In PTE’s ‘Big Stuff,’ couple unpacks meaning from things left behind

How did Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus come up with Big Stuff, the longtime improvisers’ first joint foray into scripted theatre?

“Let’s see if we can both answer at the same time and make it make sense,” says Snieckus.

“Wait, that’s ridiculous. You go.”

Since meeting at Toronto’s Second City nearly 20 years ago, the married couple’s work has mostly occupied the world of improv comedy. But no matter how joyful those experiences — which saw them collaborate with renowned performers such as Ron Pederson, Colin Mochrie and Debra McGrath — Baram and Snieckus wanted to produce something more tangible and long-lasting than a one-night-only experience.

“The problem with the (improvised) plays we were doing was that we were finding them to be these ephemeral balloons that would just drift away, leaving us with nothing to hold onto,” says the Edmonton-raised Baram, whose parents grew up in Winnipeg.

That instinct got the couple thinking about the physical objects they couldn’t seem to get rid of that were filling their basement.

In addition to the paraphernalia of their own lives, Baram and Snieckus’s storage space was also stuffed with leftover possessions inherited from their late parents. When Snieckus’s father Vic died in 2020, a whole new pile of cardboard boxes made their way into the couple’s lowest storey.

So when they were approached by Toronto’s Crow’s Theatre to write a new scripted production, they were inspired to explore the loss of loved ones and the strange cosmic burden of the objects they left behind.

Over the course of 16 drafts, Baram and Snieckus worked with co-creator Kat Sandler (playwright of Bang Bang, Yaga and Wildwoman) to build a semi-autobiographical comedy about coming together to part ways.

“I think at first we called it Alone Together,” says Baram, who appeared in The Apprentice, the award-winning 2024 film about Donald Trump’s rise to real-estate power.

“Oh barf,” says Snieckus, who played educator Bobbi Galka on the CBC comedy Mr. D. “That felt a bit too pandemic.”

With Sandler’s help, the couple found a new title for the comedy, which showcases how each writer-performer handles the weight of their accumulated stuff.

“I like to move past things, and Naomi — this is my point of view — wants to delve into the thing until every last scrape of it is processed in her own time. Does that make sense?” Baram says.

“I cut open the toothpaste tubes of life,” Snieckus agrees.

After the show premièred at Crow’s Theatre in November 2024, the response from audiences and critics alike was emphatic, leading the couple to load up their moving truck and take the show on the road to Montreal’s Segal Centre, Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre and Ottawa’s Great Canadian Theatre Company before arriving at Prairie Theatre Exchange this week.

Next up for Big Stuff are runs in Victoria’s Belfry Theatre and Vancouver’s Arts Club this spring before bringing it to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Counter to the show’s core challenge of winnowing down collections, the performers have slowly but surely filled their cardboard-box set with mementos from the road, including an Edmonton Oilers hockey puck and a coffee mug from Montreal’s St. Viateur Bagels, which share precious shelf space with personal effects, such as Baram’s father’s bifocals and director Sandler’s father’s cowboy boots.

“We seem to keep adding to the set,” says Baram — the collector’s ultimate dilemma.

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Earlier this month, PTE paid tribute to one of its most influential figures by renaming its rehearsal hall in Kim McCaw’s honour.

The company’s artistic director from 1983 to 1992, McCaw, who died in September, oversaw PTE’s transition from its Princess Street location into Portage Place in the late 1980s.

At the dedication ceremony, McCaw’s wife Linda Huffman and PTE’s artistic director Ann Hodges unveiled the new rehearsal hall sign to a small gathering of friends, family and colleagues.

“Kim McCaw shaped Prairie Theatre Exchange in ways that are both deeply visible and quietly foundational,” Hodges said. “He believed in the power of artists, in the importance of rigorous, generous process, and in the idea that theatres are built as much on care and trust as they are on programming. He was patient and kind in the rehearsal hall. Kim had an extraordinary ability to see potential — often before others did — and to create the conditions for that potential to thrive.”

“Naming our rehearsal hall in Kim’s honour is more than a tribute — it’s a promise,” added PTE managing director Katie Inverarity. “It ensures that the space where artists gather, take risks, and imagine new work will always carry his spirit of generosity, courage, and belief in what theatre can be.”

PTE’s season continues beyond Big Stuff with the world première of playwright Drew Hayden Taylor’s art world drama The Undeniable Accusations of Red Cadmium Light (opening Feb. 24, directed by Tracey Nepinak) and Tiny Beautiful Things, adapted by Winnipeg’s Nia Vardalos for the stage from the best-selling book by Cheryl Strayed (opening Apr. 7, directed by Hodges).

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