Uche Ama

Uche Ama is a Black queer performer, actor & vocalist born on the indigenous land called Tkaronto. She is passionate about cathartic art that intrigues and makes you ask questions. A 2019 Dora nominated graduate of the Music Theatre Performance program at St Clair College and an alumni of  ‘Broadway Theatre Project’, her previous performances include 21 Black Futures (Obsidian Theatre & CBC Arts),The Negroes Are Congregating (Piece Of Mine Arts) & Obeah Opera (Asah Productions).

www.ucheamaartist.com
Instagram: @ucheama89
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uamaartist

Support Stageworthy
Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/stageworthy
Merch: https://shop.stageworthyproductions.com/

Transcript

Welcome to episode 298 of Stageworthy. I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. Stageworthy is a podcast about people in Canadian theatre featuring conversations with actors, directors, playwrights, and more.

If you’ve enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider supporting it. You can do that by making a donation either one time or continuing in the tip jar. I’ve put a link to that in the show notes, which you can see on the website or on your podcast app.

Or you can some merch at the online store, shop.stageworthyproductions.com. In the store you’ll find Stageworthy t-shirts, mugs, stickers, as well as merch from some of my other projects, including the much coveted God Chose Me to Deliver His New Commandment and All I Got Was a Stupid T-Shirt t-shirt from my solo play The Commandment. All your purchases and tip jar donations go towards Stageworthy and help me continue to bring you great conversations in Canadian theatre. And if you can’t donate or buy from the store, please consider rating and reviewing the show.

If you listen on Apple Podcasts, you can leave a review right in the podcast app. If you don’t listen on Apple Podcasts, you can still review the show by going to podchaser.com, searching for Stageworthy, and rating the podcast there. Thanks for listening, and thank you for your support.

You can find Stageworthy on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at StageworthyPod, and you can find the website with the archive of all 298 episodes at StageworthyPodcast.com. And if you want to drop me a line, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Philrickaby, and my website is Philrickaby.com. My guest this week is performer, actor, and vocalist, Uche Ama. So how has, uh, how have you been, uh, with, I mean, I feel like that’s it. Every time I ask people that, the question, how have you been, there’s this long pause before they answer.

Yeah, yeah. I feel like especially right now, as we in Ontario, we’re on the cusp of beginning to open up. Fingers crossed.

Yeah. Um, I’ve actually been well. I have had opportunities to thrive throughout this time period because I am a homebody by nature.

So it’s been nice not feeling that obligation to, to be out and about and just being able to spend time with my family and focus on things that I want to focus on. Um, but yeah, but it’s also had its hard moments for sure. Like I miss my, I miss my friends a lot.

You know, as a, as somebody who’s pretty much a homebody, I’m an introvert by nature. Um, I, I, for a lot of, for a lot of the time with this whole, like stay at home thing, I spend a lot of time being like, I’m okay. I could do this just fine.

And then every so often, I’m like, I need to have a party and have my friends over. Right. Right.

Like, honestly, full disclosure, a friend of mine that I’ve been seeing frequently because we tend to work together, um, gave me a hug the other day and like, he’s fully vaccinated and stuff, but like, it was just so, it was so nice. And yeah, you may have like people in your house that you hug and everything, but it’s different, you know? No. Yeah.

It’s like, it’s been so with a few times that I’ve gone on like socially distanced walks with socially distanced walks with friends, you see them and your instinct is to hug your friend because you haven’t seen them in so long. Yeah. But then you have to be like, elbows, elbows.

Yeah. The elbows, the elbow touch, the elbow touch. I, for a while there, um, at the beginning of the pandemic, I work in the events industry and we were still going on to stuff or like the planning to last March.

And the, our, our, our CEO was like, okay, so no handshakes. It’ll be weird. Do the elbow or do the foot touch.

And I was like, I’m a fan of the foot touch. Is that like, you just touch big toes? Yeah. Just tap feet together.

And that felt like the safest possible greeting. I love that. I actually think I did that one time.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so, so interesting how we find our ways to still have human connection, you know? Well, that’s the thing is because we are, we are driven to that.

We are driven to human connection. No matter how introverted we may be, we still need the people around us. Yeah.

And we need to connect with them. Yeah. And I think this has been a big realization to a lot of people to how much they need a support system, how much they need folks around them, you know? Yeah.

