Dian Marie Bridge

About This Episode:

This week on Stageworthy, host Phil Rickaby is joined by Dian Marie Bridge, Artistic Director of the Black Theatre Workshop (BTW) in Montreal. Dian discusses the legacy of BTW, which is celebrating its 55th anniversary this year , as one of Canada’s oldest Black and ethnocultural theatre companies. The conversation delves into the company’s commitment to community service and fostering new talent through its influential program, as well as BTW’s production of Kanika Ambrose’s Our Place at Montreal’s Segal Centre for Performing Arts (Studio) from Nov. 19-30.

This episode explores:

• BTW’s 55th Anniversary and Mission

• The Play Our Place, by Kanika Ambrose

• BTW’s Club Zed Festival, featuring work by Black writers

• The Theatre scene in Montreal

• BTW’s Artist Mentor Program

• And much more!

Guest: 🎭 Dian Marie Bridge

Dian Marie Bridge is an award-winning writer, director, dramaturge and creative producer who seeks to open spaces, provide platform, enrich community-bridge building. She was previously Associate Artistic Director at Luminato Festival Toronto, Artistic Director intern at Obsidian Theatre, Artist-in-Residence at Necessary Angel Theatre, Founding Artistic Producer of Cric Crac Collective, and 4LargeHeads multi-arts Collective, and a member of Stratford Festival’s Michael Langham Workshop for Classical Direction. Dian holds a degree in Theatre Arts and Dramatic Literature from Brock University and was enrolled in the University of Minnesota’s Theatre Arts and Dance program (Twin Cities).Previous work includes Our Place; Vierge; Every Day She Rose (BTW), Beloved: A Celebration of Toni Morrison and Black Women Writers; Guided By Starlight; Golden Hour (Luminato Festival Toronto), The Mountain Top (Persephone Theatre), Made In Congo (Theatre Row United Solo Festival), Aneemah’s Spot (Cric Crac  Collective /Motion Live), Geometry; Domesticity; Fuzz; Cotton Comes Home (4LargeHeads Collective)

Connect with Dian and Black Theatre Workshop:

🌐 Website: blacktheatreworkshop.ca

📸 Instagram: @theatrebtw

📸 Instagram: @dianmariebridge

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Transcript

Transcripts are auto generated and may contain minor errors.

[Phil Rickaby]
Hello, welcome to Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby, the host and producer of this podcast. Stageworthy is Canada’s theatre podcast and on Stageworthy I talk to theatre people of all kinds, from actors to playwrights to directors and producers, stage managers and more, some of whom are household names and others I really think you should get to know.

This week I’m talking to Diane Murray Bridge who is the Artistic Director at Black Theatre Workshop in Montreal. I spoke to Diane because she’s directing Kanika Ambrose’s Our Place which runs from November 19th to 30th at Montreal’s the Segal Centre. So now here’s my conversation with Diane Murray Bridge from Black Theatre Workshop.

Diane Murray Bridge, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. I’m based in Toronto so there’s a lot that I don’t know about theatre companies around Canada and I’m new to Black Theatre Workshop and so I would love for you to tell me a little bit about Black Theatre Workshop.

[Dian Marie Bridge]
It’s funny because I am from Toronto but I heard about Black Theatre Workshop probably I’d say 25 years ago, 20-25 years ago, and it was when Rachel Van Fossen who was the then Artistic Director brought a group of artists to Toronto to participate in Rock Paper Sisters Festival with Be Current Theatre and it was like just meeting you know cousins so we’re like and from that point on I’ve always just followed the company. So BTW is 55 years old this year.

We’re celebrating our 55th anniversary which is huge like it’s stellar in terms of not only the oldest Black and ethno-cultural theatre company but just one of the older theatre companies in general in Canada and we started out through the Trinidad and Tobago Community Association and then folks from those from that community started to just bring their artistic practices from home and decided to do them here and so it turned into a professional theatre company and has been really the root of the English, Black English theatre community here in Montreal.

