We share everything. We want to democratize theatre and welcome more artists. Because more artists mean more stories. To get there we share our resources and create new models to help artists overcome barriers to make and tour their work.
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artists supported
"With their absolute dedication to making Toronto’s theatre community a more diverse and accessible landscape, the company is changing the face of theatre-making in Toronto, and in Canada."
–Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, Co-Artistic Directors of Quote Unquote Collective
Why Not Theatre are the true champions of the independent artist. I am constantly floored by their commitment to giving me and all other artists a platform. They provide what we need, they’re so accommodating. d’bi’s been in theatre for 20 years and she’s never seen anything like it.
–daniel jelani ellis, riser project artist
1s1 theatre
1S1 is a Deaf-led theatre company founded by Dawn Jani Birley. Dawn was born to a third generation Deaf family in Saskatchewan and identifies herself as culturally and linguistically Deaf. She is a multi-award winning professional Deaf actor with more than 15 years of experience working all over the world. Holding a Master of Arts degree in Physical Theatre from London, it is her desire to continue creating work that challenges people’s perception of Deafness as well as rebutting ideologies and myths surrounding Deafness. Provoking the hearing world is one of the ways to push for positive changes for us as a society.
paul watson productions
Led by Liza Paul and Bahia Watson, paul watson productions is a force dedicated to creating politically conscious work that doesn’t take itself too seriously. pomme is french for apple, their first collaboration and international sensation was a simultaneously West Indian and vaudevillian exploration of the absurdity of women’s lives, from the Carribean to London to the too-tight crotch of the pants. After supporting international touring of pomme in 2014, we are reuniting with paul watson to support their next collaboration MASHUP, where these two ringmasters welcome dozens of feminine, trans, folks of colour, and all ability to their circus, filled with weird and wonderful things. It’s political, experiential, communal, and completely fun.
shaista latif
Shaista Latif is a working-class Queer Afghan-Canadian multidisciplinary artist, consultant, and facilitator. We were first inspired by Shaista during RISER Project 2016, where she workshopped The Archivist. In 2020, we are proud to support the continued touring of this work across Ontario. To add to that excitement, we have partnered with Koffler Centre of the Arts to provide a unique, salaried, year-long residency in 2019–20, supporting her research and conducting her participatory workshop How I Learned to Serve Tea. This work asks participants to question the politics of capacity and resource sharing, and how they are influenced by individual and collective understandings of class and identity.
quote unquote collective
Under the co-artistic directorship of Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, Quote Unquote Collective is dedicated to creating works that deal with urgent social and political themes by any means necessary. It’s easy to understand why we get along. Since 2015, we’ve dedicated time and resources to the creation and dissemination of their work–across Canada, and around the world. Beginning with support of Mouthpiece at RISER Project, followed by two years of international touring, we then co-produced their second creation, Now You See Her, and are currently collaborating on their next project, a large-scale piece with an international cast, called Universal Childcare.
sunny drake
Sunny Drake is a playwright, theatre creator and producer whose inventive plays/performance works have been translated into 4 languages and presented in over 60 cities across the world. His wide range of audiences have spanned international arts festivals, elderly ladies in regional theatres and queers in underground warehouses. We are excited to support his work by producing the pilot episode of Climate Change and Other Small Talk, a series of short audio plays about the absurdness of our lives with climate chaos as a backdrop, written by artists from across the world in collaboration with Sunny Drake. These humorous shorts will illuminate the forces shaping our responses to climate change, and will be developed in partnership with global climate justice networks.
new harlem productions
New Harlem Productions is a project based arts organization prioritizing marginalized narratives under the leadership of artistic director Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, and governance of a volunteer advisory committee chaired by Kern Albert.
They are concerned with their impact on people, places and things. Projects are undertaken with consideration for sustainability, solidarity, professional development, equitable resource distribution, social implications and front-line experiences.
They try to be good people, making good art.
We are thrilled to be a partner on New Harlem’s Community Justice Forum, which will run online from May 4-16. Join them for two weeks of community conversation, with hosts Warona Setschwaelo and Natasha “Courage” Bacchus (who is also a ThisGen 2021 Fellow!).
New Harlem is workshopping The First Stone, a play drawn from the stories of child abductees exploited in combat. The story is about the communities from which these children are stolen, and the determination to bring them home. This work requires them to consider the implications of our approaches to justice, beyond broad principles. They look to their communities for acts of restitution, restoration, reconciliation – at global, national institutional and interpersonal levels.
They want to consider how theory around justice manifests in our collective and individual lived experiences. They want to be challenged, informed, driven into reflection and action. The Justice Forum sets the table for a number of critical (and digital) conversations.
ian kamau
Ian Kamau is an artist, writer, and designer who grew up in the Esplanade (St. Lawrence) neighbourhood of downtown Toronto. He has featured on projects by K-OS and Shad, and released seven independent projects including Love & Other Struggles (2010) and the self-produced album One Day Soon (2011).
As a artist in residence at The Theatre Centre Kamau has developed Loss, a Live-Arts Multi-Media performance that explores the trauma of loss in Afro-Caribbean communities. Workshop performances were mounted at the Luminato Festival in Toronto, La Chapelle Theatre in Montreal.
nikki shaffeeullah
Nikki Shaffeeullah (she/her) is a theatre & film artist, facilitator, writer, equity worker, and community organizer. Her work has included serving as Artistic Director of The AMY Project; and Editor-in-Chief of alt.theatre: cultural diversity and the stage. Nikki produces sector-change projects through her organization Undercurrent Creations, and is a founding member of Confluence Arts Collective, a group of artists-activists who believe in transformative justice and a world without prisons. A queer Indo-Caribbean settler born and living in Toronto, Nikki believes that art should disrupt the status quo, centre the margins, engage with the ancient, dream of the future, and be for everyone.
paul watson productions
Led by Liza Paul and Bahia Watson, paul watson productions is a force dedicated to creating politically conscious work that doesn’t take itself too seriously. pomme (is french for apple), their first collaboration and international sensation was a simultaneously west indian and vaudevillian exploration of the absurdity of women’s lives from the Carribean to London to the too-tight crotch of the pants. After supporting international touring of pomme in 2014, we are reuniting with paul watson in support of their next collaboration MASHUP, these two ringmasters, welcome dozens of feminine, trans, folks of colour and different ability to their circus, filled with weird and wonderful things. It’s political, experiential, communal, and completely fun.
