Recommender Grants for Theatre Creators (RGTC)
Submissions Closed
Generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), the Recommender Grants for Theatre Creators is a fantastic opportunity for Obsidian to fund new theatrical works in development. Obsidian is passionately dedicated to the exploration of the Black Artists voice in Canada, and it is one of our top priorities to support the development of the work of Black artists from every intersection. This program provides successful applicants with funding that is geared towards the creation and development of new work, with amounts between $1000 and $3000 dollars. Please note that this money cannot be used towards a production of a play.
WHO DO WE SUPPORT?
We look for projects that are by Black artists. We put no limits on the content of the work, the work does not necessarily need to be about a particular Black community or issue. Rather, we are looking to support self-identified Black artists with the honing of their artistic craft. We look at projects that are closely related to our core as a company dedicated to lifting up the Black voice in Canadian theatre.
HOW TO APPLY
To apply for a Recommender Grant you must submit the application through the OAC’s online system, Nova. For a step-by-step guide on how to register and submit an application please CLICK HERE. Application requirements and guidelines are found there as well.
RGTC RSOURCES
22/23 RGTC RECIPIENTS
isi bhakhomen (they/them)
Project Title – QUINCE
Project Description – QUINCE follows the journey of Gabriella, an Afro-Peruvian, gender non-comforming teen who is about to celebrate their quince in front of the entire family. But instead of becoming a woman, they are haunted by a loss that prevents them from undergoing the celebration all-together.
KayGeni
Project Title – Mami Wata
Project Description – In the Bahamas Mami Wata spirits are said to dwell in blue holes. Their descriptions tend to match what the average person would categorize as a mermaid, being half fish, and half human. Mami wata stories tend to be more cautionary tales than ones that only emphasize their beauty. I’d like to write a play that borrows from these stories of warning, but also amplifies the complex relationships between mermaids and the locals of the Bahamas.
Christene Browne
Project Title – Attention Au Feu (Risk of Fire)
Project Description – Attention Au Feu (Risk of Fire), inspired by Sartre’s Huis Clos (No Exit), the play is an existential contemplation on mortality, marginalization, race, gender and love. It centers around, Pearl, an elderly Caribbean woman who contemplates her life as she lays dying in a hospice bed.
Bria Brown
Project Title – 23
Project Description – An experimental comedy; through the lens of a 20-something-year-old immigrant attempting to escape her turbulent circumstances in an uncompromising fight for joy as she pursues her dreams. My highest goal is to explore the relationship between dreams and systemic barriers. In a system built on the oppression of Black and Brown lives, our protagonist explores what it means to dare to dream, regardless.
Alicia Plummer
Project Title – It Just Bugs Me
Project Description – It Just Bugs Me is a comedic, absurd play about two women who meet for a swimming class that never begins. Though they are strangers who are a decade apart in age, they find that they have unusual similarities that they cannot explain.
Under A Grove – Chantal Forde & Jewelle Blackman
Project Title – Boy Boy and the Magic Drum
Project Description – The factory’s shut down, the Peace Parade cancelled, and all seems lost… until Boy Boy stumbles upon a magic drum. A celebration of Trinidadian culture, this is the story of a child digging deep within himself in order to save the day, with the help of the magical rainbow brew…
Natalie Morgan
Project Title – Jessie and Me
Project Description – Jessie and Me is an exploration of womanhood, motherhood, and growing into the person you are versus the person you thought you would be. It is a one-woman show about a thirty-something black woman whose childhood doll comes to life to break her isolation & loneliness during the lockdown.
Adaora Asidianya
Project Title – The Afflictions Of The Abara Family
Project Description – In a Suburban Toronto family room, the Abara’s — a first-generation Nigerian family — navigate the intertwining afflictions that plague them.
Jahnelle Jones
Project Title – Reunited
Project Description – Reunited follows two old friends as they reconnect in the third-floor girls’ washroom at their ten-year high school reunion. As the women reminisce, moments from their Prom Day, the last day they spent with their friend Alex before she died, weave into the present bringing up unresolved feelings.
Jo Güstin (Jessie Wamal)
Project Title – Life Is Too Short to Be Straight
Project Description – The project centers on the playwright’s move to Canada, in 2019, to boost her career and be closer to her cousin Yann, who had been begging her to join him there for years. But while she was on the plane from Paris to Toronto, Yann unexpectedly passed away. Billed as a “dead serious comedy”, Life Is Too Short to Be Straight is a comedic approach to grief, mortality, anxiety and the fear of failure of an artist relocating on the eve of a global pandemic.
Cassandre Mentor
Project Title – Monestime: Where Rivers Meet
Please contact Vanessa Spence if you have any questions at op@obsidiantheatre.com
Image: Venus’ Daughter by Meghan Swaby 2016, Photographed by Lyon Smith