Not just around them, but like, you know, to be able to connect with, with people. Yeah. Present.

Yeah. And, and one thing that we’ve learned for sure is that a video is no replacement for in-person connection. Oh my goodness.

It isn’t. It isn’t. And through this process, I’ve had some rehearsal moments on Zoom that have been so beautiful and touching and fulfilling, but I’m always wanting to punch my computer because I’m like, I, I should be in the room with all of you.

Like this, this could be amplified and so much more and be even more impactful if I like got to touch your skin or. I just feel like, I mean, hands down, I have been so proud and impressed with every theatre artist who has done something online. Absolutely impressed.

Because I know that over a year and a half ago, if you’d asked them if they could do something online, they would have told you, no, I’m not technical enough to do that. Yeah. Or even just the, the need to audition, you know, like you gotta be a videographer.

You gotta be a sound technician. Now you gotta be able to edit your own videos. It’s yeah.

It’s been such a learning curve for sure. And that’s the thing that impresses me is that pretty much everybody has successfully transitioned somehow. Now, of course, nobody wants it to be permanent and we all want to be back in the theatre, but it’s kind of been like amazing to see.

And I will be interested to see if how we can keep the things that we’ve learned and bring them into the theatre. Yes. Because this is a conversation 100% about accessibility because, oh my goodness, the things that I have actually been able to watch, right.

Just because now they have to be online, like it’s, it’s amazing. It’s amazing. You get so many more opportunities because, and now it’s just because everyone is home, but what about folks that can’t leave their houses ever on a daily basis, have an allergy to the sun, like have a disability and can’t make it to the theatre? Like this has opened so many doors and so many conversations about like accessibility specifically.

And I’m hoping that the conversations continue. I really hope so. I have this vision of the theatre where you can go for an in-person ticket, but we’ve rigged it up with like at least three cameras so that you can have a digital ticket, see it live.

And we’ve not only opened it up for people who, for whatever ableist reason, can’t get to the theatre, but also for people who financially can’t afford that Mirvish ticket at however much it costs. And also to open it up more for, for people who, you know, live in Edmonton and they’re interested in seeing what’s going on in Toronto, want to see what’s going on in Edmonton. Yeah.

Yeah, no, it’s, it’s astounding and I really hope it continues. I really hope so too. I do feel like the cynic in me feels like that the equity theatres are going to open up and not do it, but it’ll, the indie theatres have the opportunity to do it and to push for that to become the norm.

100%. A mentor of mine is a part of the Sarasolo Theatre Festival out in Florida, and this year it was online and I got to see people that I haven’t seen in so long do productions and, and put their work on stage. That’s another thing that’s been amazing too, because I don’t know what have, have been the holdups in terms of, well, you can’t do those big shows online.

So playwrights who’ve never been heard of have been getting opportunities to put on their work, to see their work come to life, no matter how it really is coming to life, but like hearing your words in someone else’s mouth with the characterization work that they’ve done, like that is just been an amazing opportunity for so many young playwrights, upcoming playwrights, Black playwrights, Indigenous playwrights that never got the opportunity to do that before. Yeah. Yeah.

I, that’s another thing that I have to say that I really hope that we continue to see is the voices that we’re amplifying now, when the theatres reopen, that we’re still amplifying those and that it’s not just a bunch of like, well, the theatre’s reopened, let’s do another production of Grease. Oh my, my chest litreally just contracted because that’s, it’s such a deep fear for me because I personally have moved away from a lot of musical theatre because I felt that I, I didn’t have the opportunity to see myself in any of the things that were on stage. I couldn’t do it.

And for me as an artist, as an actor, as someone that has performing as it’s a true passion for me, I want to be able to relate to even one piece of the character that I’m playing. And I found that wasn’t happening in musical theatre at all. So I started doing more straight up acting and I found that even more, but I’m hoping that this gives playwrights, new playwrights opportunities to create new musicals with more content that’s not typical American musical theatre vibes, you know? I do.

I do. I mean, I think I honestly, we need more musicals. We need to stop doing the same old ones all the time.

And, you know, we need to, we need to foster that with some great musicals have come out of Canada and we need to keep that, that going. And another way that one of the things, and tell me if you think that I’m, I’m, I’m wrong is I do feel like, like musical theatre has, and theatre in general sort of gets tied to the whole, like, well, you know, we have to have a certain type of person on the stage. We can’t have, you know, we can’t, we can’t have this white couple, this white person and this black person be a couple.

