A web and marketing partnership with an Indigenous and Métis theatre company stepping into production
Root Sky Theatre Company
| Website | rootsky.ca |
|---|---|
| Domain | arts |
| Region | Manitoba, CA |
| Main offices | Winnipeg, Manitoba |
| Size | 2 (playwrights) |
Overview
Web Revamp, Ticketing, and Multi-Channel Launch for Owl Calling
Root Sky Theatre Company is an Indigenous and Métis–focused company that traditionally concentrates on writing plays about Indigenous experience, reconciliation, and political history. In 2023–24 they took a major step: producing one of their own works, Owl Calling, themselves for the first time.
I partnered with Root Sky to turn their existing web presence into a production-ready platform, integrate nonprofit-friendly ticketing, and coordinate parallel digital marketing channels that helped make Owl Calling a success and paved the way for their next Canada Council–supported production, Rattle, opening June 3–7, 2026 at the Asper Centre for Theatre and Film in Winnipeg.
Client Background and Challenge
Root Sky Theatre was founded by playwrights Darrell Racine and Dale Lakevold to create theatre and arts projects about Indigenous culture, Métis history, and the legacies of residential schools. Their work is rooted in collaboration with Indigenous artists, Elders, and researchers, often tackling difficult stories with a focus on healing.
Historically, Root Sky focused on developing scripts and partnering with other companies to produce them, rather than acting as a producing company themselves. With Owl Calling, a national award–winning play about two brothers-in-law confronting the impacts of residential school experiences, they shifted into producing their own work, handling everything from casting to marketing and ticket sales.
This shift created several challenges:
- Their website had been built primarily as a static informational site, not as a live production and ticketing hub.
- There was no unified digital strategy connecting the website, social media, and email outreach.
- As a small, nonprofit Indigenous company, they needed tools that were cost-conscious but still capable of handling a full public run.
Goals
We defined clear goals around the Owl Calling production and beyond:
- Evolve the existing website design into a clear, production-focused experience without discarding prior design work.
- Make it extremely easy for visitors to find performance details (dates, venues, prices) and purchase tickets online.
- Integrate Zeffy as a nonprofit-first ticketing and fundraising platform that keeps 100% of ticket revenue with Root Sky.
- Activate coordinated marketing channels: website, social media, and email outreach via YAMM, to reach city-wide contacts and the cast’s extended networks.
- Lay the groundwork for future productions, including Rattle: A Sixties Scoop Play, scheduled for June 3–7, 2026.
Outcomes
The combined web, ticketing, email, and social efforts helped Root Sky successfully navigate their first self-produced production with Owl Calling, turning a previously static site into an active marketing and ticketing hub. A key marker of success is that Root Sky has since secured Canada Council support to produce their next play, Rattle: A Sixties Scoop Play, running June 3–7, 2026 at the Asper Centre for Theatre and Film in Winnipeg. The existing architecture—web pages focused on upcoming productions, Zeffy ticketing, mailing list integration, and social processes—now provides a reusable framework for this new production and beyond.