Za Hughes used their Theatre in the Park MicroGrant to develop an immersive, site-specific play
at J.C. Saddington Park.
“Ghost Light” used themes of breath and light in creating a ghost tour around J.C. Saddington
Park. With the help of a guide, the audience invoked spirits and travelled between the realms of
the living and the dead with the power of flashlights and their own breath and voice. The show
featured five vignettes where the audience was introduced to otherworldly figures who told
stories of grief, human connection, and the struggle to move forward. The show began at dusk
and as darkness fell the vignettes leveraged light to create ghostly figures from shadows and
far-off glowing spectres before sending audiences back to their realm of the living.
The MicroGrant allowed Za to explore how to invite audiences into a world and participate in a
show comfortably by slowly increasing audience engagement from pointing flashlights to
passing props to performers until eventually asking audience members to sing and become
performers themselves.
Beyond this, Za also worked as an auteur writing, directing, and designing the production.
Thanks to the support of the MAC, Za has been able to delve further into the process of world
creation and collaborating elements of design.
MAC’s MicroGrant program is kindly supported in part by RAMA Gaming Centre through the Mississauga Charitable Gaming Association and in part through MAC’s own fundraising efforts.