[Phil Rickaby]
That’s awesome. You mentioned becoming aware of the company. How did you start your journey towards artistic directorship?

[Dian Marie Bridge]
I have been a theatre kid since I was like super small. My mum used to tell us stories all the time. On my mother’s side we have quite an artistic family so I have uncles who are musicians and people who write and all that and with theatre it was kind of just like a given.

It is an art form that just brings together all of the practices you know all the music, all the writing, all that. In terms of artistic direction I think that was just kind of one of those things that you aim for when you don’t really know what the job is and then when you get older you’re like no I can be of service to this community and so that’s where I am right now. I have a very clear understanding that I’m of service to a particular community here in Montreal but also being able to bring international networks to this community that’s really why I’m here.

[Phil Rickaby]
Now this season, B2W’s season this year, consists of a couple of shows. By the time this airs the first show will have been over but I want to take some time to talk about Our Place which you are directing. So what can you tell me about about that play?

[Dian Marie Bridge]
So this is a play by Kenneka Ambrose and when she was talking about this piece she told me that she was in a hair salon and overhearing a story about this this crazy immigration process that somebody had to go through and started to think about just the obstacles that people face around just trying to come immigrate to a country legally and how it almost forces people to be in this relationship with with deviancy or criminality when they might not necessarily want to do that.

People want to immigrate. People want to better themselves and better their lives but sometimes these opportunities come and it makes it seem easy. You just find somebody and marry them and the consequences be what they may but she wrote this really amazing piece about people struggling with just the idea of trying to find love and balance love with this need as well and what’s really lovely about it she said it in Scarborough and I don’t know if folks know that strip of Kingston Road before it turns into Highway 2 yeah in the east of Scarborough and I think George Walker put all his suburban motel plays there so it’s that same strip but like with a Caribbean angle and Scarborough 86 bus passes right through there going to the zoo and so for me growing up in Pickering I feel like a real affection for that area and the language that is used in the play is this pan-Caribbean made-up creole slash patois that is kind of a mix of Guyanese and Trinidadian a little bit of Jamaican and some Haitian and here in Montreal because most of the Black population is Haitian or Afro-Caribbean there is an opportunity for us to really lean into that so here’s a play that was written in English Canada but gets to really highlight the voices that are here and we’re just playing with that idea of this story being universal yeah and using this language to bring people in and make make it comfortable for them at the same time as telling a story that can happen to anyone.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s interesting that I mean here you are in a city that’s known for its bilingualism it on some levels you know it’s the the French and you know some English but also the this this this patois this this this other language that’s that’s common and spoken in the Black community what does this third language mean to the community that you serve?

[Dian Marie Bridge]
Yeah so there is the conversation around French and the official French language and it’s such a it’s it’s one of the biggest things that people are really focused on here and then in my perspective whether it’s French or English both of those are languages that we’ve had to learn and that they’re colonial languages so when you get to actually hear the language that you use that you’re born with that’s a mix of everything there’s something that’s just touches on a on a deeper level where the way you express yourself and and the unwritten and and almost telepathic way you communicate with each other you know just like a like a or like a you know pointing with the lips that sort of thing all of those things are as much language as saying I need this or you know and so being able to play with that is really really a lovely opportunity and also I’ve always said this just about languages if you stifle language and you force people to stick to a specific kind of learning and language doesn’t grow it doesn’t intake it doesn’t get you know it becomes a dead language and so what happens when people are in a space together where they’re learning how to communicate and bringing in elements and making this thing happen this thing move this thing work for them is that the language itself gets richer and talking to younger people here in Montreal you hear that the the French that’s spoken by the younger generation is this crazy mix of bits of Creole Cajun Creole and then bits of Arabic and then little specklings of English here and there and a lot of curse words and it’s it’s coming it’s becoming a thing onto its own and I personally think that’s amazing but you hear it in Toronto too like you hear the Toronto slang as well which is like this mix-up of Jamaican Patois and English and some Swahili words and I’ve heard some in there yeah it’s quite it’s quite interesting the way language evolves and speak tells the story of

