Evan Thomas Martin

coffee & yap

Jul 15, 2025

i. LORE DROP

Anyone who knows me knows that the 2nd most cringe thing about me is that I saw the immersive theatre production of Sleep No More over 350 times. And while this is indeed embarrassing, it has also led me to meet a lot of interesting people, like the multi-hyphenate multi-talented artist Evan Thomas Martin.

I don't remember exactly how I came to know Evan. It was most likely through a tenuous academic connection - we both went to the University of Manitoba and were involved in the Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media's Black Hole Theatre, although I graduated four years before he got there.

I do remember the first time I reached out to him. He had just moved across the Pacific to work at Shanghai Disney, and without any kind of prompting I felt compelled to tell him to see the production of Sleep No More than had opened in Shanghai just a few years earlier (I only saw this particular version 7 times, for the record.)

When I decided to create this Substack, I knew I wanted to include a wide variety of written material. I didn't want to get pigeon-holed the #3 Most Popular House M.D fanfic writer or the #18 Most Native Playwright.

I wanted to prove to myself and to my LinkedIn stalkers that I could do it all, including things like interviews, and Evan was one of the first people who came to mind. I knew he was debuting his new play The Gallery Wall at the 2025 Winnipeg Fringe Festival, and it felt like the perfect time to finally talk.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation, edited for clarity and flow, only lightly proof-read by me because I can't afford an editor and because I am 89% confident that the only errors I'll make are minor typos that you absolutely have the capacity to correct in your own head if you catch 'em.

What follows is also not in adherence to any kind of particular journalistic style or standard, aligns my own integrity, and features occasional self-insertion and commentary and digressions on an as-wanted-by-me basis. I know a lot of that is going to make some very old people very angry, but it really do be like that sometimes.

ii. THE CHOCOLATE SAUCE ROOM

From the moment I read about The Gallery Wall on Instagram, I was intrigued.

I love shows about people making visual art, like Sunday in the Park with George by Sondheim and Lapine, or Red by John Logan.

I generally find shows about theatre artists hit a little too close to home to be enjoyable. I've never seen a production of The Seagull that didn't fuck me up for at least 24 hours after curtain call.

Sometimes I like being emotionally devastated and moved to tears and sent on a pilgrimage of the soul to find my true self and discover my real passions and stuff but sometimes I just want to knock back a $25 cocktail and watch a man paint something. So The Gallery Wall seemed right up my alley, and I was curious to learn more about the show itself and the playwright behind it all.

ETM: "I try to see an art gallery in every city I go to. I was sitting in one in Utah just thinking and thinking, and a show I’d tried to write back in 2019 came to mind. I’d been trying to write it for five or six years, and something was always missing. I realized I could blend that idea with the idea of art."

The two-hander (I think?) follows a painter and a hockey player who come together under the circumstance of being mutually flaked on. The painter is prepping for a big gallery opening but her portrait subject has ghosted. Meanwhile, the hockey player needs someone to interview for a journalism school portfolio and gets ghosted as well.

You may think I'm about to follow that paragraph up with a story about how I too have been ghosted but you'd be wrong because that's way too obvious. Instead, I'm going to kick it back a decade or so to where Evan's interest in theatre began.

ETM: "I’ve been an actor for almost a decade now. I started on a whim at 17 because I thought I needed public speaking skills for journalism. But once I got into theatre, I shifted paths. I don’t think I would’ve made a good journalist in the end — but it definitely inspired this story."

Evan graduated from the U of M in 2018 and quickly began working in theatre and film. According to IMDB, his screen credits include the TV shows Millworth and Burden of Truth and the films Stand! and Missing and Alone. Onstage, he's appeared in the North Kildonan Community Players’ Oliver! (2016), One Trunk Theatre’s Stage Frights (2017), and probably more but I forgot to ask because we were interrupted by an emergency alert and I got distracted.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, the theatre and film industry in Winnipeg basically shut down, and Evan found himself uncertain of what to do next. So, in 2022, he moved to China and began working as a cast member at Shanghai Disney.

I asked him to bring an object to our meeting. He brought a playing card from the McKinnon Hotel, home of Sleep No More Shanghai, the show I peer-pressured him to see only a few years ago.

You probably already know this, but just in case you don't, Sleep No More is a free-roaming masked immersive theatre production based on William Shakespeare's Macbeth, created by the British company Punchdrunk.

It was first staged in London in 2003 before being remounted in Boston in 2009 and in New York City in 2011. The NYC production ran for almost 14 years, closing on January 5th, 2025. In 2016, a production was mounted in Shanghai and continues to run, and in August 2025 a new production is set to open in Seoul, South Korea.

All of that to say, it's popular and beloved and even though I have zero affiliation with it beyond being an early fan, I love to send people to the show and hear all about their experience in as much detail as possible.

ETM: "Macbeth is my favourite show ever. Whether I’m in it, directing, writing, observing — it can be done in so many ways. The witches are probably my favourite fictional characters. I even think Mean Girls could be the Macbeth witches... One of my favourite rooms, I called the chocolate sauce room — the witches danced on tables in fake blood that smelled like chocolate. I loved it... and also felt like I was going to vomit."

Immersive theatre has a lot in common with the work actors do at places like Disney, where they are encountering hundreds of people each day in unpredictable situations and need to rely on their improvisation skills and to navigate through.

ETM: "You learn so much about people doing that kind of work. I probably talked to more people in those two years than most people do in a lifetime. People would come up and share personal stuff — issues with their families, asking for advice. Everyone’s just looking for connection. That really stuck with me. It’s part of what my play is about, too."

After a couple of years in Shanghai, he went on to spend six months in Hong Kong before finally returning to Winnipeg.

EM: "When I got back, I was tired of acting. Not that I wanted to give it up — but performing every day, 9 to 5, takes a toll. I thought, maybe I need something behind the scenes for a while."

Although probably best known as an actor, I was fascinated to discover that Evan has a multitude of artistic skills. He regularly posts his artwork on Instagram, is interested in fashion, and when not busy self-producing his own play is also crafting an impressive social media campaign leading up to the Fringe.

ETM: "Fringe is the most vulnerable kind of theatre you can do. Even if the story is completely fictional, it comes from a place of truth. And you want to protect that... I’ve written 30 plays that no one’s ever seen. But this is the first one I’ve made nice enough to show to the public. I’m excited. It’s taken a while. Winnipeg has so many people who are smarter than me. It’s one of the most talented places in the world. Just having a show here means so much — because I get to share it with the people who made it with me. It’s got the soul of 100 people in it."