We can’t have them play brother and sister. But I think that’s so short sighted in looking at the way that you look at your audience, because audiences will believe whatever you tell them to believe. 100%.

Like they really will. In that moment, you’ve created an environment. You’ve created a world for the people who’ve been let into that world as audience members.

So whatever you put on that stage, they’re going to believe. I mean, to an extent, I mean, I wouldn’t want to go to cabaret and see people like a bunch of black people, because I feel like that would be weird, you know, like in terms of the time period would not have been, it would not have been appropriate. People would have been injured.

People would have been hurt. People would have been abused. In that regard, no.

But in any situation where colour is not a part of the storyline, yes. Absolutely. I mean, you know, there’s so many musicals that I could look at and be like, so what’s the reason why Seymour Crelborn has to be a white guy? Exactly.

But it’s always cast that way. Yes, it is. I think we really need to break those rules.

Like those are those quote unquote rules. We have to stop thinking that our audience is just not going to abide if we don’t put that person on, like we don’t put a white guy in that role, because like you said, and like I said, they will believe whatever you put up there. They will suspend disbelief and just go with it.

And that’s the beauty of theatre. So why not take the reins and really push the boundaries? That’s what makes it exciting. I don’t want to go to see a show where I leave and I’m like, oh, that was that was great.

I want to I want to go see a piece of theatre that is thought provoking. I want to see something that makes me ask questions. I want to see something that makes me go home and Google shit.

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know what? It’s funny that the whole like what audiences I worked as an usher at one of the larger theatres, it’s run when I learned really quickly, did I probably probably, you know, exchange notes.

What I learned was like and I was I was occasionally on the door and I learned a lot about what audiences say when they didn’t like a play and they don’t want to admit that they didn’t like the play because they paid a lot of money for the ticket. Yeah. And what they always say is they did such a good job.

Such a good job. The lighting was beautiful. It’s just it’s just like I always heard like, you know, it seems some shows that were not awesome.

And that’s what people would say. And every one of them would do it. They did such a good job.

Or maybe you meant nothing. Yeah. You really did not connect with that show at all.

Maybe you’re saying that because you’re still in the building. Maybe it’s a different conversation when they leave the building. You never know.

Maybe it is. But I really feel like I really feel like people when they’ve paid like eighty dollars, a hundred dollars or more for their ticket and they don’t like the show, they don’t want to admit that they didn’t like the show. Yeah.

Ah, I can I can get that if you’re paying an exorbitant amount of money to for an experience that you don’t even enjoy. I mean, I’m the kind of person that would just be honest about it. But I know some people that would just be embarrassed that it was like this is a frivolous expense.

Why did I? Oh, sure. Absolutely. Absolutely.

You know, I I would I mean, I I get really pained in the theatre when it’s not good. So I you know, I will not only try to examine like, you know, why is this not working for me, but I’d be vocal about why it didn’t work for me. But that’s a vocabulary that a lot of people who are going to those big shows, especially just don’t have.

Yeah, because they’re going for pure entertainment. They’re not going to analyze, to deconstruct, to observe and and get clues and keys. But that’s how I approach theatre when I go see something like I’m analyzing.

Yeah. I at the same time, I want to be moved. I want to be taken on a journey.

But I’m I’m an actor and I’m watching and watching to see what’s happening. Yeah, absolutely. Now, one of the questions that I am often asking people who come on the show, and it’s one of my favourite questions, is to learn about your theatre origin story.

What what drew you to the theatre first? How did you decide that that was going to be your life’s pursuit? Give me give me your origin story. It’s so funny. I was like a math and science nerd for a majority of my life.

I loved chemistry and algebra. And towards the end of grade, grades, eight, I think, yeah, grade eight. Everyone’s gearing up to start going to high school.

And I was like, Yes, I want to go to Ursula Franklin Academy. And I want to major in robotics. And my whole life, arts and music has been a through line throughout it.

But it was there so much that I didn’t really think about it, you know. So I didn’t end up getting into Ursula Franklin. And my mom looked at me and was like, Okay, well, like, you gotta go to school.

So what are you gonna do? And I saw Etobicoke School of the Arts. And I was like, Okay, like, I could go to an art school. Let’s, let’s see what the offerings are there.

