Canadian Premiere of the London West End production of Susan Hill’s THE WOMAN IN BLACK
For Immediate Release
Media Contact: John Karastamatis, Sue Toth, Erin Nantais – Mirvish Productions
December 4, 2025 – January 4, 2026
CAA Theatre
Tickets On Sale June 23 at 10AM
“The most brilliantly effective spine-chiller you will ever encounter.” - Daily Telegraph
“Guaranteed to chill the blood.” - Evening Standard
“The scariest show in town.” - Chicago Tribune
CRITIC’S PICK “Ingenious - A journey into fear.” - New York Times
David and Hannah Mirvish are excited to present the Canadian premiere of Susan Hill’s The Woman In Black, adapted by Stephen Mallatratt and directed by Robin Herford. This haunting masterpiece will play Toronto’s CAA Theatre, December 4, 2025 to January 4, 2026. The media performance is Sunday December 7 at 2PM.
Tickets for Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black will go on public sale at 10AM on Monday June 23 at mirvish.com or by calling 1.800.461.3333.
One of the most successful and longest running theatre shows in the history of London’s West End – 33 years and more than 13,000 performances – director Robin Herford's original gripping production is now touring North America. Seen by over 7 million people worldwide, The Woman in Black continues to delight and haunt audiences of all generations.
A lawyer obsessed with a curse that he believes has been cast over him and his family by the specter of a woman in black, engages a skeptical young actor to help him tell his terrifying story and exorcise the fear that grips his soul. It all begins innocently enough, but then, as they reach further into the lawyer’s darkest memories, they find themselves caught up in a world of eerie marshes and moaning winds.
Susan Hill’s acclaimed best-selling novel comes dramatically alive in Stephen Mallatratt’s ingenious stage adaptation.
Director Robin Herford leads a creative team consisting of Michael Holt (Designer), Anshuman Bhatia (Lighting Designer), Sebastian Frost (Sound Designer), and Rob Mead (Original Sound Design).
The cast will be announced at a later date.
About the Creative Team
Playwright Stephen Mallatratt (June 15, 1947 - November 22, 2004) wrote his early plays while working as an actor at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, ran by Sir Alan Ayckbourn. Several of these early plays were produced and directed by Ayckbourn, and commissions from other theatres followed. Comic Cuts was written for the Contact Theatre in Manchester and won the Thames TV Theatre Writers award, and after many regional British productions, culminated ten years later in the West End, retitled as The Glory of the Garden. In addition to original plays, he wrote adaptations of books for both TV and theatre: including Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. His television work included The Innocents for YTV, and he adapted the Forsyte Saga for Granada. The Woman in Black ran for 34 years at the Fortune Theatre in the West End, and over a decade at the Rafael Solaria theatre in Mexico. It has been translated into at least 12 languages and performed at the last count in 41 countries.
Director Robin Herford read Philosophy and English at the University of St Andrews and trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Like Stephen Mallatratt, much of Robin’s early career was involved with Sir Alan Ayckbourn and the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, first as an actor, then as Associate Director, and finally as Artistic Director, from1986 to 1988. He has appeared in the original productions of more Ayckbourn plays than any other actor, including the enormous 16-play two-hander Intimate Exchanges, both in Scarborough and London’s West End. He is often asked to direct Alan’s plays, and has notched up over 30 productions of them, in the UK and abroad. The Woman in Black, his most successful production, also started life in Scarborough. He commissioned the play and directed it in 1987, when he was running the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Transferring to the Fortune Theatre London’s West End, The Woman in Black played it for 34 years and has completed 12 UK tours. Directing, and occasionally performing in this play, has taken him, among other places, to Japan, USA, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.