections. Kenneth realizes he can no longer escape the fears and the bottled up grief that’s kept him on his own.
It’s a touching story about finding your way when fate decides it’s time for a change, and where small acts of kindness can make a big difference to those around you. It’s also about the courage it takes to imagine a future that’s better, and to take your life into new directions.
Primary Trust is both funny and poignant.
“PRIMARY TRUST is one of those rare plays that reaches you quietly, and then, almost without you noticing, completely undoes you,” says Crow’s Theatre Artistic Director Chris Abraham in a statement. “It isn’t really about the systems shaping people’s lives, but about the people themselves — their loneliness, their resilience, and their search for connection and joy. Cherissa Richards and this extraordinary company have created something exquisitely detailed, deeply felt, and profoundly humane, and I’m thrilled that Crow’s audiences will encounter it through our co-production with the Grand Theatre as our season closer.”
The play premiered off-Broadway at Laura Pels Theatre in New York, and was named a New York Times Critics’ Pick.
Durae McFarlane
Jamaican-Canadian actor and writer. Durae McFarlane previously played in the Crow’s Theatre and Outside the March acclaimed production of Annie Baker’s The Flick. Currently, he can be seen in Peacock’s sci-fi/rom com/drama The Miniature Wife opposite Elizabeth Banks and Matthew Macfadyen.
A graduate of the University of Windsor’s BFA Acting Program, McFarlane’s other credits include Jane (Greenhouse Festival/Tarragon Theatre), The Foot Doctor (Choripán Theatre), Sincerely, Sincerity ((Stage Reading) Obsidian Theatre), and Lone Island Lovers (Common Boots Theatre), among others.
Durae McFarlane: The Interview
The play is a story about subtleties and emotional changes for the anxiety ridden Kenneth. How does Durae get himself into that space?
“I think most of it is in the text,” McFarlane says. “Eboni Booth wrote such a wonderfully delicious play for the person playing Kenneth to dive into.”
Portraying that bottled up anxiety includes the physicality of Kenneth and his worries.
“One thing we talked about was, how does Kenneth look at people?” Durae explains. “In this production he doesn’t.” Kenneth avoids eye contact, just one of the things that’s kept him solitary for so long.
“With someone who has lived the life that Kenneth has lived, being in connection with people is very scary,” he continues. “In a scene together, how do we avoid people?” It begins by literally turning your eyes away.
As the story progresses, Kenneth begins to open up, and his mannerisms change with him.
“You see that evolution throughout the piece.”
It’s a rewarding part for an actor to take on.
“It’s very exciting,” McFarlane says. “There’s a lot going [with] Kenneth. It’s very fun for an actor to play Kenneth and show all these different sides of Kenneth.”
Kenneth from Cranberry Lake
Naturally, the success of the play relies on Kenneth as a sympathetic character from the audience perspective. It means striking a balance — it can also be easy for the audience to become dismissive and impatient with a character who can’t get their life together. Once again, it’s built into Booth’s award-winning script.
“I think most of it is in the text,” McFarlane acknowledges. Still, it’s up to him to bring that to life. “It’s also about me sharing parts of myself, making it sympathetic, hopefully,” he says. “I think I’m more focused on being open as an actor, and being available as an actor for Kenneth come through me,” Durae adds. “It’s more of a byproduct of being a good actor, and being open and available.”
Kenneth is someone who will strike a chord of familiarity; most of us have known someone like him, at least in part.
“I wouldn’t say I know anyone super like Kenneth,” McFarlane says, “but I see qualities like Kenneth’s in people I went to school with.” It’s those awkward people seen as weird, the loners who nobody seems to know very well.
“I see parts of Kenneth in myself as well. Kenneth has experienced a lot of loss and trauma in his life, and that has made him seclude himself from the world, and made him like a hermit in some ways.”
At Crow’s Theatre
The Grand Theatre is a significantly larger venue than Crow’s Guloien Theatre. The more intimate venue may make a difference in the audience experience.
“I think so,” he says. “In The Grand, it holds maybe 800 or 900 people, and in this play I talk a lot to the audience.”
The Grand main auditorium holds 839 seats, including balconies. At times, Kenneth is talking and looking at the audience directly.
“I’m looking everywhere,” McFarlane recalls of the London run. “But Crow’s holds 200 people, and it’s a much more intimate space. The audience is right there. The audience is so much closer in Crow’s. I think because of the nature of the story — it feels like a very intimate story — it will only help the [performance],” he continues.
“Because I talk to the audience directly, hopefully the people […] will really feel like he’s talking to them.”
A Heartwarming Play In Difficult Times
It’s a play with a warm emotional heart.
“So much [so],” he says. “I think this play is such a heartwarming and touching [piece], and hopefully by the end, a kind of feel good play,” McFarlane says.
“My hope is that people will leave the theatre feeling hopeful.” It’s something we all need these days. “I think it’s such a beautiful story. A hopeful story.”
While it’s the same production and cast as the London run, a play is always something of a work in progress.
“I’m still learning so much,” Durae says. “[It’s] small changes that make the play feel more fresh and exciting,” he explains.
“It’s a story about human connections.”
Performance Details
Primary Trusst by Eboni Booth, directed by Cherissa Richards, runs from May 26 to June 21 in the Guloien Theatre. The cast includes:
- Durae McFarlane as Kenneth
- Peter N. Bailey as Bert
- Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah as Corrina
- Ryan Hollyman as Clay/Sam
- Danilo Reyes as Musician
Creative team: Set Design by Julie Fox; Costume Design by Rachel Forbes; Sound Design by Thomas Ryder Payne; Lighting Design by Imogen Wilson
- Find performance details and tickets [HERE].
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