The Theatre Centre
1115 Queen Street West M6J 1J1 Toronto, ON, Canada

IBPOC Designers! Join the IBPOC Designer Circle this Sunday, November 22 for a welcome feast and community chat. Learn more and register: https://bit.ly/3l2WnXF

ICYMI we just introduced our new offering, The Digital Café. Each month, you'll get an exclusive look at what’s going on behind the scenes and insights into the Residency artists' creative process. For November, we connected with Finishing artist Victoria Mata! You can sign up at theatrecentre.org to get these offerings delivered directly to your inbox, but for now, grab a coffee (or tea! or water!) and enjoy this month's issue: https://madmimi.com/s/3f72811/

Are you a BIPOC, woman, Trans, and/or Non-Binary theatre artist looking to get to the next stage of your career? Applications are now open for Why Not Theatre's ThisGen 2021 Fellowship, a national initiative that offers training, mentorship, guided self-study, and peer-to-peer connection. Deadline: December 4, 2020... Learn more: http://ow.ly/cWQK50Cd0ze See more

Culturecapital:online, created by TC Exploration artists Milton Lim and Patrick Blenkarn in partnership with HowlRound Theatre Commons, has arrived online to put $500 dollars of funding on the line. Don't miss tonight's match between Dani Fecko and Luke Reece let's see who comes out on top!

Our friends at Shakespeare in the Ruff are looking for a new artistic leader! Interested in taking on a co-artistic director role? Apply by November 1, 2020. Learn more: http://ow.ly/yoWn50BFZvQ

What makes you hopeful? Exploration artist Lorena Torres Loaiza is putting together a new experimental project, and as a starting point, is crowdsourcing answers to this question. Take a minute to share your hopes with us: http://ow.ly/Z0Bi50BZaEh

Spend the day with daniel jelani ellis! He'll be posting to our Facebook story, but hop over to Instagram for the full takeover experience. danjelani is a Toronto-based artist raised in Jamaica, and his art practice is driven by his commitment to celebrate those of us who live within the margins. He's also a proud parent to plenty plants by Tsholo Khalema

Allow us to re-introduce ourselves. In the coming weeks, our staff and artists will be taking over our Instagram and Facebook stories. Follow along for a personal look at the creative process and the people behind the art. You’ll get to see the human side of our work how we’re spending our days, what we’re listening to, what brings us joy. First up, spend the day with residency artist daniel jelani ellis!

Enjoy an evening of Indigenous storytelling curated by TC Creative Producer Theresa Cutknife! Tune in through Zoom or On Storytelling Toronto's Facebook page.

Join Shakespeare in the Ruff for 'Unpacking 2020: Deaf Perspectives', an online panel where Deaf artists and advocates are discussing 2020 and its effects on the Deaf Community from accessibility issues within COVID to race, protesting, and intersectionality. Tune in on October 8th, 67:30pm EST. Learn more: http://ow.ly/1P0W50BFZPp

Artists, only TWO DAYS LEFT to apply for Canadian Stage's Microgrant program! This program provides $2000 for the development of project or research-specific creative work over the course of their 20/21 season. They're looking for ideas that investigate anti-oppressive/anti-colonial artistic practices, new forms of collaboration, intersections with community, and new technologies. Apply by October 23, 2020!

Meet Randy! He’s an amazing volunteer and invaluable part of the TC family. For years, Randy has been greeting audience members, tearing tickets, and helping to care for the TD Green Roof. This past summer, he planted a beautiful pollinator garden outside the cafe; maybe you’ve seen it! Here, Randy talks about his connection to the TC, what volunteering means to him, and what inspired him to plant a pollinator garden. by Tamara Jones