[Phil Rickaby]
who’s been interacting with who absolutely and I’m thinking about how in a place like Montreal mixing in the French and English words and Arabic words and all of these all of these things really kind of speaks to the multiculturalism of Montreal which sometimes doesn’t get to be front and center

[Dian Marie Bridge]
yeah yeah I feel like people in the rest of Canada look at Montreal as a destination city oh a little bit of Europe in that sort of thing but it is a really vibrant city and it has it’s on par with any other major city I think in terms of its entertainment and in terms of its community building and and it knows who it is like it the city knows itself right

[Phil Rickaby]
yeah and that’s a unique thing in Canada because not every city in Canada can say that they know who they are yeah and you know and but Montreal absolutely does and I’ve always enjoyed every time I go there just discovering something new absolutely I’m still

[Dian Marie Bridge]
learning the city I’ve been here for about three years and it’s like I’ve been to the top of the mountain and I’ve been to my neighborhood through my neighborhood but there are entire sections that

[Phil Rickaby]
I haven’t explored yet there’s just too much there’s there’s I mean you can’t in a city when you’re working you really can’t explore everything it takes decades to really get to know a city I’m curious about how this play Our Place speaks to BTW’s theme this year of Talawa

[Dian Marie Bridge]
yeah Talawa so the idea Talawa is this phrase in the Jamaican culture you know we lickle but with Talawa and it’s it’s something that can be like branded across any t-shirt the idea is that we’re small but we’re mighty and little things that we do little choices that we make that resiliency to keep pushing and keep going and keep trying is what is the the secret ingredient for success to be honest and like when I think about the work that people do under the table like the extra work people who are on the you know the poorest side of the spectrum tend to be the people who worked the longest and the hardest and that speaks to the characters in this play as well they’ve been trying multiple times to get and stay in the country and they’re just very resilient people and they will do what they need

[Phil Rickaby]
to do yeah yeah yeah now this this play is this its premiere no no so it was premiered I think

[Dian Marie Bridge]
either just before the pandemic or just out of the pandemic in Toronto and I believe it was at the Depressed Mirai and I believe it garnered a bunch of door uh nominations and a few awards it was a really amazing production that I was sad that I couldn’t see and so when I got to you know be able to program it we actually programmed it as a reading during our club zed festival in 2023 and the entire audience was like completely enthralled they were just you know screaming don’t do it girl don’t do it or oh he said that’s an you know like just audible and it wasn’t it was like it was a complete shock to me but it was amazing and the actors loved it and right after were asking me are you programming this are you doing this are you doing this and it was like well I guess I’m doing this play and Kanika has been fantastic she’s really excited about it getting a second show a second production which is also rare for Canadian work that’s one of the things I talk

[Phil Rickaby]
about all the time is how rare it is to have like a work that gets to have a premiere and then another life after that premiere so I think that’s it’s great to see that happening yeah especially at btw

[Dian Marie Bridge]
yeah it’s fun it’s like it’s a lot it’s lots of fun because Kanika is a person I’ve known since she was in the paprika youth group the yeah and yeah it’s it’s it’s amazing watching her

[Phil Rickaby]
now you mentioned the club zed playwrights festival so we might as well talk about that

[Dian Marie Bridge]
tell me about that festival oh so back in 2000 and 2003 Janet Sears had put together the african-canadian playwrights festival with the support of can stage and the university of toronto and that was a national gathering international gathering of black writers and scholars and artists and I was the office coordinator office assistant something like is one of my first jobs in Toronto and I just remember meeting everybody like meeting everybody that I know in theatre at that festival and then somewhere around 2006 was the last one and I’ve always wondered like what we could do to bring it back but you know with one person kind of organizing it I understand why it went away and then when I find in the last couple of years with the opportunity to come to BTW I wanted to revive something that was not exactly like the african-canadian playwrights festival because that was very leaned into academia and and much more performance showcase based which was a bigger budget than I knew we had so I wanted to still have the gathering of people in the networking but at the same time give professional development classes so like translation workshops and workshops about getting published and workshops about transitioning from writing for tv writing into tv and film that sort of thing mainly to really foster the the writers who are here in Montreal because when you look at the national canon the few writers that do come out of this region either are Quebecois and Francophone but the national black voice tends to still be centralized in either Toronto or comes from the UK or comes from the US those are still the stories that are driving us which is I mean it’s fine universal stories but I’m really curious about this community that is polyglottal and has international connections that are not Britain you know it’s other places and just have a different perspective about what the world is and when you think about the Haitian experience versus the rest of the Caribbean the experience where like the first ones to emancipate themselves and the the the fire that’s in that kind of lived experience is really something that I want to encourage yeah for sure the the Haitian

