You Should Have Stayed Home Too

A Workshop Preview

Tommy Taylor, (wInner, 2026 Hamilton Arts Awards), spent a decade working overnight shifts in Hamilton and Toronto shelters, drop-ins, encampments and overdose prevention sites – then the pandemic hit. Y ou Should Have Stayed Home Too is the documentary performance built from those years in crisis, a system in collapse and lives lost – blending first-person testimony with live folk music, projected photographs, and immersive audience experience. This workshop preview first played for Theatre Aquarius audience members at the Brave New Works Festival.

Running through the piece is the story of his late aunt Vikky Taylor, who was performed in a duo with best friend Joni Mitchell in 1960s Yorkville (while also dating Neil Young) , and whose surviving recordings are being brought to life by JUNO-nominated, multi Canadian Folk Music Award-winning musician Abigail Lapell. This workshop presentation offers an early look at the piece days before the municipal election – followed each night by conversations and debates about issues at the heart of the piece (issues that are increasingly urgent across the city) as we head to the ballot box.