Allow us to re-introduce you to the artists currently engaged in our Residency program; these four artists will be joined by the 20/21 cohort of artists. This 2+ year program provides artists with the necessary space, funding, and mentorship to craft ideas still in their infancy into finished works that are provocative, innovative, and ambitious. Ian Kamau - 'Loss' Ian is an artist, writer, and designer from Toronto. He has released seven music projects including the self-...produced album One Day Soon (2011). 'Loss' is a live-arts multimedia performance that explores mental health in Afro-Caribbean communities through a personal narrative co-written by himself and his father Roger McTair. Stewart Legere - 'The Unfamiliar Everything' A conversation and collaborative performance project between The Accidental Mechanics Group and queer artists working in different media from every major region of Canada. This extraordinary meeting of LGBTQ2+ artists is an experiment in collaboration across genres over massive distances, an exploration of the pains and beauties of queer loneliness, queer spirituality, and a celebration of the chosen family. Jennifer Tarver - 'Bear Witness' 'Bear Witness' is a large-scale choreographed theatrical narrative embedded in the body of a choir. Part autobiography and part fairy tale, 'Bear Witness' uses a multi-voiced choir as a metaphor for the human body. The work explores a common human tendency to bury or hide stories deep within our bodies. Touching on events of both trauma and joy the work follows a journey excavation and re-interpretation of a personal history. Rimah Jabr - 'Broken Shapes' Rimah Jabr is a Brussels and Palestine-based playwright now working in Toronto. Jabr, along with visual artist Dareen Abbas, is creating a new performance piece investigating what happens to humanity in the context of borders, surveillance, and fear. 'Broken Shapes' is a hybrid theatrical and audio-visual experience in which live performance, installation, and video explore how physical surroundings affect us mentally.

Say hello to Victoria Mata, the artist in the very first iteration of The Theatre Centre’s Finishing stream. This stream creates an opportunity for artists to take a work that has been in development for years into an intensive period of design and technical experimentation. 'Cacao: A Venezuelan Lament' is a multi-sensorial interactive dance installation that explores the socio-cultural-historic-political traces of Venezuela’s cacao industry through the story of two cousins ...reuniting. Inspired by creator and choreographer Victoria Mata’s childhood memories of playing in Venezuela’s cacao farms, cracking open cacao pods and sucking on the cotton-soft fruit. This installation is an homage to Venezuela’s cacao farmers and their resilience to preserve their way of life in the face of national crisis and the pressures of neoliberal industrialization. See more

Meet the artists embarking on Explorations this year! The Exploration stream will allow artists to spend a year supported in their pursuit of burning questions that may impact a larger work or the future shape of their practice. Neema Bickersteth & Nikki Shaffeeullah - 'Black Paris: The Notion of Song' This interdisciplinary performance piece fuses music, installation, and theatrical storytelling. It draws from Alice Walker’s seminal essay 'In Search of Our Mothers’ Gard...ens,' and other themes relating to the nature of art forms and ‘artists’, race and culture, moms, flowers, and beauty. Milton Lim & Patrick Blenkarn - 'asses.masses' 'asses.masses' is a solo videogame performance for multiple players about sharing the load of revolution. The narratives of multiple asses collide in a journey through the obsolescence of the manual labourer, political idealism, digital labour, and virtual revolution. Lorena Torres Loaiza - 'Pandora in the Box' Lorena is building a giant comic people can walk through, moving the rules of comics page layout to a 3D space. This work will explore how hope is preserved, lost, and how it can be created anew. Thomas McKechnie - 'Anticapitalist Ritual Magic' Weird communist and erratic prophet, Thomas McKechnie is creating new rituals for a new world that’s coming. Prayers to prevent burnout. Funerals for the bosses in our heads. Renaming rituals for queers and criminals, blessings for burning cop cars, all the magic we’ll need to overthrow capitalism. Anand Rajaram - 'The Monster From Inside the Third Dimension' This is an immersive choose-your-own-adventure 50s-horror/sci-fi-inspired project presented in a VR video game-style setting with escape room puzzles and wandering interactive characters that may be friends or foes. Adam Lazarus - 'Bouffon' Bouffon is very alive theatre. It’s vicious. It’s visceral. It laughs at the hypocrisies of the human experience. It walks the razor's edge of offense and necessity: we’re ugly, now watch, laugh, and admit complicity. 'Bouffon' is a creation lab, where a group of diverse artists will muck around in the bouffon form and create something epic.