And I was thinking about being a band major. I was thinking of being a drama major. And then I was like, Oh, musical theatre.

I love musical theatre. Sound of Music is every, every single Christmas, me and my mom every year, without fail, Sound of Music for sure. And I start recalling, oh my goodness, I love to sing.

I love musicals. Okay, let’s let’s try this musical theatre thing. And I trained for a few months.

And then I auditioned and I got in and I was like, oh my goodness, I’m going to an art school. And then I remember grade nine sitting in my first, like musical theatre class, musical theatre focused class. And I sat there and I watched my peers get up and sing and emote.

And then I was like, I can, I can do this for a living. Like, I can do this. I can get paid to, to feel like this all the time.

And I, it was after that, I was, I was gone. I was in it. And I forgot about math.

I forgot about science. And all I cared about was theatre. All I cared about was theatre and dance and music and things that gave me that feeling in the pit of my stomach and the nape of my neck.

Like, that’s all I wanted. So now, now was, had you been in plays before or were you just like, it sounds like fun. I’m going to do it.

I, I was in dance class. I took some dance classes. I did some performances with my dance school.

I had never really done a lot of theatre, but like, yeah, I don’t know. It was, it was crazy the way it just blossomed. I never expected it to at all going into high school.

I was like, okay, I guess I’m just going to go to high school and like do a thing, but I didn’t think I was going to fall in love. I didn’t. Now, was, was Sound of Music your, your gateway into musical theatre or was there, were there other, other musicals as well? There were other musicals.

A lot of them unknown. I listened to a lot of like, African storytelling things that my parents passed on to me and tapes of little kids acting and acting out stories of, of our ancestry. And in all of them, there’s drums, there’s music, there’s dancing.

Like, but I did, like I said, I didn’t, I didn’t realize it. I didn’t realize that that was something that was such a big part of me, that performance. Yeah.

And then Sound of Music was, was the musical I always sang along to, but like, I think Wicked came out the year before I went to my first year at ESA. And that, I played that cast recording until I couldn’t play it anymore, that there are scratches all over it. That show, I was like, oh my goodness, the storytelling.

I wasn’t even watching the stage. I was just listening to the cast recording and my heart was beating and I was crying and I was like, okay, this is, this is it. Cool.

Cool. How long after listening to that cast recording, was it before you got to actually see the show? Maybe like two years later when Wicked rolled around into Toronto and Shoshana Bean was playing Elphaba. I think I saw that same performance.

Oh my, cause she wasn’t supposed to be performing. It was supposed to be someone else, but I guess they were sick that day. And I remember sitting next to my mom and I had my friend on the other side of me and the lights went down and the orchestra went bum, bum, bum, bum.

And I was like bawling, sobbing, like convulsing in the chair, crying. And my mom was just looking at me being like, oh, I’m so sorry. Like looking at people around me.

I was a wreck. I couldn’t keep it together. The show hadn’t even started.

I just felt the energy of the instruments and the drums and I lost my mind. Yeah. I’m sure you were not the only person who has had that reaction to that show.

Yeah. No, I don’t doubt it, but like I felt it was just me that day. It was only me.

Yeah. For me, my gateway to theatre entirely was cast recordings. When I was a kid, my parents had the cast, the original cast recording of Godspell, My Fair Lady, and Oklahoma.

And it was Godspell was my gateway. And I think it was because listening the first time and then suddenly realizing, oh, wait a second, all of these songs string together to tell the story. Yeah.

I love that show. That’s such a good show. Yeah.

I also love it more because in some ways, when learning about the history of theatre in Toronto, that show was sort of like an explosion of theatre for Toronto. Yeah. It was like people started to understand what it was about when Godspell came around.

Yes. Yeah, exactly. You could do something that was homegrown that was produced here, not something that just toured in.

Yeah. And also like the style of music was completely different than when people were used to experiencing in musical theatre, you know? That’s right. That’s right.

And it pretty much gave us the entire cast of SCTV. 100%. Yeah.

Yeah. So as far as musicals go, when you left school, did you continue on and do any post-secondary stuff or? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. I was at Laura Osington Theatre for a while. I did Little Shop of Horrors.

I did Avenue Q. I did Hairspray. I did some standalone like type review type shows that were based on artists. I did like a Beatles show.

So I was like pretty heavy into the musical theatre. Very, very much so. And then I kind of fell off a bit.