[Phil Rickaby]
aspect is always so fascinating to me because like you said the it’s the the the first of the the colonies that that that had a had a revolt and threw off and and and kicked out the the oppressors and the colonizers but also were then punished for that financially severely for so long are still

[Dian Marie Bridge]
being punished are still paying reparations to France to this day yeah yeah yeah and that that

[Phil Rickaby]
is that is an incredible thing that I don’t think that people outside of the community think about or know about which is really quite it would because when I found out about that I was I was floored yeah that this is something that’s still happening to this country yeah yeah and people um

[Dian Marie Bridge]
can start to understand why the country is so poor or why resources are are mined and taken out of the country at that rate it they are I remember seeing a map of an aerial map of the actual border between Dominican Republic and Haiti and it’s a literal line a deforestation line because all the resources are being taken out of Haiti and when those tropical storms come why is the devastation so much worse on that side because there’s infrastructure is not there to support so yeah the that as a lived experience and not through you know being tele communicated through your DNA and and your understanding of the world your perspective of the world changes the way you

[Phil Rickaby]
think and I want to hear what that that story is and with the the diaspora that is in Montreal uh it sounds and every every diaspora is unique and but Toronto like you were saying it has sort of like a particular voice in the black community and so that there’s like a different different voice in the the Montreal black community so in terms of of the plays that you that you’ve programmed at Club Zed how what’s what do you look for in those plays so it’s a mix so some of them are

[Dian Marie Bridge]
plays that I want to test out because I’m thinking of programming them some of them are those large plays that won awards but they have 12 people in them and I cannot produce that ever but I can do a reading right and then we have a couple of programs that allow for new voices and new work to be just tested so there is a salon series that we do where we invite people to submit and they get to read 20 minutes and then get feedback from the audience and you know or in the form of questions and we actually formalize the way that people get that feedback and then there is the the closing night we do a sit what we call sits pub so it’s a music infused cabaret where we’re asking people to showcase new pieces or pieces of influence by music in some way in order to expand our idea of what writing is and what play playwriting is and what theatre is and those are yeah those are always fun we have we had somebody who I totally think it was like a bouffant stand-up comedy act but I don’t know to this day and she just stood there and tried to tune the guitar and play and talk and it was super awkward brilliant absolutely brilliant and comedians we had you’ve had comedians come up and do pieces yeah musical acts like straight up r&b like storytelling singing that sort of thing yeah so there’s a lot of open calls we ask the community to tell us what they what they’re working on and then the the actual formalized readings are more considered with regards to giving folks exposure and and low stakes platform you know yeah yeah how how do you

[Phil Rickaby]
make decisions about not just what you’re programming for like the playwrights festival but in general what what how do you make decisions about what you’re programming I kind of look at

[Dian Marie Bridge]
who I follow people you know I look at what they’re doing I am always open to suggestions people have sent me stuff and and I will I have a big document big spreadsheet that I just type in I have a lot of meetings with writers I when we do our annual auditions I actually open them up to to writers and directors and and production folks as well not just actors to just give them a 15 minute slot to just chat from that from just in taking all that information and really just try to see what jazz is me and if if there are connections to the rest of the year right so Kanika’s play it’s been two three years that we’ve been thinking about I’ve been thinking about and the plays that I’m thinking I’m looking at for the future are you know some of them are because another artistic director approached me and said we really like this writer would you consider partnering yes or things that I’ve been you know living with for like a decade that I would love to see another remount of that yeah so it’s kind of all over the place and I really just go with when things say yes like what says yes and what’s moving I would love to talk about