Introducing the newest Residency artists! Residency provides artists with the necessary space, funding, and mentorship to craft ideas still in their infancy into finished works that are provocative, innovative, and ambitious. Nehal El-Hadi - untitled Nehal El-Hadi is a writer, researcher, and editor. She’s working towards live arts events that challenge the audience to consider their relationships with technology, and to explore both positive and negative implications fo...r racialized groups. Brandon Ash-Mohammed - untitled Brandon Ash-Mohammed is an award-winning comedian & writer based in Toronto. His Hip-Hopera is a one-person show based on his life that explores the breakdown he had 6 years ago that caused him to stop performing. daniel jelani ellis - 'Iris Malcolm Housing Co-op' daniel jelani ellis (he/him) is a Toronto-based artist from Jamaica. 'Iris Malcolm Housing Co-op' is a trilogy exploring ambition, currency, and community featuring the plays Rosie, Kwik Pick, and i-and-i. Prince Amponsah & Viktor Lukawski - 'LIMBS' 'LIMBS' is a project that is the beginning of important research: to redefine puppetry through a differently-abled body, and what it means to manipulate without the use of one’s hands. It is a collaboration between two theatre artists, Prince Amponsah and Viktor Lukawski, who are developing a project that they have yet to experience in the world of puppetry and visual theatre. PJ Prudat & Jonathan Seinen - 'À la façon du pays' PJ Prudat and Jonathan Seinen are friends. They make theatre separately and together. This piece will be a time-travelling, multidisciplinary public performance of the very private. An exploration of their relationship, imagining what it may have been five hundred years ago, meeting under that time’s Fur Trade/colonial reality.

Last night, our team spent some socially distant time together on the steps of The Theatre Centre for #LightUpLive. A huge thank you to Natalie, Tim, and Navid for lighting the building up. COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on the lives of those who work in the live event industry. Theatres and other venues were the first to close and will likely be the last to reopen. We lit the building in red in solidarity with artists and workers across the country calling on elected officials for action and support. We look forward to a future where we can all be together again.

At the end of September, almost all major indie theatre venues may be evicted due to pandemic-affected income, landlord fear-mongering, rejecting the rent-relief benefit, and lack of qualification for CEBA. Contact your elected officials today to let them know that this is unacceptable and they must act now. The organizers of this event will share contact lists as well as email and voicemail templates for your use. Let’s save our spaces! #IMissLiveTheatreTO

Calling all emerging artists: the Paprika Festival wants to hear your big, bold, beautiful ideas! Applications are being accepted right now for all programs including Director’s Lab, Design Lab, and Indigenous Arts Training Program. Year-round training and mentorship is FREE for all participants. Applications are due September 30th. Apply by September 30: http://ow.ly/e3Rn50Bu5vF

TAPA's awareness campaign, #MissingLiveTheatreTO, runs September 2127, 2020, in solidarity with Playwrights Guild of Canada, IATSE, The AFC - the lifeline for Canada's entertainment industry, Associated Designers of Canada, Canadian Actors' Equity Association, ACTRA Toronto, and more. The Theatre Centre will be participating in Light Up Live on Tuesday, September 22. Follow TAPA Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts for more details and visit tapa.ca to get involved.

On Tuesday, Sept. 22, an hour after sundown, The Theatre Centre will be lit up red in support of Light Up Live, a day of visibility raising awareness for industries still in the dark. Arts, entertainment and recreation workers continue to suffer the impact of COVID-19 cancellations. In response, Light Up Live is calling for more government support. Learn more at https://lightuplive.ca/ #iMissLiveTheatreTO

#TBT to our Residency intake party! In any other year, we'd be wining and dining in the building but this year we hosted our first-ever zoom dinner party welcoming new artists, current creators, collaborators, and staff. At The Theatre Centre, we often talk about being humans in a room: a moment to come together, put faces to names, and just be. However, since being in an actual room together was not an option, we were Humans in a Zoom. We’re inspired and excited for what this year may bring!