Soulpepper Theatre Company is getting ready to ring in the country's 150th birthday in New York – with the most ambitious showcase of Canadian theatre ever presented in America's theatre capital.

But is the Toronto theatre company's planned month-long residency off-Broadway worth the $2.5-million price tag – and the potential risk at home?

As Soulpepper executive director Leslie Lester notes, before signing on, the theatre's board of directors wanted to know what the possibility of damage to the company's strong brand in Toronto would be if U.S. critics' and audiences' reaction was, as she puts it, "Canadians stink."

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But both she and artistic director Albert Schultz convinced the board that Soulpepper is putting its best foot forward off-Broadway – and that they will not only make it there, but, well, make it there.

"I'm not going to quote 'New York, New York,'" Schultz says. "Though I almost did."

It's hard not be impressed by the size of Soulpepper's undertaking – trucking down three of their most acclaimed mainstage productions written or adapted by Canadian playwrights (Kim's Convenience, Of Human Bondage and Spoon River) to run in repertory at the Pershing Square Signature Centre, a few blocks west of the Broadway district on 42nd Street.

Several other ensemble creations (including a stage adaptation of Dennis Lee's Alligator Pie) will also be presented in July, along with concerts and cabarets and three smaller "spotlight" shows that originated at other Toronto theatres (such as Pamela Sinha's harrowing solo show Crash, originally produced at Theatre Passe Muraille).

Lester has been working on the project – which she jokingly calls "a serious military operation" – for two years now. It involved wrangling American visas for 65 artists at a cost of $52,000.

Flying those artists to New York and back will cost $32,500 (U.S.), while housing them all at City College for the month will cost another $140,000.

Soulpepper cobbled together the cash – roughly the same as the entire annual budget of the Tarragon Theatre across town – from several places.

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About $1-million (Canadian) has been siphoned from the company's regular operations and box-office budget; another $1-million came through private fundraising; and the remaining half a million comes from the Toronto Arts Council and the Ontario provincial government. (Two years ago, the provincial Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport gave Soulpepper an unusual one-time grant of $1.5-million over four years to support the development of touring projects.)

While the voyage to New York is timed to the sesquicentennial, it's notable that Soulpepper was unsuccessful in applying for what Lester calls "happy birthday money" from the Canada Council for the Arts New Chapter Fund.

Indeed, as a peer-assessed funding agency might well ask: What's the purpose of spending so much money to take shows to New York for limited runs? Is this just an ego trip?

There are no financial goals for Soulpepper's first international voyage – it's not a commercial venture – and the artistic goals can appear nebulous. The theatre company isn't looking to sell a particular play – but create awareness of the company abroad and, as artistic director Schultz puts it, "begin artistic conversations across borders."

That means a long list of American producers, artistic directors and individual artists – people who don't normally travel to Toronto, but regularly pop into New York – have been invited to see Soulpepper's work, meet with its artists and potentially collaborate on or host tours of future projects.

This involved a lot of courting – though since The New York Times published a big article about the residency last week (Soulpepper hired Sam Rudy, the publicist behind the megahit musical Hamilton), interest has risen sharply and now Schultz is fielding e-mails from intrigued playwrights and artists.

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On a personal level for the playwrights and performers involved, you can see the payoff.

Sinha, the performer and writer of Crash, has been corresponding with Eve Ensler (writer of The Vagina Monologues). "She's going to help me get the word out," she says.

Meanwhile, Gregory Prest – an actor who stars in Of Human Bondage and will appear in three other shows – is looking forward to having John Collins, artistic director of the well-regarded Elevator Repair Service, come to see him act and meeting Suzan-Lori Parks, whose play, Father Comes Home From the Wars, he's performed in Toronto.

"It's the dream – to perform here and with shows we feel good about, that we're proud of," he says.

It's ultimately building direct relationships like these that lead to Canadian work getting done abroad – aside from the occasional Broadway show backed by big U.S. producers such as Come From Away or The Drowsy Chaperone.

That Soulpepper – which initially launched in 1998 as an urban classical-theatre company – is going down to New York with only plays that have a "Canadian pen" behind them (including adaptations) has helped create wide support for its plans. Most have come to the conclusion that it's up to Canadian theatres to export our work if we want it to be known.

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A little over a year ago, Hannah Moscovitch – one of the country's most-produced playwrights – was named one of the winners of the prestigious $150,000 (U.S.) Windham-Campbell Literature Prizes – and even that hasn't yet led to a production of her work in New York.

"I did have a meeting with a very prominent New York agency in the wake of the prize – they told me that having plays produced in Toronto is like having them produced in Denver," Moscovitch says.

Soulpepper has never produced a play by Moscovitch – her main home in Toronto is at the Tarragon – but she's cheering it on in building bridges to New York, from which pathways to the rest of the United States market already exists, comparing it to the way Canadian publishers did the same for Canadian authors such as Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood.

"I couldn't be more enthusiastic about their attempt – because someone has to build those silk roads if they don't exist," she says.