[Phil Rickaby]
the theatre scene in Montreal I know I’m sure only the surface I know that there’s a lot of French theatre which I don’t get to see because I am unfortunately not bilingual there everybody knows centaur I know mainline theatre which just lost its space yeah but I don’t there’s obviously a lot that I don’t know tell me a little bit about the theatre scene in Montreal yeah so

[Dian Marie Bridge]
coming from Toronto as a newbie too I’m I’m still I’m still finding little pockets of it but the community here is super tight-knit really supports each other in a way that I think is so beautiful because they’re we’re fighting just to kind of get representation and so when we can bond together we do we have Geordie theatre out here which is the national TYA company Imago which is a feminist theatre company we have infinite theatre which is a company that does a lot of really innovative Montreal stories but like really amazing staging and very creative work and they also have a publishing arm to their to their company as well there yeah like I’m I can’t go through the whole list but there’s there’s some really cool partnerships that happen as well there there are companies that do works in translation from French into English or English into French there’s the same in the spring when we all do our season launches instead of doing them individually we actually come together and hold a big press conference and each company gets they say one one minute and 30 seconds but or like three minutes or whatever but like yeah yeah but it actually is such a a wonderful event for community to actually come out to as well so actors will come out and the designers will come out and see the you know the presentations of all the companies and the media is because the media is so sparse here in Montreal that that actually is a really lovely event for them to come to and interview multiple people and get the word out about the English theatre scene in Montreal so it’s it’s it’s when we bind together we’re

[Phil Rickaby]
we’re stronger yeah for sure I really love the idea of doing those those launches together because I think that theatres are stronger especially in these post pandemic years as you know funding is less and we’re losing venues in Toronto we’re like oh losing venue you’re losing venues in Montreal all the time bringing companies together some sharing the stage in those ways is so powerful years ago when I was at the Toronto Fringe the solo performer Cameron Moore had a a workshop and the thing that that she said that always stuck with me was that there’s there’s audience enough for everyone and I think that that is something that all of our theatres across Canada would do well to just sort of absorb because when we share audiences we are stronger absolutely and I don’t

[Dian Marie Bridge]
know how to do that like I know that there have been projects in the past where they’ve tried to bring together you know five companies I think there was a group of seven at one point and it’s been done in Toronto and out in Calgary where they share resources something always falls through I don’t know what it is but I think it’s a lovely idea to share you know a building there’s a group in Vancouver right now that’s not a group but a building in Vancouver trying to remember the name of the the building but there’s at least three theatre companies in there and then they have a garage shop space and a performance space that they all take turns renting which I mean for small like smaller companies it’s fantastic you don’t have the overhead of a of entire building that you have to take care of all by yourself and you have access to a space and one of the the worst things that happened in the pandemic was all the spaces that just got sold you know and converted or people got kicked out or moved around and there are so many old buildings here in Montreal it’s like heartbreaking when you see some of those places

[Phil Rickaby]
that could be amazing theatres but yeah yeah art you were nodding as I talked about venues closing is there a venue crisis in Montreal huge venue crisis the Segal Center and the center are kind

[Dian Marie Bridge]
of our two main go-to so with everybody kind of clamoring to get in there and then both companies went through renovations major renovations last season it was very hard we at BTW actually canceled the show because we couldn’t find a venue and we pushed it to the next year so it’s it’s interesting but one of the things that did come out of it was for a time we had a two-hander of Andrea Scott and Nick Green’s Every Day She Rose and we were trying to find a venue we ended up finding a rehearsal space for Théâtre Espaces Libres so we used their rehearsal hall which they had never done a performance in there before like they have used it as an actual rehearsal hall but we had seats in there and this really tiny I called it my little jewel box show because it was super compact set we used a lot of circular motion and had bubbles over like these big balloons over the top that were like these emoji bubbles and it looked like you opened up a little jewelry box it was gorgeous and from that point on like they started using the show as a venue for those micro shows as smaller shows so we just saw a show by Joe Jack and John and it was tour noir I think black hole which was a solo show about a man who was living with schizophrenia and and as a disabled black man in the city yeah so it’s really fantastic that the spaces we were finding resources you know yeah yeah with a venue crisis

