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Hello
Sunshine!
an account of life with sun allergy
World Premiere at August 2026
Summerworks Festival
August 13 - 6pm *
August 14 - 9pm
August 15 - 9pm
The Theatre Centre
1115 Queen Street West, Toronto
photo by Danil Rokke
* August 13th performance
Designed to be accessible to Blind audiences, through prepared audio description and a touch tour of the set, Hello Sunshine! was created with internationally renowned Blind artist Alex Bulmer as dramaturg, and includes Lindsay Zier-Vogel as audio describer.
*August 13th performance will be followed by a post-show Q&A.
From the hot experience of sizzling skin to some dark truths about quiet isolation, Sara reveals the long held story of her chronic allergy to sunlight that has kept her indoors - during daylight hours - for much of her adult life. "Hello Sunshine!" is the story of one woman navigating the particularities of living life in the shade.
Celebrated for her playful, irreverent and virtuosic performance, Sara Porter brings the third of her memoir-based solos to the SummerWorks Performance Festival.
Hello Sunshine! is a one-woman “more than a musical” and multidisciplinary dance about experience living with sun allergy—the social, personal, and logistical challenges of negotiating invisible disability.
While living in Scotland, at the age of 27, Sara was diagnosed with Polymorphous Light Eruption (PMLE) an autoimmune condition that makes her acutely reactive to UV radiation. Developed through her travels to rainy Scotland, and 24-hour darkness in Northern Norway, Hello Sunshine! offers an absurdist account of inventive living set against a backdrop of pop songs about sunshine.
At the age of 23, Sara Porter suddenly could not tolerate sunlight. She spent five years testing for many maladies and eventually found herself in a photobiology research hospital in Dundee Scotland diagnosed with PMLE, an idiopathic autoimmune disorder that limits the skin's capacity to absorb UV light.
Life changed. Sara installed UV filters in the windows of her house and car and, eventually acquired a disability permit to park close to doorways for quick access to indoors. She tried all manner of medications and potions, and ultimately, simply has lived her life away from the rays of sun.
Choreographer, Writer & Performer: Sara Porter
Co-Producer: Alex Jodi Verge
Creative Consultant: Katherine Duncanson
Video Designer & Choreographic Collaborator: Linnea Swan
Disability Dramaturge & Creative Collaborator: Alex Bulmer
Lighting Designer: Rebecca Picherack
Sound Designer: Stephen Joffe
Visual Art Contributor: Elaine Whittaker
Costume Consultant: Val Calam
Audio Describer: Lindsay Zier-Vogel
Technical Director: Franco Pang
Technical Support: Curtis Whittaker
Stage Manager: A.J. Morra
Assistant Stage Manager / Performer: Kathy Le
Accessibility Facilitator: Lorna Craig
Administrative Assistant: Cass Cabral Pucci
Marketing: Damien Nelson / Wants & Able
Supported by generous contributions from the DAVVI Centre for Performing Arts (Northern Norway), KM Hunter Foundation, Lindy Green Family Foundation, and The Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, The Registry Theatre Residency Program (Kitchener).
Sara's creative work lives at the intersection of literary memoir and movement and provides a creative frame to explore the unusual story of her life in a light-averse body. With the aid of a Canada Council grant, Sara travelled to the Dundee photobiology clinic - in September 2023 - to retrace her steps of discovery and spend time in the fog, considering how to tell the story of life in the shadows.
The work wrestles with grief, notions of disability, and plays with revelation - about the subtle invisible adjustments to a day that make life unique.
In the world of Sara Porter, where absurdity always find a home, she channels Pamela Anderson, explores various ways to wear a bikini, celebrates free Botox, and offers her body as a landing strip for butterflies.
In a work that blends poetic imagery with dance and clown, Sara offers performance as reminder of how imagination shapes a life.
