Watah Theatre & Black Theatre School 2025-2026 Kincentric Theatre Season Wrap-Up
Dear Global Village,
My deepest appreciation goes to our extraordinary Board of Directors—Kemba King, Behbeit Burrell, and Nehal El-Hadi—whose wisdom, generosity, unwavering leadership, and belief in the vision of Watah Theatre and the Black Theatre School made this season possible.
I also extend profound gratitude to Sashoya Simpson, our Associate Artistic Director, whose artistic leadership, strategic vision, and steadfast partnership were instrumental throughout the season.
To the Theatre Centre for their generous residency partnership and steadfast support of the 20th Anniversary remount of The Sankofa Trilogy. Your belief in the work created the conditions for this important homecoming to unfold.
My heartfelt thanks also go to Kabrena Robinson, Samson Bonkeabantu Brown, Elle de Lyon, Candice Dixon, Selina McCallum and Nicole Brumley, each of whom brought extraordinary artistry, imagination, and dedication to this journey. Your contributions across performance, design, production, dramaturgy, movement, artistic collaboration, and photography profoundly shaped the work and strengthened the creative ecology of The Watah Theatre and Black Theatre School. To Djanet Sears and Saikou Saho, thank you for embodying eldership and always making time to guide me along the way.
Special appreciation goes to Yasmin Ahmed, a Black Theatre School practitioner whose generosity, commitment, and tireless support were essential to the mounting of both shx mami wata & the pxssywitch hunt and Under the Mango Tree. This year belonged to all of us.
When I returned to Tkaronto last year, after seven years of graduate study in London, UK, I returned with a renewed vision for my artistic practice and community. Completing my PhD in Black Womyn's Theatre allowed me to articulate the Anitafrika Dub Praxis—the creative philosophy and methodology that guides my work. Returning to Tkaronto gave me the opportunity to put that research into practice by re-establishing Watah Theatre, launching the Black Theatre School, and opening the Watah Studio Theatre. Together, they became the foundation of our 2025–2026 Kincentric Theatre Season.
Over 13 months, Watah Theatre and the Black Theatre School produced 13 theatrical interventions while simultaneously creating a year-round ecology of artistic development, professional theatre employment, public programming, and community gathering. Over fifty Black arts practitioners were employed—many on multiple occasions—as playwrights, directors, dramaturges, performers, designers, technicians, producers, photographers, musicians, administrators, and facilitators. Together, we welcomed audiences of more than 3,600 people across 70 individual events featuring performances, festivals, workshops, public conversations, and community celebrations, most of which were offered at low cost and free of charge to ensure accessibility.
Throughout the season, I simultaneously served as Artistic Director, producer, playwright, director, dramaturge, performer, and femtor. Occupying these interconnected roles is a lived expression of the Anitafrika Dub Praxis, in which artistic creation, leadership, pedagogy, scholarship, institution-building, and community care constitute a single, integrated practice. Each role informed the others, allowing every production, residency, festival, and gathering to become part of a larger ecology of Black artistic practice.
This degree of multitasking is also necessary when the initiative is consistently denied funding, as has been the case for the Black Theatre School.
Alongside our productions, the Black Theatre School supported a cohort of Artists-in-Residence through intensive training in the Anitafrika Method. Their work culminated in three artist-led festivals—the Mikey Smith Raw Works Festival, Audre Lorde Works-in-Process Festival, and Word! Sound! Powah! Festival—where we shared works-in-development with the public as part of an ongoing process of artistic inquiry and community dialogue.
The season also expanded beyond theatre production. We gathered our communities through Find Your People (led by Projects Weaver Kabrina Robinson), which created an affirming space for Black, Indigenous, and racialised queer communities to connect through art, conversation, and celebration, and through the inaugural Black Womxn Theatre Awards, which celebrated the extraordinary contributions of Black womyn theatre practitioners across Turtle Island. Over 70 Black womyn theatre makers were honoured with awards at the event. This ceremony marked the official launch of the Black Womxn Theatre Archive Project.
This season affirmed what Watah Theatre has believed/practiced since its founding in 2008– that Black theatre is about cultivating artists, building institutions, preserving our stories, creating new methodologies, strengthening our communities, and imagining liberated futures. The Black Theatre School extends that commitment by investing in artists as creative leaders whose practices ripple outward into communities across North Turtle Island and beyond.
Looking back, the greatest accomplishment of the Kincentric Theatre Season was the creation of an artistic ecology in which performance, pedagogy, scholarship, mentorship, community gathering, and cultural leadership coexisted. And 13 productions in 13 months is something we are profoundly proud of.
As I step into the next chapter of my journey, I do so held within the concentric kinship circles of Black womyn theatre-makers whose ancestoryal labour made mine possible. I take this next trod, knowing that Watah Theatre, the Black Theatre School, and the Watah Studio Theatre have become living homes for the Anitafrika Dub Praxis. What we built together over these thirteen months belongs to the future of Black theatre.
To every artist who trusted the process. To every audience member who witnessed the work. To every volunteer, donor, collaborator, femtee, technician, administrator, photographer, musician, designer, and community member who gave so generously of your time, talent, and spirit. Thank you for believing in Watah Theatre, the Black Theatre School, and the possibility of what Black artists can build together.
The work continues. Ase Ancestors. Ase Spirit Guides. Ase Community. Ase Collaborators. Ase Artists. Ase Watah Theatre. Ase Black Theatre School. Ase Black arts practitioner.
Please join us for the Watah 2025-2026 Kincentric Theatre Season Book Launch & End of Season Celebration on Friday July 24, 2026 @ 7pm at the Watah Studio Theatre. 32 Lisgar Street, Studio 13, Tkaronto, M6J 0C7.
RSVP: https://forms.gle/NASTULGLMW3RuViw7
FOR MORE INFO: contact@blacktheatreschool.com