[Phil Rickaby]
comes not only do theatres have to work together to produce and things like that but artists have to come together and so mentorship becomes very important oh yeah and I know BTW has an artist mentor program how is that how long has that been going on and how is that program going

[Dian Marie Bridge]
yeah that is super exciting for us because I feel like it is one of those programs that actually responds to what’s happening in the community so it started 13 years ago and the idea was to give BIPOC black and and other artists access to the professional community so teaching them how to participate in a professional way so this is how you do your resume this is how you do this is how you do your headshot this is how you do taxes all that stuff and it was going for a number of years with the focus kind of on actors and performers and then some other folks and it was about giving them a professional experience so learning how to write and read a contract properly and starting a contract and then through the process of developing an actual show together but then with COVID what happened was we saw a whole bunch of production folks leave right stage managers were gone TDs were leaving by the boatload they’re getting corporate gigs I get it I understand it but what the the trickle down was was that the performers and the artists didn’t have the production knowledge or language in order to actually push their projects forward so not we’re we actually just change the program to respond to that so it’s not creating producers it’s creating artists who understand production literacy so that they can either do it themselves or they know who to hire or they know what they’re missing and the because for me I went into producing because I couldn’t get work but at this like I was having a hard time so I could put together a spreadsheet you know and I knew what causes in the CTA and the ITA to use and those will help me push my own stuff forward and you just feel less at the mercy of people right you feel like you’re not always waiting for somebody to say yes to you you can say your own yes so that’s

[Phil Rickaby]
the program has switched so far I think that that is a really smart and an important part of mentorship because I think that’s like a missing piece to the way that people learn about theatre and indie theatre a lot of times those things get forgotten yeah and when you think about it it’s

[Dian Marie Bridge]
like these are some folks who don’t necessarily have access to second second post-secondary education right who are kind of doing it because they love it and the mentorship aspect so that’s the actual program itself runs weekly they may meet it’s a peer-to-peer mentorship because when you really think about it you kind of rise together as a cohort and the folks who are like beside you could be artistic directors in like 10 years right that sort of thing but then in addition to that they get a one-on-one mentorship with some with an artistic professional in the community who’s actually doing the thing that they want to do so it’s not just here’s a writer to teach you about playwriting it’s you’re doing solo shows and they are ethno-culturally specific so we’re going to connect you to to be young or we’re going to connect you to somebody who’s doing the thing that you want to do and they can just tell you so and it’s not about them being you know a dramaturge or them being a teacher in in that traditional sense it’s more like hey man watch out for this hey I did this or it’s it’s about relationship building and our our mentors have been immensely generous with their time and their information and their access we just had two two student two students two cohort members who were offered free passes to the Camino’s festival through Béa Paisano and so we sent them to Toronto and then they spent a week in Toronto with meeting peers from all over the world meeting their mentor in person and just having like this experience which being Montreal based they don’t they wouldn’t normally have and we’ve been really fortunate to also through COVID we extended the program so it was national and also bilingual so people who are francophone have joined and we connect them to francophone artists and people we have folks in Newfoundland all the way to Victoria I think is the yeah so we have people from all over up north everywhere and we try and accommodate as best as we can in terms of their mentorship asks and their professional development asks.

[Phil Rickaby]
Wow what what what doesn’t Black Theatre Workshop do?