And then I did Disenchanted. And that was in Chicago for a month. So that was like my first touring experience.

And then after that, I did a little bit more acting. And then I did Obeah Opera in like 2019. And that brought my love for musical theatre back.

It was a three and a half hour through sung opera, a cappella. Yeah. So that brought my love for singing and theatrical singing and storytelling back.

And about a year and five months ago, were you working on something at the time that everything shut down? I had actually just closed. Well, on the 14th was my last show of The Negroes Are Congregating. Of course.

That Monday, the city locked down. So that was my last show. Right.

That was my last theatre show. But then I did have the opportunity to do 21 Black Futures. Right.

Just passed in January. So yeah. At least you got to finish that run of that show.

We didn’t think we were going to finish. We didn’t think. Because we kept hearing about more and more cases every day from the Wednesday that week.

We kept hearing, oh, this many cases. Oh, this place is shut down. This place is shut down.

I don’t know if we’re going to be able to have people in the house for our last show. Yeah. Yeah.

I think I was very nonchalant about the whole thing. Until you couldn’t be nonchalant anymore. That’s right.

Yeah. And I think the moment when I was like, oh, shit, this is serious, was when Broadway shut down. Yeah.

That was a big one. I was like, oh, oh, oh, shit, this is a real thing. Yeah.

And then, of course, very shortly after that, everything closed. Everything closed down. And you’re like, okay.

But, you know, I like to think of this period as maybe a nice hibernation where we get an opportunity to figure out what the future is going to look like. Yeah. I think, first off, for people who are in the theatre and whose life has been the nonstop hustle, this has been, for one thing, an opportunity and a forced slowdown.

This is what it feels like to breathe now and then. How does that feel? But then on the other side, the removal of the production wheel of the constant production. It can be scary.

It has. But it’s also, we could never have had the conversations that have been had if the theatres were busy. Everything was still happening.

That’s right. Yeah. Yeah.

You’re right. You’re right. I mean, we would still be having the semi-annual diversity in theatre panel where the same people show up and say the same thing.

I hate it. I hate it. Right? I hate it so much.

Because it was always the same thing, the same things being said, the same things. And everybody would be, yes, yes, things should change. And then if we weren’t so busy, we would change things.

But oh, darn it. And now- That’s why I’m sitting here. I’m waiting.

I’m waiting to see the proof. There’s been a lot of talk. Yeah.

There’s been a lot of talk. I want to see what happens. When the world opens up, what are you actually doing to stay true to a lot of the things that you said during this time? Well, that is the trick.

That is the thing that I think a lot of theatres made a lot of statements a year ago. And I hope they know that we remember that they made those statements and they made commitments to changes they were going to make. And if they don’t make them, if they just come out, if they open up and they’re like, we’re doing another production of Grease, I’m going to have something to say about it.

And I think everybody has something to say about it. I hope a lot of people have something to say about it, but that’s another thing. In the moment when emotions are high, it’s very easy to say a lot of things.

Sure. But even people who are saying, no, this needs to change. I stand by this.

This needs to change. Are you going to be auditioning for that, Grease? Yeah. Well, that’s the thing, right? Probably, yes.

Because people are like, I want to work again. But also the fact that a theatre, if a theatre goes in and they’re like, we’re doing Grease again. Unless I see, I don’t know, something that’s interesting about that production of Grease.

This time, Rydell High is a historically Black high school. Maybe that’s interesting. That would be so dope.

Wouldn’t it? That would be so interesting, but I don’t think- No, no, it’s not going to happen. Because it’s interesting and Grease is a safe choice. And also Grease is one of those shows that everybody knows.

So when you, excuse my language, when you fuck with something that everyone is tied and attached to, that’s even more cause for Sure. But I’m bored. Yeah.

Tell me about it. I don’t need to see that other production of Grease. Do something interesting with it or don’t do it.

At all. Yeah. And I really hope that we are going to see the change that was promised.

Yeah. And if we don’t, I think we have to make noise. I hope we make the most noise because it’s time.

It’s time. After all of the things that have happened this last year and a half, you have to be real ignorant not to look around and see that something is not working and hasn’t been working. So I hope that the time that we’ve been given to re-evaluate and self-reflect gives us not back to normalcy, but something better, something way better.

It would be such a waste to just go back to the way things were. It would make no sense. But you know, us humans, we’re very guilty of allowing history to repeat itself without making any changes.

