Black Out Night performance makes theatre more accessible to Black audiences

In an effort to make theatre more accessible and inclusive for the Black community, Here For Now Theatre and the cast and crew of the company’s 2022 production of Every Day She Rose is hosting a Black Out Night performance of the play exclusively for a Black-identifying audience on Aug. 9 at the Falstaff Family Centre.

The cast and crew of Here For Now Theatre’s production of Every Day She Rose are excited to welcome members of the Black community to the theatre company’s first Black Out Night performance, a recent trend started in New York City in 2019 aimed at making theatre, particularly Black stories, more accessible and inclusive for Black audiences. Pictured are Every Day She Rose associate director Tiffany Deriveau, actor Robbie Towns who plays Mark/Nick in the play, and actor Jenni Burke who plays Cathy Ann/Andrea. (Galen Simmons/The Beacon Herald)

Stratford’s Here For Now Theatre and the cast and crew of its 2022 production, Every Day She Rose, are hoping to help make theatre more accessible and inclusive for members of the Black community by hosting the company’s first Black Out Night performance next week.

Following a trend that started with a performance of Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play in New York City in 2019 that quickly caught on in theatres across Canada, a Black Out is the purposeful creation of an environment in which an exclusively Black-identifying audience can experience the work of Black storytellers, performers and artists in a safe space.

“Traditionally, especially in Canada, theatre has been a predominately white space,” Every Day She Rose associate director Tiffany Deriveau said in recent interview. “There has been a lot of recent conversation about bringing new kinds of stories to the theatre – BIPOC stories, Indigenous stories, marginalized stories, queer stories. We want to also make sure we’re inviting a broader scope of audience to the theatre as well.

“I think some groups don’t necessarily feel safe or welcome yet, so this is kind of a way to open the door and say, ‘You are welcome here,’ and we’re adding this layer of safety by saying it’s going to be an exclusively Black-identifying night. We’re saying, ‘Feel free to be yourselves. Feel free to experience this story, which will touch on some very sensitive topics, in a space where you feel like you’re embraced by your community.’ ”

Co-written by Andrea Scott and Nick Green, and directed in Stratford by Monique Lund, Every Day She Rose tells the story of Cathy Ann, a straight Black woman, and her roommate Mark, a gay white man, as they struggle to reconcile their racial and queer politics in the midst of the real-life fallout from the Black Lives Matter protest that disrupted the 2016 Toronto Pride Parade.

As the characters discuss and work through their own views of what happened and how it affected their own communities, the playwrights – who share the same identities as their characters – simultaneously work together to figure out how to tell the story of a significant turning point in a friendship.

“It deals with issues that are important to minority demographics – queer people, Black people. … I think it’s so important because, before, I think (theatre) has been very white. Some of these stories weren’t being told for African, queer, feminist (communities). They weren’t being told and they weren’t being programmed. So it’s not necessarily that this is important to be seen by a Black audience – which it is – but this initiative should go forward (for all types of audiences) throughout (the theatre industry),” said Robbie Towns, the actor who plays Mark/Nick in the play.

Since the idea of a Black Out performance is to remove barriers for a community that’s traditionally been excluded from mainstream theatre – whether deliberately or incidentally due to social, economic or other reasons – tickets to the performance, which starts at 8 p.m. on Aug. 9 at the Falstaff Family Centre, will be pay what you can.

“I can speak for my family,” said Jenni Burke, the actor who plays Cathy Ann/Andrea in the play. “They didn’t really spend extra dollars to go to theatre. They spent it on shopping or maybe a trip where we all go to the museum or something like that, so this is a way to make it accessible.

“There’s a director in New York named Joe Papp who started the first pay what you can. He always thought that theatre should be like the library where everyone should be able to go and enjoy and learn and tell stories and share and be a collective – not to feel stressed by it, but just to be there and gather and share a story.”

In the Stratford area, where the white culture remains dominant, Burke and Deriveau are particularly excited about the prospect of bringing together and building up the local Black community.

“People have told me, ‘There are no Black people in Stratford. No one’s going to come,’” Burke said. “Of course there’s Black people in Stratford. I met a man in Shoppers (Drug Mart) who’s from Nigeria and he said, ‘I moved here during COVID and I haven’t met anybody.’ (When) I told him (about Black Out Night) he goes, ‘I’ll be there. You tell me when.’ It’s just a way for the community to get together.”

“I think that’s our number-one goal,” added Deriveau.” To say they’re here, they’re a vibrant part of the fabric of this community, they’re contributing and they want to feel welcome and feel like there’s a space here for them.

“We see you and you’re welcome here.”

For more information about Every Day She Rose and to purchase tickets for Black Out Night or the play’s other performances, visit www.herefornowtheatre.com/every-day-she-rose or call the Here For Now box office at 519-272-4368.

gsimmons@postmedia.com