It’s springtime in Paris, 1738. Metromania, the poetry craze, is all the rage. Damis, a young, would-be poet with a serious case of verse-mania falls for a mysterious poetess from Breton. She turns out to be none other than a wealthy gentleman with a touch of the mania himself—looking to unload his sexy but dimwitted daughter—who also just happens to be cuckoo for couplets. Soon scheming servants, verbal acrobatics, and mistaken identities launch a breathless series of twists and turns in this breezy “translaptation” of a rediscovered French farce by comedic master David Ives (The Liar, Venus in Fur, All in the Timing).

From the pen of Canada’s and Theatre 40’s favorite playwright comes the world premiere of his newest wonderful and hilarious comedy, A Clean Brush. This brand new Norm Foster play tells the story of two house painters, Dick and Mello, who land a job painting a room in the basement of recently-widowed Zoe Craig’s home. Zoe’s husband died in the room when he ‘accidentally’ fell into a stand of fireplace implements and suffered a severe head trauma, and now Zoe is looking to turn the room into a rental cash cow. The house painters think this is just another job until Zoe’s nosy neighbor stops by and plants doubt in the painter’s minds as to what really happened to the Widow Craig’s clumsy spouse.

A Clean Brush marks the 6th Norm Foster play Theatre 40 has produced and it promises to keep you laughing from start to finish…or until the paint is fully dry.

A progressive white couple’s proud liberal sensibilities are put to the test when their daughter brings her black fiance home to meet them in this fresh and relevant stage adaptation of the iconic film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Blindsided by their daughter’s whirlwind romance and fearful for her future, Matt and Christina Drayton quickly come to realize the difference between supporting a mixed-race couple in your newspaper and welcoming one into your family–especially in 1967. But they’re surprised to find they aren’t the only ones with concerns about the match, and it’s not long before a multi-family clash of racial and generational differences sweeps across the Draytons’ idyllic San Francisco terrace. At the end of the day, will the love between young Joanna and John prevail? With humor and insight, this play begins a conversation sure to continue at dinner tables long after the curtain comes down.

Money-strapped family tries to cope in 1973. 19-year-old daughter is our narrator and she is attempting to re-enact the most turbulent day of her life, but her family keeps interrupting to tell their side of the story. The 70s were a time of old school living; no social media and public ridicule in a close-knit community was the ultimate nightmare. Her parents want her to explain to her younger sister about the birds and the bees. Somehow the blunt explanation is overheard by the parish priest and he is not amused. He confronts her parents about the “corruption of their eldest daughter’s very soul.”

It’s the opening night of The Golden Egg on Broadway, and the wealthy producer is throwing a lavish party in her Manhattan townhouse. Downstairs, celebrities are pouring in, but the real action is upstairs where a group of insiders have staked themselves out, waiting for the reviews to come in. Included are the excitable young author; the brilliant, unstable director; the pill-popping leading lady; and the playwright’s best friend, an egotistical but insecure comic actor who passed up a chance to star in the play for a television series—which has since been canceled. As euphoria slides into despair, the narcissism, ambition, childishness, and just plain irrationality that infuse the theatre and its denizens take over, and as the curtain falls plans are eagerly afoot for their next venture—this one sure to be the hit they have all been hoping for.

Four beautiful, badass women lose their heads in this irreverent, girl-powered comedy set during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. Playwright Olympe de Gouges, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen (and fan of ribbons) Marie Antoinette, and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle hang out, murder Marat, and try to beat back the extremist insanity in 1793 Paris. This grand and dream-tweaked comedy is about violence and legacy, art and activism, feminism and terrorism, compatriots and chosen sisters, and how we actually go about changing the world. It’s a true story. Or total fiction. Or a play about a play. Or a raucous resurrection…that ends in a song and a scaffold.