Well, on the other hand, a lot of times theatre people are not so awesome at rocking the boat. Yeah. Because we’re worried about- Stability.

Yes. What if I rock the boat, maybe they won’t hire me. So I guess I should just shut up.

Yeah. Maybe I’m going to be known as the person who rocks the boat and no one wants to be that person. But yes, be that person.

Yeah. And that’s the problem is that I think that we learn early on not to… If we went to theatre school, we probably learned at theatre school, don’t rock the boat. Or you’re not going to work.

That’s right. That’s right. And that’s how theatres get away with stuff because people just don’t rock the boat.

They keep their eyes down if something untoward is happening and they don’t call it out and they just let it happen. Yep. That’s how sexual abuse is rampant in the theatre community because people are taught to stay quiet.

People are taught to not be a bother. Yeah. Yeah.

Yet another thing that has to change. I see it changing slowly, but yeah. I’ve often… This is going to sound like a terrible thing to say, but I mean, part of, I think the reason why change is slow in the theatre is because people remain in the positions of power for a very long time.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s a cushy gig.

Sure is. So you stick it out until, I guess, until you really can’t. Until you can’t and then you have to step down.

And then because we also don’t have programs in many theatres where we are looking for the next leaders, then we’re like, I guess we should find some other old white guy from, I don’t know what, England? Yeah. Let’s bring that guy from England and he’ll fill the position. Lord.

Yeah. I mean, like Weyni’s takeover of Soulpepper was like, yes. Yes.

Absolutely. That’s what we need. She was a performer.

She was the director. Then now she’s got the opportunity to give back where she was given so much. Yeah.

No, that’s the kind of environment that we want to be cultivating. Sure. Absolutely.

And we also need to change the makeup of the board of directors though. Yeah. The boards have to be as diverse- As diverse as the audiences and the actors.

It’s the only way we’ll ever see change is if we get as much diversity in the boardroom as we do in the audience and on the stage. Yeah. But how do we make that happen though? That’s a great question.

I don’t know. I think that the boards, I don’t know how the power structure works. I think the boards have to make the effort.

If somebody leaves the board, who do you find? Do I find my friend, Tom, to come or do we go looking for somebody who brings something new and not the thing that we always had? Yeah. Exactly. Change is hard.

Change is hard for- Change is hard, but I think- I crave change. I think that’s the point though. Yeah.

If change was easy, we would do it. But if change was easy, it wouldn’t be as important. Yeah.

Also, white folks hate to be uncomfortable and that’s why they hate change. Yeah. I mean, you could only imagine how uncomfortable this world can be for me- Of course.

As a Black queer woman. Come on. Yeah.

My brother is Black and so I grew up seeing the world through his eyes and I remember seeing the moment when he went from what a cute Black child to that’s a danger. That change is a massive change. And it makes no freaking sense.

Zero sense. Zero sense. But I was able to see the differences between the way he moves through the world and the way that I move through the world.

It’s tragic and it’s terrible and it has always pissed me off. It’s hard to see somebody you love going through something that really individually is out of your control because it’s been embedded in our society. That’s just how our society is.

Yeah. It is hard to see it, but it also makes it so that the rage comes up. So you have to feel like you do something, right? Yeah.

So in that way, it’s good. I think that I have known people who, in their entire lives, the only Black person they knew was my brother. Yeah.

And that’s a problem in the world. It’s easier in Canada than you would think. No, I know.

Yeah. You know, and I was actually thinking about this in a different perspective just this past week. I have spent most of my life not knowing a single Indigenous person.

You think. You think. Right.

Yeah. A lot of the time you think, but Indigenous people are all around us. Oh, sure they are.

But, you know, I’ve never had a conversation about it with someone. When I was a kid, I do not recall an Indigenous person in any of the schools I went to. Yeah.

And that… And we’re learning that’s because they were where. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

And that’s the thing is people are like, oh, it happened so long ago. I’m like, when I was in public school, that was happening. Yeah.

It’s not like the fact that the last residential school closed in 1996. Yeah. I was five.

Yeah. I was in college. I was a babe.

It was still happening. So, yeah. But I think for me, like, we do not find.

I mean, especially for, I mean, I’m going to say this again, for white people, we do not connect with people with things that we do not have experience with. Yeah. And because we have been kept away from Indigenous people through the way that Canada has been built, we do not empathize.

