The 25/26 Obsidian Playwrights Unit is a national intensive play development program that will support up to 3 Black playwrights, through group sessions and individual mentorship over 8 months working towards the draft of a new work. The unit culminates with a developmental workshop, where each playwright will collaborate with actors and a director, as well as an excerpt presentation as part of Obsidian’s annual Playwrights Unit Showcase. The unit will be facilitated by playwright and actor, Lisa Codrington. This is a paid opportunity.
Obsidian Theatre is interested in showcasing the richness, complexity, and multiplicity of Blackness across the nation so that our art can truly reflect the communities we serve. We strongly encourage submissions from Black artists of all backgrounds, lived experiences, ages, and gender identities.
Our 2025/2026 Playwrights Unit!
Shailyn Pierre-Dixon
Shailyn Pierre-Dixon
Shailyn Pierre-Dixon (She/Her) is a Canadian actress, director, writer, and sushi lover. Shailyn has been acting in film and television since she was 7 years old and just didn’t know when to quit. She has always been driven by work that authentically reflects stories that have yet to be told, specifically stories from marginalized communities and the lenses of POC women. While guest-starring in several exciting projects like CBC’s Pretty Hard Cases, Global’s Departure, and Family Channel’s Life with Luca, she pursued her post-secondary education and recently graduated from Toronto Metropolitan University’s Performance Acting Program with a BFA. Recently, she joined B-Street Collaborative’s mentorship for emerging artists as an Actor/Director in residence. Shailyn is best known for her roles as Macy on CBC Gem’s Macy Murdoch and Young Aminata on CBC’s The Book of Negroes for which she won the Canadian Screen Award for “Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries”. Shailyn is soon to be seen leading in the upcoming feature film The Well, which premiered at Montreal’s 2025 Fantasia Film Festival.
She’s thrilled to be joining Obsidian’s Playwrights Unit to deepen her passion for writing and creative collaboration.
Keira Silverglen
Keira Silverglen
Keira Silverglen is a writer and actor whose work explores identity, belonging, and the intersection of being Black and Jewish. She is drawn to layered stories that highlight complexity, resilience, and nuance, often weaving personal experience into universal themes. With a background in both performance and screenwriting/playwriting, Keira is committed to creating work that sparks dialogue, challenges assumptions, and amplifies voices from many perspectives.
Pierrette Walker
Pierrette Walker
Pierrette Walker is a proud mother, storyteller, and educator. She believes in the embodied stories within, around, beside and beneath. She seeks to hold space for their possibilities, illuminating their testimonies through words, rhythm and rhyme. Her evolving artistic voice is an evolution of radical self-love. Pierrette believes in the vulnerable power of taking space in all of your phases of being and healing from which, she believes, stories are birthed. She is an ‘Awkward Butterfly’ making ripples in her dance with life.
Playwrights Unit Facilitator
Lisa Codrington
Lisa Codrington is an actor and writer based in Toronto. She has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Drama and is a recipient of the K.M. Hunter Theater Award and the Carol Bolt Award for Playwrights.
Selected writing credits include The Prescription – 21 Black Futures (Obsidian/CBC) The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God (Shaw Festival, Karamu House); Up the Garden Path (Obsidian Theatre); The Aftermath (Groundswell Festival, Femfest); The Colony – Opera to Go (Tapestry); Cast Iron (Nightwood Theatre & Obsidian Theatre).
Currently, Lisa is developing two new plays and is playwright in residence at Why Not Theatre.
To see Playwright Unit Alumni, click here!
For any questions you might have about the unit, please contact our artistic producer, daniel jelani ellis, at op@obsidiantheatre.com.