The Live-In Festival 2026

DaPoPo's annual series of readings, workshops, and special events is back!

The Live-In Festival—2 weeks, 20 events—offers readings, workshops, performances, and more!

This year's theme, Making light, is about survival. We approach weighty situations with playful levity. It is a cornerstone of resistance – political satire, comedy, parody, and queer resistance. It is a process of illumination, as in ‘light in dark times’, but it is also a semantic trick, erasing colour, shadow, depth, and complexity in favour of brightness, or whiteness. Many hands also make light work, so we focus on community-building and collaboration. In DaPoPo’s 2026 Live-In Festival, we wish to explore the idea of making light as a poetic, political process, embracing the fun of artistic creation, while owning our responsibility as artists. 

DaPricing

Festival Pass: $150 | admission to all events

3-Event Pass: $50 | admission to three events—your choice! 

Pay Per Event: $25 suggested donation/PWYC | admission to a single event

Through the Theatre Nova Scotia Partnership Program, you are able to make a $150 donation and receive a tax receipt—and gain access to all of our Live-In events if you make your donation by September 30th, 2026. Just follow this link: https://theatrens.ca/donate/ and choose DaPoPo Theatre as the fund. 

If you are able to buy a pass upfront, you are also helping us compensate artists. As a grassroots, underfunded festival, your purchase will generate guaranteed revenue upfront that will go directly into the pockets of our facilitators, performers, and readers. 

All events at the Nest, 6068 Gottingen Street. Please note: the Nest is an intimate, upper level space with stairs outside and inside.

For more information, reach us at admin@dapopotheatre.com