Obsidian Theatre is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 professional theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 company, which specializes in Black Canadian

Black Canadian

'Black Canadians is a designation used for people of Black African descent, who are citizens or permanent residents of Canada. The term specifically refers to Canadians with Sub-Saharan African ancestry. The majority of Black Canadians are of Caribbean origin...

 drama. The company is located in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

. The declared mandate of the company is a threefold mission to produce plays, to develop playwrights and to train theatre professionals. They strive to produce works by highly-acclaimed playwrights of Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

n and Caribbean

Caribbean

The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

 descent.

History

Obsidian Theatre Company (OTC) was founded in 1999 with a mission to produce plays from the worldwide canon focusing primarily, but not exclusively, on the works of highly acclaimed playwrights of African descent. Through dramaturgical and performance workshops OTC promotes and develops the work of African-Canadian playwrights. The company also provides opportunities for employment and training through mentoring and apprenticeship programs.

In 2002, the company received funding of $48,000 for an audience development and marketing strategy project for Djanet Sears

Djanet Sears

Djanet Sears is a Canadian playwright, actor and director. She was born in 1959 in England, to a Guyanese father and a Jamaican mother. Sears was raised in England and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan...

' Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God.

Obsidian alumni include Rita Deverell

Rita Deverell

Rita Shelton Deverell, CM is a Canadian television broadcaster and social activist, who was one of the founders of the Canadian television channel Vision TV...

, Alison Sealy-Smith

Alison Sealy-Smith

Alison Sealy-Smith is a Canadian actress, born and raised in Barbados.Sealy-Smith attended Mount Allison University where she studied psychology on a scholarship. She is the founding director of Obsidian Theatre, a company that specializes in Black Canadian drama...

 and Philip Akin

Philip Akin

Philip Akin is a Canadian actor who has been active for over thirty years in stage, film, and television. He has had featured roles in major American films such as The Sum of All Fears, S.W.A.T., and Get Rich or Die Tryin’...

. The company's works, which include Austin Clarke

Austin Clarke

Austin Ardinel Chesterfield Clarke, is a Canadian novelist, essayist and short story writer who lives in Toronto, Ontario. Born in St...

's acclaimed The Polished Hoe

The Polished Hoe

The Polished Hoe is a novel by Canadian writer Austin Clarke, published by Thomas Allen Publishers in 2002. It was named the winner of the 2002 Scotiabank Giller Prize....

have been nominated for several awards, including the Dora Mavor Moore

Dora Mavor Moore

Dora Mavor Moore, OC was a Canadian actor, teacher and director who was a pioneer of Canadian theater.- Life :...

 award for 2008's production of Intimate Apparel.

Founding members

• Awaovieyi Agie
• Ardon Bess
  Ardon Bess
  Ardon Bess is a Canadian actor best known for appearing in a Heritage Moment television commercial about the 1958 Springhill mining disaster portraying survivor Maurice Ruddick...
  
  
• David Collins
• Roy Lewis
• Yanna McIntosh
  Yanna McIntosh
  Yanna McIntosh, sometimes credited as Yanna MacIntosh, is a Jamaican-born Canadian television, movie and theatrical actress.-Early life:...
  
  
• Diane Roberts
• Kim Roberts
• Sandi Ross
• Djanet Sears
• Satori Shakoor
• Tricia Williams
• Alison Sealy-Smith
• Philip Akin
  Philip Akin
  Philip Akin is a Canadian actor who has been active for over thirty years in stage, film, and television. He has had featured roles in major American films such as The Sum of All Fears, S.W.A.T., and Get Rich or Die Tryin’...
  
  

Board of directors

• Bev Salmon- Chair
• Trevor Hampden-Vice Chair
• Walter Gibbons - Treasurer
• Gloria Schmed-Scott- Secretary
• Delrine Jones
• Carol Rowntree
• Dawn Vernon

2008/2009 season

Their 2008/2009 season consists of two works. One is Late, a play described as a discourse on life and love written by Marcia Johnson and directed by Marjorie Chan. The companion piece for this is Black Medea by aboriginal Australian playwright Wesley Enoch

Wesley Enoch

Wesley Enoch is an Australian playwright and artistic director of Murri descent.- Life :The eldest son of Doug and Lyn Enoch from Stradbroke Island, Wesley Enoch grew up in Brisbane....

 who moved the classic Greek tragedy to his home country. Director (and Obsidian Theatre founding member) Philip Akin

Philip Akin

Philip Akin is a Canadian actor who has been active for over thirty years in stage, film, and television. He has had featured roles in major American films such as The Sum of All Fears, S.W.A.T., and Get Rich or Die Tryin’...

 then re-imagined the work for a Canadian audience.

Funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage

Department of Canadian Heritage

The Department of Canadian Heritage, or simply Canadian Heritage |department]] of the Government of Canada with responsibility for policies and programs regarding the arts, culture, media, communications networks, official languages , status of women, sports , and multiculturalism...

, Obsidian's professional training program is grounded in the philosophy of training through exploration and production to enhance knowledge, share skills, increase marketability and strengthen community.

Playwrights unit

An integral part of the company is the Obsidian Playwrights Unit, a venue for exploration of ideas.

Playwrights commit to bi-weekly meetings over a seven-month period {September to March}. The group is headed by the Artistic Director and is focused on playwright development as opposed to full-length play creation. This allows for each playwright to work on a short piece for workshop production and also explores a number of philosophical ideas that stimulate ideas and conversation.

In February, the playwrights are matched with three directors to work on staging the plays for a workshop production, culminating in a Performance showcase called the 'Mussorgsky Project'. This year's playwrights are Laurence Anthony, Aisha Sasha John and Motion.