No. But I feel like it’s not… I don’t understand that. I don’t understand how there is a lack of empathy.

How can you not see that, like, a whole people, a whole culture is being eradicated and you don’t have a feeling about that? You have to have a feeling about that. Exactly. But because we didn’t, like, it’s like… I’m going to make a bold statement.

Okay. Bold statement is it’s like the average German before World War II. Okay.

And, you know, the Jews were emigrating. That’s what they were doing. They were emigrating.

Yeah. Rather than seeing the truth of what was happening in front of them. Mm-hmm.

Rather than seeing the, you know, the terrible things that were happening. It doesn’t affect me. I have blinders on.

Mm-hmm. Meanwhile, that’s my grandfather and his family. Yeah.

Yeah. We have a great capacity for ignoring the things that we want to ignore. That we… That’s what it is that we want to ignore.

That doesn’t… The things that don’t feel good. The things that make us question who we are, where we came from. That’s right.

But one thing in that relation that I know is, like, in Germany now… Mm-hmm. Like, it’s reportedly, I’ve never been, but one of the most accepting places because they want so much to distance themselves from any kind of hate and violence. Absolutely.

But, like, why can’t that happen here? It can, but we have to contend with it. In many ways, I think, you know, Germany is the way it was because after the war, their nose was held to it. True.

Right? So it was… They did have to face it. …contend with it. Yes.

You’re very correct. And that’s something that… Hasn’t happened. …we just keep doing the same thing.

Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, there’s something that hasn’t happened yet.

Oh my God, no, it hasn’t. It hasn’t. We’re really only just getting started.

Yeah. And, you know, it takes a will, and the will only comes from politicians when we force them to have that will. Ah, politics.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Just to try to come back to theatre for a second. You mentioned things that you’ve been doing in the theatre. Have you been doing a lot of digital productions? I’ve actually done a couple workshops.

Like I said, I did 21 Black Futures, which the rehearsal process was completely digital, and there was only like maybe two days on set. What else? A project called The First Stone, written by Donna Michelle St. Bernard. But that was a workshop opportunity as well.

Yeah. And recently, I just did a little fun thing for the Paprika Festival, and that was like an audio reading as well. That’s awesome.

Yeah. For you, what was the biggest transition? Like what was the hardest thing to learn about doing these things digitally? Being as open as I am in person. Hmm.

I find screens at times to be disconnecting, which is interesting because it has been connecting a lot of people throughout this time. But sometimes the screen kind of alienates me a little bit. And so it’s been really hard to feel.

It’s taken more effort for me to be fully engaged in some situations. Yeah. I find like when I watch the news on the screen, I desensitize myself.

I remove myself from it because I don’t know why it’s like not tangible in front of me. So it’s been real work to remove that perspective from my mind so that I could be present in these amazing projects that I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of and allow myself to be moved and changed the same way I would have felt if we were in a rehearsal room together. Yeah.

Yeah. It’s so, screens are so hard. And I never, I don’t think before this, I would have thought that screens were as hard as they are.

No, you think like, oh, this is more technology is better. It’s better. Yeah.

But one of the things for me is the fact that I can see myself. It’s like, I don’t want to look at myself. Well, it’s just that we are by nature, doesn’t matter.

We are vain creatures. And so we are always going to look at what we’re doing with our face. Mm hmm.

And it’s so hard to be like on a screen and not look at yourself. Yeah. And it’s so taking you out of the scene.

The moment. Yeah. It’s like, oh, my, I’m a mirror.

Yeah. Yeah. So bad.

So bad. I also find that screens, when you’re participating, they actually take more effort than in person. Mm hmm.

More concentration. Yeah. One hundred percent.

Yeah. It’s just hard to connect and you have to work so hard to connect over those screens. Yeah.

And I found myself really being so exhausted, more exhausted than working nine hours at my job. Sure. After being in front of the computer for six hours.

You know, I don’t think that is unusual for introverts. For an introvert, when you’re on a video on a video thing like that. One of the things that exhausts you is the fact that suddenly all of these people, it looks like they’re all staring straight at you.

Yeah. And they might not be. But it feels like it.

It sure does. It’s just like a screen full of people who were just looking at you. Yeah.

And that is exhausting. Yeah, it does. It’s tiring for sure.

