Every morning of my first four years in Montreal, I walked by a vivid yellow door as I headed down Aylmer toward McGill University’s campus. It always seemed like a fun, quirky touch against the urban backdrop.

The atmosphere was reminiscent of a high school play, or at least that’s what my date leaned over to whisper into my ear as the lights dimmed. With its knots of young people huddled in their respective corners and coats hung up on wooden pegs near the stage, in a way I did feel transported back to high school, the fun part where I joked around with my friends in the stage wings before a production.

During a long, lazy, blazing-hot summer day on school break, a group of neighborhood kids and I were shuffled off to a local library’s community room for my first-ever improv workshop.

Docking my Bixi at the corner of St. Laurent and St. Catherine, I weave through the shiny new CIBL radio station and dodge the long line outside Club Soda. The air smells faintly of grilled meat and poutine from Pool Hall, and I jaywalk across the street toward the door of Café Cléopâtre.

Hung with glowing neon spider webs and pink lighting bolts, Coup D’État sits patiently on the corner of Clark and Marie-Anne, waiting for clients and walk-ins.

Forget The Box, as it currently exists, is a testament to the necessity of change. When I resurrected this publication in 2023, it wasn't a mere dusting off of archives, but a full-fledged reinvention.