[Dian Marie Bridge]
Well it’s my team is like amazing so people are really punching above their weight and we had to have that be a dedicated position in the company that that the manager for the artist mentor program is Keith Fernandes who himself is also an artist who is an actor and a director and a drag queen and like has like this really robust artistic practice in addition to his his administrative practice so he he and I would chat about the things that we would have loved as emerging artists or younger artists and it’s also not just limited to emerging artists it’s for people who are mid career as well who are transitioning or who want to deepen yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Nice.

[Dian Marie Bridge]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
As somebody who is in an arts administration role as an artistic director how are you because you know you come from a creative background in theatre how are you balancing and how do you balancing that artistic leadership with creation?

[Dian Marie Bridge]
Yeah it’s hard and I feel like I do the bulk of it when I’m between jobs believe it or not yeah or I have to actually physically carve out time they don’t talk to me for this week or this is my vacation leave me alone I’m directing that sort of thing but it’s it’s super hard and I know other people do it I wish I knew their secret it sometimes I think it’s my brain the way my brain organizes things you know but I feel like there’s no end to to the service that like the job demands so much and I have to actually prioritize I have to actually yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
So when a company when a company serves a community and I’ve spoken to a few people who are artistic directors of theatre companies that serve communities it becomes more than what it is if you were the artistic director at a factory or something like that it is it is more outreach more community more more work on the go and and because it’s serving a community that community has a lot of asks and and needs to be needs to be served yeah.

[Dian Marie Bridge]
Yeah because this organization particularly came out of a community organization there are people good and bad but there are people who believe that this is their company it is this is the company of Montreal’s English black theatre community not just theatre. So we will have folks who have been you know who knew the previous artistic director Quincy Armour knew Quincy when he was a child you know who are constantly at all of our events and are die hard you know so there’s a there’s that aspect to it but then there’s also in the programming and the the curation of the the programming I’m also very conscious of who’s gonna be coming and supporting the work and and being in that conversation with them like how do I introduce new writers or new topics or or things that might not necessarily be within their comfort zone how do I move slightly away from the Caribbean stories and like include more African stories or just include like different understandings of what black is so it’s a constant dialogue and I do we I do go to events I’m going to an event tomorrow where I’m actually in community and and have that conversation. Our TYA show which will have been passed by the time this airs but what we have done for the community is to also outside of this school tour we actually do a community day and we’re actually putting that in the Union United Church Hall so the church community comes to that one and sees it as well and it’s just an opportunity for them to understand that this is their company even though we have national aspirations.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah I do want to mention because even though that show will have passed by the time this airs that show is written by Donna Michelle St Bernard an incredible playwright who is yeah just an incredible playwright full stop and how how did that show come to you?

[Dian Marie Bridge]
So DM had been in conversation with Black Theatre Workshop even before I got here and DM is one of those writers who I’ve known for many many years and the the 54ology project this all-encompassing like life project that’s being done BTW commissioned two of them actually so in 2023 we did Diggers which was a play about frontline workers and saving a town from like this crazy flood and wall and then this was this the next play in the cycle and it was a TYA show so for me that’s lovely because it’s so hard to find theatre for a young audience that is specific to the Black community and so that was in development with Black Theatre Workshop for I think at least three or four years and it’s it’s really lovely to be a part of that legacy.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah yeah yeah I want to ask a bit of a bit of a difficult question and I’m curious about the style of theatre that that Black artists feel they can make is there some kind of is there an embargo that you feel on the style of theatre hmm I don’t think so but I wonder about the question about will it get produced. Of course yeah.

[Dian Marie Bridge]
And people writing for writing for community or for a theatre company or for a style I’ve seen I’ve seen like really amazing challenging experimental work by Black artists but I think it really goes hand in hand with who’s producing what work and who wants what stories right and when you think about Obsidian, The Current, Black Theatre Workshop and I think there’s another collective out west but I can’t remember their name but that’s like there’s four companies and we do two shows a year and one is a TYA show so in terms of our bottom line we have to balance between making sure we get bums in seats but at the same time pushing the narrative forward and engaging as many people as possible so it really isn’t a community like a community conversation about what they what what what kind of conversations we want to have with people versus getting the having the liberty to do experimental work even though we want to start pushing in that direction through the Playwrights Festival that’s one of the directions that we’re going you know and being able to support artists who are doing that work there’s also a direction we’re going in but it’s it’s a constant balance and I think about what a luxury it is to be able to just program what you like yeah even I like in Canada I don’t know of any company that is like just free to do that I think there’s always a balance of you know who we’re serving even like the large like the large institutions couldn’t kind of always driven by their mandate and trying

