bahia watson is booked and busy. The Winnipeg-raised actress is in the midst of her most bustling season of Toronto theatre yet. Since July, she’s performed in back-to-back shows across the city—first in The Welkin, and then in The Comeuppance. This month, she takes on a lead role in Crow’s Theatre and Soulpepper Theatre’s Summer and Smoke, an often-overlooked work from Tennessee Williams, the famed playwright behind A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie.

Set in the heat of the southern summer, the story begins on the fourth of July, as Alma Winemiller, a minister’s daughter, falls in love with John Buchanan, the hedonistic boy next door. As the summer continues, their desire deepens, and the line between passion and ruin is blurred. 

“It stays true to some of the hallmarks of Tennessee Williams’ writing, the complexity and the depth and beauty and the tragedy,” watson says. Her character certainly goes through a heartbreaking arc in the story, one that she believes audiences will feel seen by.

“It’s the journey of love. Love and frustrations of love, the vulnerability, the challenges of loving someone, the consequences of time in relation to love,” watson says. “People who have loved will see themselves.”

Summer and Smoke will be watson’s first Tennessee Williams play, but she’s no stranger to performing at Crow’s Theatre. In 2022, she starred as Sonya in a production of Uncle Vanya at Crow’s, a show she describes as “monumental” for her, before it was brought to Mirvish in 2024.

watson has also embodied many notable roles off stage—from playing a handmaid enduring Gilead’s reign, to voicing beloved characters in the My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake universes. You may recognize her as Brianna/Oferic, a recurring character in the first four seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale. While her character tragically died in season 4, she returned to set last year for a poignant scene in the series finale. 

“It’s amazing to be a part of such a monumental thing,” watson says. “I just saw a post where people are wearing Handmaid’s costumes at a protest in Minnesota. The story has resonated with a lot of people, and really embedded itself in people’s minds.”

Her time on the series spanned from 2017 to 2021, an era she says was marked by her growth as an actor. But at the same time, she was also busy behind the scenes, writing and creating her own work. This culminated in another significant moment for watson at Crow’s Theatre— the premiere of her first solo show, shaniqua in abstraction. Blending razor-sharp commentary with cultural critique, watson created the show in daring defiance of the boundaries placed around Black womanhood. “It was almost 90 minutes of non-stop talking,” she says. “I really had to face my fears in that process.”

For watson, writing is where she feels she can be of service. “I feel a call to continue writing. To continue to push my own limits,” she says. “Can I make something inspiring that serves people, in whatever way that is? Whether it’s to know themselves, to understand the world they’re in, to feel a sense of belonging, to question things…whatever that is, I hope to be of service. That’s the dream.”

watson has created some fascinating projects to date—like Mashup Pon Di Road, a Caribbean musical circus comedy, and programsound.fm, a digital radio station for storytellers. She tells us she has no shortage of ideas, and starts many projects, but the ones worth revisiting tend to make themselves clear. “Things circle back,” she says. “It is a kind of long-range, spiralling journey.” 

Currently, she’s working on a piece about the existential crisis of being an artist in today’s world, and the consequences of speaking freely. “What does it mean to be a liberated person and a liberated artist? What is that journey and the failures and obstacles that can come with that?” she says. She tells us that the piece blends music and soliloquy elements, and she hopes to share it later in 2026.

Despite her demanding schedule, as Summer and Smoke opens this week at Crow’s Theatre, watson is heading into this role with gratitude, eager to embrace another opportunity to grow as a performer. “Every piece I work on, every character, I am affected,” she says. “I am forever changed by it.”

Summer and Smoke is on stage at Crow’s Theatre now until March 1. Keep an eye on our Instagram page for a chance to win tickets!