50 years of representation: Black Theatre Workshop marks a milestone

For half a century, Montreal-based Black Theatre Workshop (BTW) has been telling stories of and by Black artists on stage, making it the longest-running Black theatre company in Canada.

The company came from modest beginnings, starting out as the drama committee of the Trinidad and Tobago Association of Montreal.  At the time, members of the committee felt the theatre stages in the city were sorely lacking stories about them, their culture and their lives as Black people in Canada.

“They started the early version of Black Theater Workshop to address that lack,” said Artistic Director Quincy Armorer. “We’ve now become a fully professional company that’s achieved a lot of success.”

A scene from The Gingerbread Lady. Credit: Black Theatre Workshop

‘Diversity’ is mainstream

Armorer said the longevity and success of the company is proof that representation not only matters, but is what audiences want.

“There are … Canadian stories other than the settler stories to be told,” he said. “It’s been 50 years. So saying that there isn’t going to be an audience for that … that’s not an excuse anymore. Canadians overall want to see a diversity of representation on their stages.”

To that end, Armorer feels companies like Black Theatre Workshop are doing vital work to breakdown archaic ideas that people of colour and their experiences are somehow outside the norm.

“We just need to retrain ourselves to think that the stories of Black communities or Indigenous communities or other underrepresented communities, aren’t ‘the other’ stories, they aren’t on the fringe. These are the stories of the people,” he said.

A scene from ‘How Black Mothers Say I Love You.’ Credit: Black Theatre Workshop

Black Theatre Workshop and Black Lives Matter

Armorer says, to some extent, he sees parallels with the origins of the company and that of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

“I think the philosophy behind the Black Lives Matter movement is very much the same as the philosophy that started Black Theatre Workshop in the beginning. BTW exists because they felt that Black lives mattered and [their] stories mattered,” he says.

A scene from The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God. Credit: Black Theatre Workshop

He adds that given that BTW’s work is about the Black experience, it follows that the resurgence of the current BLM movement would find its way onto their stage. Many of the works in the company’s upcoming season speak directly to the contemporary movement.

“This is very current and very important to a lot of the playwrights that are out there, so we’re going to support them in the stories that they want because it’s the stories that we want,” he says. “I think it would be irresponsible of us as a Black organization to not actually be addressing specifically Black Lives Matter in some of the work that we do.”

Coping with COVID-19

“Our entire industry has just essentially been decimated [by COVID-19]. It’s quite devastating,” said Armorer. “[But] we’re a very resilient bunch, those of us who are theatre folk.”

Like many other live events, BTW is adjusting to the inability to perform in front of an audience by going virtual.

Their upcoming season will consist of several livestreamed performances and readings as well as their annual awards show and a poetry jam.

“It’s not quite the same thing though. I think we’re still navigating that desire to want to be productive and to support the art and the artists, but realizing that if it’s online, it’s not really what we’re all trained to do,” said Armorer. “It’s been a difficult time for the industry, but we’re all crossing our fingers and hoping that we’ll be able to come back to doing theater, at least in some way, close to the way that we used to do it before.”

In the meantime, Armorer hopes BTW will inspire people to discover and support diverse theatre and artists across the country.

“I want to tell people about the incredible talent that exists in this country, the Black artists that are creating and developing new work and thriving in this industry from coast to coast to coast. It’s quite extraordinary,” he said. “I hope that we can be an example to the industry on how art that reflects underrepresented communities can be successful and can thrive.”

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