This play staged inside a Toronto cafe serves up workplace horror stories

Everyone remembers their first job, and Rosamund Small's was slinging coffee at her neighbourhood Second Cup. "I will never ever forget just how bad I was," she says with a hearty laugh, calling from her apartment in downtown Toronto. The year was 2009, she recalls, and Small — now an award-winning playwright — had just finished high school. As a student, she was "used to being good at things." At work, however, everything felt like a trial by fire. And as she watched her friends leave for university — and internships and gap years abroad — she was stuck home with her parents, unable to tell a Cuzco decaf latte from an Italian soda. "I was just completely lost."

Small wasn't born to be a barista, but she's fared significantly better in her chosen profession. By 2014, she'd won a Dora Award for Vitals, an immersive play about a Toronto paramedic on an emergency call, and her latest show, Performance Review, is another project informed by real-life workplace drama. This time, though, she's taken inspiration from her own eclectic C.V.

"It's seven stories about seven very difficult days at seven jobs," says Small, and the production, which begins previews Feb. 27, is happening in a Toronto cafe, Morning Parade Coffee Bar at 256 Crawford St. (Alas, Small's Second Cup went out of business the same winter she was brewing lattes.) 

In addition to writing, Small stars in the one-woman show, and when the doors open at 7:30 p.m. each night, she'll be serving coffee (in character) until the proverbial curtain is ready to go up. In the play's first chapter, Small tells the story of a struggling newbie barista, a girl who's a lot like her teenage self. 

"The boss is not liking her speed at which she's doing things. There's drama with the colleagues. She doesn't feel like she fits in," says Small, but our heroine shines when it comes to the people-skills aspects of the job. "She starts to feel like maybe she can be good at this," says Small. But her confidence is shaken when a customer tips a whopping $150, instead of the usual 15 per cent. 

"It begins a core theme in the play of getting in over your head and encountering power dynamics and things you didn't expect," she says — subjects covered over six more stories. There's a scene about a theatre company, a TV writers' room; a university. Small's worked in all those places herself. The tales, however, are fiction. 

It's seven stories about seven very difficult days at seven jobs.- Rosamund Small, creator of Performance Review

As the story unfolds, the action never physically leaves the coffee shop. "There's a sort of metaphor built into it that I find kind of meaningful," says Small. "Wherever you go, there you are. You can feel sometimes that you're back where you started."

Mitchell Cushman directs the play. He's the founding artistic director of Outside the March, whose immersive theatre company is also presenting the show. Small is a longtime OtM collaborator, and in addition to writing Vitals and TomorrowLove (2016) for OtM, she was the story editor and dramaturg on No Save Points (2023), a playable play by Sébastien Heins. Performance Review marks her first time acting in one of the company's productions, however, and in fact, it's her first on-stage role since high school.

"I really wanted to do this show, and I really wanted to be in it," says Small, who considers the play to be "a self-portrait in some ways." 

"I think work is really a performance. Work is often not about what you're making, it's about how you're making the people around you feel. So I talk a lot in the show about, you know, trying to try to suck up, basically. Trying to ingratiate, trying to make connections, trying to reach out to people. And sometimes that's in a really authentic way … and sometimes that's it in a more ambitious way or a more calculating way."

According to Small, the show is about navigating the complicated — and occasionally perilous — politics of the workplace. "It can be a very confusing dynamic when your job, or part of your job, to perform liking someone or making them feel good."

I think work is really a performance. Work is often not about what you're making, it's about how you're making the people around you feel.- Rosamund Small, creator of Performance Review

Is acting in a play any easier? And do her future career goals include more performing?

"I hope so, yeah. I've really enjoyed feeling this kind of ownership of my own work," says Small.

"My own taste [in] theatre has moved toward 'please speak right to me, please be authentic, please be yourself.' So that's kind of the kind of work I want to make too," she says.

"I do feel really comfortable. I mean, it's terrifying to perform for sure, but I really wanted to do this show."

Performance Review. Featuring Rosamund Small. Written by Rosamund Small. Directed by Mitchell Cushman. Presented by Outside the March Theatre. Previews: Feb. 27, March 1-2, 4. Regular performances: March 5-23. www.outsidethemarch.ca