About:
WeeFestival is dedicated to the presentation of inspiring theatre and performing arts created especially for children 0-8 years and their constellations of caring adults.
WeeFestival curates an annual festival that includes a dynamic and diverse mix of productions from around the world, across Canada and Quebec, created by leading companies and artists specializing in this field. In addition to the annual international festival, WeeFestival reaches audiences throughout the year through touring and outreach initiatives to communities and schools.
We believe our specialized focus encourages greater public awareness of the importance of arts in early childhood and the right of every child to regularly access quality arts and cultural experiences from birth.
WeeFestival hopes to contribute to the advancement of Canadian theatre and performing arts with a growing, dynamic body of work created by Canadian artists for very young audiences. We do this by offering small-scale seed projects, commissions, and residencies as well as master class workshops for professional artists. The Festival has seeded and commissioned a number of vital new works such as Old Man and the River (2014), Tweet Tweet (2018), Yassama and the Beaded Calabash (2022), Cooo (2025), and Avoou (2026).
WeeFestival is driven by the conviction that regular exposure to the arts during early childhood has a profound, positive impact on a child’s long-term well-being while strengthening their bonds with peers and caregivers. By fostering this connection, our work helps build healthy, compassionate communities.
We believe that nurturing a lifelong love of creativity in children ensures the future sustainability of the performing arts sector. Furthermore, when parents and caregivers witness this impact firsthand, they are more likely to become powerful advocates for arts programming in our schools.
Celebrating and promoting creativity and the arts in early childhood requires a village, therefore we deeply value the essential collaboration of the artists, educators, community members, funders, and donors, who make children’s participation in arts and culture possible.
Since our first edition in 2014, WeeFestival has presented over 80 productions—including 12 digital offerings. WeeFestival is the only festival of its kind in Toronto and one of only two in Canada with Montreal’s Festival Petits bonheurs.
History
WeeFestival was founded by Lynda Hill during her tenure as Artistic Director of Theatre Direct Canada (2001–2019). The festival grew out of her dedicated research into Early Years theatre, which began in 2011 and included extensive creative residencies in kindergartens and daycares. This work led to the creation of two original productions – Old Man and the River for children 3 – 7 years, and Flying Hearts, for children with ASD and other developmental disabilities.
Originally a biennial event, the WeeFestival launched its inaugural event in 2014. In 2019, following three successful editions, and with a shift to annual programming, Lynda Hill left her position at Theatre Direct to lead the festival as a separate non-profit charitable organization.
During the pandemic, the festival adapted by pivoting to digital programming in 2020 and 2021. This included the “A Play a Day” initiative, which brought high-quality filmed productions and multidisciplinary arts programming to thousands of Kindergarten to Grade 2 students across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). In 2022, WeeFestival successfully returned to the stage with a hybrid model of in-person and digital programming.
Reports
Benefits of Arts in Early Childhood
- High quality arts or cultural experiences in early childhood can help children develop subsequent abilities in the arts which will be useful right through life.
- Early years arts and cultural activities can help children make sense of their cognitive, physical, emotional, spiritual, linguistic, and moral development by enhancing the whole curriculum.
- Early childhood arts and cultural activities can significantly strengthen and enrich children’s social bonds with their peers and parent-child bonds. These experiences further engage families and educators in their children’s learning, providing a positive focus for shared experience and communication.
- Stimulating and compelling experiences at museums, galleries, theatres, libraries, dance, arts or music venues will offer many parents the ideas, confidence and resources to play with their children as a natural part of everyday life.
- Early years arts and cultural activities can help develop intrinsic human qualities, such as creativity, expression, identity, culture and imagination. As well as helping to preserve our cultural heritage, they enable young children to develop their own languages which help shape their individual, community and global identity.
- Early years arts experiences can impact positively on confidence, self-esteem, personal, social, emotional development and behavioural health, breaking down language barriers, cultural prejudices or societal differences, and leading to decreased social problems, reduced inequality and increased creativity.
- Collaborations that encompass the perspective of arts or cultural professionals, early years professionals, children and parents can bring a vibrancy to learning that results in a much deeper understanding of, and attention to, a child’s needs and interests. This leads to sustainable progression, raising standards of achievement, and a sense of fulfillment for both teachers and children both immediately and later on in life.
About Theatre for Early Years
WeeFestival presents Theatre for Early Years for audiences 0 – 5/6 years. TEY often employs one or more of a wide range of disciplines including puppetry, object theatre, physical theatre, dance, installation performance, music theatre, and storytelling. TEY shares more in common with performance art and post-dramatic dramaturgies than it does with traditional theatre or TYA.
TEY Works are typically aimed at narrow age ranges taking into account the developmental stages of young children-infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarten age presented in intimate venues for small audiences in Relaxed Performance formats. The Relaxed Performance format also ensures inclusion for children with Developmental Disabilities and/or Autism.