It Could Still Happen (ICSH) is a theatre collective that has been working together since 2013, led by Artistic Director Jill Connell.
ICSH creates new texts for performance that innovate form and structure, based on the experience of how things feel. We value long-term creation processes that invite experimentation, trust, group work, and care. Each project is an opportunity to further explore process and articulate our values for creation as a collective.
In rehearsal we conduct a daily embodied practice of listening and following impulse. We find parameters and systems for articulating text and story so this physical practice can become the groundwork for performance.
We work with film, music, and the architecture of the space. We host events in industrial, non-theatre spaces and work outside of traditional producing models. We work with the energy between our group of theatre makers, and the energy between the performers and the audience.
Works
THE HERALD was produced by ICSH in partnership with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (the largest queer theatre in the world) and premièred in March 2026 in Toronto. We worked on The Herald since 2019, asking: what if not knowing yet can be a way of working?
THE SUPINE COBBLER (a contemporary clinical abortion in the spirit of a Western) was ICSH’s first independent production. It premièred in Toronto in September 2015 at Clay & Paper Theatre’s industrial space at 35 Strachan Avenue (now demolished).
HROSES: OUTRAGE À LA RAISON (a bilingual love tragedy) was ICSH’s second independent production. It premièred in February/March 2017 in Montréal at the historic steel factory Les Ateliers Jean Brillant and in Toronto at the historic Waterworks building at 505 Richmond Street West (now demolished).
ICSH’s festival productions include SINCE SANTINO XXX (Rhubarb Festival 2014, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre) and THE TALL BUILDING (SummerWorks 2015, Contra Guys Award for Best Performance Text).
Jill Connell
Artistic Director
Jill Connell is a playwright, director, and theatre maker based in Tkarón:to/Toronto and Artistic Director of It Could Still Happen (ICSH). She grew up as a dancer and a writer and her current work is influenced by both. Their plays include The Herald, The Supine Cobbler (published with Coach House Books), HROSES: outrage à la raison, The Tall Building and Arctic Ocean, and have been produced in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Montréal and Fredericton. Jill is a graduate of the playwriting program at the National Theatre School of Canada and has an MA in English from the University of New Brunswick. Recently, Jill has loved teaching creative writing at Sheridan and Humber Colleges and has performed her writing at Oral Method, Pack Animal, and Trampoline Hall.
ASSOCIATE ARTISTS
It Could Still Happen
SASCHA COLE is a Dora-nominated actor and creative producer of bold new works.
ISHAN DAVÉ is an actor and also a food experimenter / artist / writer and production designer.
PHILIP NOZUKA is a performer / video artist / musician currently exploring relationships between the internet and live performance.
TEDI TAFEL is a choreographer / teacher and creator of the site-specific performance series Crying in Public.
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“The Supine Cobbler is an intelligent and worthwhile political drama that picks your brain. Connell continually takes sharp turns with the piece and tests her audience, seeing if they can keep up. I challenge you. And I guarantee this: the show is like nothing you’ve ever seen before.”
– Veronica Appia, Theatre Reader
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“Up at 4:30 a.m. thinking about the show. So unbelievably good. I wish more theatre were like this. It was the best thing I’ve seen in ages. Bravo. Bravo.”
– Adam Lazarus
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“I have never seen such beauty, such rawness on any stage in Toronto.”
– Brendan McMurtry Howlett
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“The genius of Jill Connell’s soft and fierce world completely transformed me… The entire production is incredible.”
– Amy Keating
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“Il reste tout de même de HROSES une douce étrangeté. Les jeux d’illogismes, quoiqu’ils ne semblent pas toujours maîtrisés, font emprunter au spectacle des sentiers théâtraux bien séduisants.”
– Chloé Gagné Dion, Le Devoir
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“Consistently one of the most inventive playwrights in the country, Jill Connell’s work frequently uses alternative frameworks to reveal something vital in our collective, real-world psyche.”
-Vue Weekly