And I remember like after I was on Zoom one time all day from like 10 o’clock till maybe six or seven and I closed my computer and. I wanted to just like pass out on the couch. My head was throbbing, but I didn’t notice it until the screen was gone.

Yeah. Yeah, no, it’s intense. It’s hard on the body.

I typically need a nap if I’m in a day that has a lot of meetings in it. Once that day is over, I got to take a short nap. Yeah, before you like get back to life.

Yeah, there’s no life until the nap. As we are starting in Ontario to look at opening up, and I was very glad to see that we’re allowed to rehearse outdoors now. Yeah, I’m so glad about that.

Which was a great addition. I’m so glad that was there. That it was even included because I feel like the last time there was another soft opening, they weren’t thinking about it.

No, not at all. And they’ve been thinking about film. They’ve just never been thinking about theatre.

Film has been thriving throughout the pandemic. Yeah, yeah. Is there something in particular that you were looking forward to theatre-wise or otherwise as we head towards reopening? What am I looking forward to? I’m looking forward to hugs.

Though I am an introvert, I love me a good hug. And I’m also really looking forward to rehearsing. I never realized how important that was to my process in cultivating a character.

Yeah, I can’t wait to be in a rehearsal room again. I can’t wait. It’s so hard because these digital productions, most of the time, we’re sitting down.

The energy is different. You really develop a character when you’re sitting down. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Talking about mentioning The Negroes Are Congregating, that conversation that we had with the cast and yourself is still one of my favourite conversations that I’ve ever had on this show.

It was a really good chat. Yeah. And I was so happy to be able to talk with you all.

You guys had performances that were specifically for Black audiences. We actually only had one night. One night was a Blackout night.

I know that you guys were anticipating the Blackout night when we spoke. What was that like? It’s really very hard to put into words. And as an actor, I never realized, especially with the content that we were working with, talking about our stories, I never realized that not having the white gaze would cause me to evolve so much more as my characters on stage.

I discovered joy where there wasn’t joy before because I felt it from the audience. I discovered fear and questioning in situations where I wasn’t really thinking about that, or even just straight up anger, being like, oh, why is this like this? Every other show, yeah, this is what it is. But to hear the disgruntled groans and kiss teeth of my family in the audience, like, yeah, no, it was, yeah, it was an amazing experience.

And any show that has an all Black cast that focuses on our trials, tribulations, triumphs, joys, should have a Blackout opportunity because that changes you as an actor, for sure. Yeah. And that’s, I mean, again, you mentioned removing the white gaze from the room.

There must be a lot of freedom to that. Yeah, yeah. And I remember in a moment before the Blackout happened, someone was upset that they couldn’t come.

A white woman was upset that she couldn’t come to that night. And everyone was just like, but there are litreally 20 other nights that you can come and see this show. This is one night for us, and it’s a problem.

Can you sit back and see what the issue is and why nights like these even need to exist? Yeah, I think, I mean, I think that it’s patently obvious why nights like that need to exist, and that’s because the white gaze interrupts things. It does, and I never really understood that until I had that experience. That must have been a pretty emotional experience, just the whole thing, and then afterwards as well.

Yeah, but like, there was food and dancing after, and yeah, no, it was, yeah. I really sometimes thinking about, I’m speechless. Yeah, I can imagine.

I can imagine. So just as we draw to a close, one of the things that I’ve been asking everybody since the pandemic started is a question about joy. We’ve all had our ups and downs, and some points in this whole thing have felt pretty bleak, but I think it’s important that we remind each other about the joys that each of us is experiencing.

So can you tell me about something that has been giving you joy? What has been giving me joy? My sweet little pup, Beau, has been bringing me so much joy, joy that I didn’t really know was missing, and honestly, the opportunity to spend time with my partner and cultivate a relationship with them has been one of the biggest joys, and having time. I always felt like I was running around doing all of the things, and the time that I’ve given, yeah, it’s been joyful because it’s allowed me to spend more time with my family. Yeah.

Yeah. There’s something about taking away the world outsider relationship, all of the things that kept you busy, all of the activities, all of the things, and reducing you to all we have is time and each other. Yeah.

That can really teach you about having real, wonderful intimacy in a relationship. Yeah. And it’s a beautiful thing.

It’s been absolutely beautiful. Yeah. Well, Uche, thank you so much.

This has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you, Phil.