From a work inspired by Joni Mitchell's songs to an appearance by Newfoundland comedy genius Cathy Jones, the Firehall Arts Centre's just-announced 2016-17 season "celebrates women and their connections to community and family," according to artistic director Donna Spencer.

The season kicks off in September with This Hour Has 22 Minutes star Jones's Stranger to Hard Work.

The roster also includes Tracey Powers's Miss Shakespeare, a musical about William Shakespeare’s younger daughter, Judith, who gathers her closest female friends to try to make theatre of their own in a tavern cellar.

The critically acclaimed The Motherf**ker With the Hat, which the Straight called "full of startling images, equally startling humour, and crazy, pounding rhythms" earlier this years, makes a return.

Toronto-Vancouver Island theatre artist Nicolle Nattrass brings her solo show Mamahood: turn and face the strange to the Firehall.

Elsewhere Mary Vingoe's Refuge tells the haunting story of a Canadian refugee who was a child soldier in Eritrea, and Andrew Cohen and Anna Kuman work from the songs of Joni Mitchell in their new Circle Game, a story of six young hipsters who want to be musicians.

And Toronto's acclaime Theatre Pass Muraille brings its Elle here, the fascinating, feminist-colonial tale of a French noblewoman who travels to Canada with jacques Cartier to settle the new-found country, but instead ends up punished and exiled to the Isle of Demons.

Meanwhile, the dance programming packs a punch, with Out Innerspace debuting its new, full-evening Major Motion Picture and Company 605 joining cutting-edge Belgian dance artist German Jauregui (of Ultima Vez) in a double bill. Elsewhere dumb instrument dance's Ziyian Kwan hooks up with cellist Peggy Lee in The Mars Hotel and Kwan Yin, and multimedia masters Hong Kong Exile debut Room 2048, a moving and artful ode to the Cantonese diaspora.

Early bird passes for the season are now on sale at firehallartscentre.ca/. Prices start from $64 for a four-show Early Bird pack.