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Young, Gifted & Black Program

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


Returning, Reshaping, Re…

(A collection of Star songs and soil)

June 6 – 7:30pmJune 7 – 1:30pm and 7:30pm
At Factory Theatre – 125 Bathurst St
Free Event

The showcase is rooted in decolonial approaches to design and direction, guided by Black performance aesthetics and multidisciplinary storytelling to explore the expansiveness of Blackness. The work draws from African and Afrofuturist storytelling traditions—where time, space, and meaning unfold in non-linear, cyclical, and intuitive ways. It flows between a range of characters and worlds, forming a narrative structure that is relational, symbolic, and centered in African ways of knowing and becoming.

Themes such as ancestral ties and roots, transformation, Black love, Black fragility, Black femininity, and Black joy are interwoven through a process grounded in exploration and improvisation. The work exists within a decolonial, African-centered perspective, inviting audiences into a world shaped by rhythm, ritual, and memory.


Our 24/25 Cohort

Lilian Adom

Lighting Design

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Germaine Konji

Direction

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Arianna Lilith Moodie

Costume Design

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Riel Reddick-Stevens

Sound Design

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Sharine Taylor

Set Design

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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

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