A hidden history. A secret identity. A grandmother’s legacy revealed.

In Spycraft, Cleo stands at a podium, delivering a speech about newly declassified Canadian intelligence—only to discover that her sweet, sock-knitting grandmother, Audette, was a WWII spy. The revelation sends Cleo on a journey through Audette’s clandestine past, unearthing a daring story of espionage, survival, and defiance.

A hidden Jew in Nazi-occupied France, Audette was recruited by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), where she defied both chauvinism and Antisemitism to serve as a covert operative. Dismissed by her male counterparts as an “old” woman, Audette used her invisibility as a weapon, knitting coded messages into fabric to smuggle intelligence past the enemy. Her craft became a tool of resistance—her knitting needles, instruments of war.

As Cleo pieces together her grandmother’s secret past, she is confronted with a new reality—she, too, is Jewish. In an era where Antisemitism is once again on the rise, and misinformation about the Holocaust spreads unchecked, Cleo must decide: will she hide her identity as Audette once did, or will she embrace it and all it represents?

From the creative minds behind The Knitting Pilgrim, Kirk Dunn & Claire Ross Dunn, Spycraft is an inventive and powerful play that blends theatre, history, and fibre arts into a gripping tale of espionage and identity. With support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Toronto Arts Council, this production is as timely as it is thrilling.

Don’t miss this spellbinding new work!