Young, Gifted & Black Program

Program Description

Young, Gifted, and Black is Obsidian Theatre’s arts training program dedicated to supporting Black theatre practitioners in non-performance disciplines. This six-month intensive explores Black diaspora theatre and performance aesthetics through a decolonial and intersectional lens. Participants will benefit from ongoing mentorship, masterclasses, and apprenticeships, culminating in an ensemble creation devised, directed, and designed by the YGB cohort.

We are dedicated to empowering and elevating artistic leaders. We envision a future where Black production professionals are abundant and integral, significantly enhancing our theatre community with their expertise.

2024/2025 Program Goals

• Develop Black Production Specialists: Focus on training directors and designers for theatre.
• Create a Decolonial Culture of Arts Practice: Foster an environment that challenges colonial paradigms within the theatre community.
• Explore African and African Diaspora Theatre Aesthetics: Investigate and incorporate performance aesthetics beyond Western theatrical paradigms, emphasizing the unique and powerful traditions of African and African diaspora theatre.
• Connect Established and Emerging Black Arts Practitioners: Facilitate mentorship and networking opportunities to build a supportive artistic community.
• Enhance Black Theatre Excellence: Encourage the development of unique perspectives and methodologies in theatre-making.

About the 2024/2025 Cohort

The Young, Gifted, and Black program will support emerging leaders in Directing and Design, including Set, Costume, Lighting, and Sound. We are welcoming five participants into the 2024/2025 cohort: one director and four designers.

This is a PAID training opportunity. Each participant will receive $400 per week during part-time phases and $800 per week during full-time phases.

Application Details

To apply, you must:

• Self-identify as Black
• Have an existing practice and/or strong interest in developing skills within one of the following disciplines – Directing, Costume Design, Set Design, Lighting Design, and/or Sound Design
• Be available between January and June 2025 (exact dates TBD)

Application requirements:

• Artist statement (1 – 2 pages)
  • Please tell us about yourself and your artistic practice – be sure to articulate the specific discipline you are interested in developing with YGB (Directing, Costume Design, Set Design, Lighting Design, or Sound Design)
  • Please describe how you relate to being Young, Gifted, and Black within your artistic practice (ie: young-in-career, unique lens on theatre, growth without the need to mute cultural identities)
• Resume / CV
• Headshot
• Support material
  • Directors and Designers: please include audio and/or video reel between 5 and 10 minutes, and/or 5 – 10 image files 

Application Deadline: Monday, September 16, 2024 @ 12:00 PM EST

Please compile all documents into one PDF or DOC file. We are unable to discuss or provide feedback, due to the volume of submissions, but all applicants will be notified of their status towards the end of November 2024.

Young, Gifted & Black Program Director

d’bi.young anitafrika

Obsidian Theatre is thrilled to welcome d’bi.young anitafrika as the Young, Gifted, and Black Program Director!

d’bi.young is a playwright-performer, director-dramaturge and activist-educator, who creates, embodies, and teaches decolonial praxis. Culminating their PhD in Black womyn’s theatre at London South Bank University (LSBU), their research centres on the emancipation of the oppressed self, through theatre making. d’bi.young developed the Anitafrika Method—a nurturant Black-queer-feminist pedagogy of transformation—offering arts practitioners globally, an intersectional framework of knowing, doing and being. A widely anthologised Siminovitch Playwright Prize finalist, three-time Dora award winner, and founding Artistic Director of Watah Theatre, Spolrusie Press and Ubuntu Decolonial Arts Centre in Costa Rica, d’bi.young has authored twelve plays, seven albums, and four poetry collections—headlining poetry & literary festivals, theatre seasons, and academic conferences globally. Most recently they have held lectureships at Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance and LSBU as a decolonial theatre practice, leadership & education specialist. Utilising the Anitafrika Method, they design courses that reframe playwriting, devising, acting, performance, directing, dramaturgy, theatre design & curriculum development from an African-Indigenous epistemological, ontological, cosmological, ethical, & aesthetic perspective. d’bi.young is lead faculty at Soulpepper Theatre Academy and currently lectures in the theatre department at the University of Victoria. 

As this year’s Program Director and Lead Mentor, d’bi.young will utilize the Anitafrika Method to develop the program curricula, provide comprehensive mentorship to each practitioner, and guide the ensemble creative process.

Contact Details

If you have any general questions about Young, Gifted & Black, please contact our artistic producer daniel jelani ellis at op@obsidiantheatre.com.

Young Gifted and Black is generously sponsored by:

Obsidian Theatre’s Season Sponsor: TD Bank Group;

Program Sponsors: Catapult/Rideau Hall Foundation, Scotiabank, Toronto Arts Council Strategic Fund, Metcalf Foundation.

Venue Sponsor: Factory Theatre