[Phil Rickaby]
to balance who they’re serving well I mean this is I think that balancing act because not only are they balancing their mandate whatever that might be but also trying to find that balance between say their subscribers who they have and the subscribers who have who may want one thing and maybe what they might want to do to try to bring in a new audience which it can be at odds

[Dian Marie Bridge]
with what the subscribers want yes yeah and the subscribers if you push them in the wrong

[Phil Rickaby]
direction you know then yeah you might lose them you were mentioning the the the the limitations that a playwright might put on themselves and I know that that I you know a lot of playwrights who are who are writing in general will sort of like think about you everybody writes that play with like 15 characters at the beginning of their playwriting career and then they discover that nobody’s going to going to program no one can afford it nobody can afford to do that so you start putting limitations what kind of limitations do playwrights that are coming to you or or that other other black theatre companies are putting on their on their work I think it’s actually

[Dian Marie Bridge]
shifting so I remember probably 15 years ago I was working at oh my word that’s a really long time ago and it’s actually more than that about 20 years ago I was working at Playwrights Guild of Canada right and we have a PGC has a connection to the Playwrights Canada Press and I approached the then publisher to say I wanted to to do an anthology of black writers in Canada and the submissions that we got I actually put the project on hold because I was just so overwhelmed it just the stories were always about explaining your blackness to the other or about difficulty in the trauma and that sort of thing and I think people were writing that to not only get it off the chest and like really expose how they feel but also that that was kind of the demand at the time right and then that then it started changing started shifting and very deliberately with people like Donna Michelle with people like Andrew Scott to be young all those people started getting produced or self-producing and and just talking about the world as they see it and how they live it and it’s not always in response to somebody else’s the need for somebody else to validate you and so what started happening was starting to see stories of love love stories you know like breakups or like just human human stories right and I’m thinking people are still kind of struggling with what needs to be what what they want to talk about and what they think the audience wants or the artistic lecture wants I just want us to get to a place where we’re just writing what we want to write and a lot of it and then you know getting to see way more stuff and getting to pick and choose you know in terms of like the artists you want to support even if you don’t produce their their work how can you support artists in another way and here in Montreal too I’m finding that there are a lot of francophone artists black francophone artists who are actually writing in in English because there’s more opportunity in English like Jenny Laguerre is one she’s Toronto based but francophone from he from Ottawa with a Haitian background and writes primarily in English and we’ve done a couple of her plays at this point but I’m also encouraging her like write in French like you’re much freer in French and then maybe BTW can do a translation of it you know and do do it in rap in both languages or offers her titles or or something but I feel like people are starting to wake in to different stories and like what they want to say and how they want to express and it’s also just like time of life to like what you go through what you understand at 20 versus what you understand at 50 so different right there’s an

[Phil Rickaby]
ongoing conversation that comes up every so often in Toronto with some audiences or some people who seem to want their theatre from cultures that are not of the British persuasion to explain what they’re about and yet I’ve never sat in an audience and not been able to follow a play I don’t need a spoon fed I think that if you trust an audience that they could come with you because the story is good because the characters are great yeah that’s that’s but again we still have some people who are demanding explanations where they’re not necessary yeah and and quite often those are

[Dian Marie Bridge]
not even when you really think about it’s not about explaining what they don’t understand it’s that they’re not there they don’t see themselves yeah no absolutely yeah yeah I want

[Phil Rickaby]
to take a little bit of a shift in the time that we have left and I want to talk a little bit about you and your theatre journey you mentioned growing up as a Black theatre kid and I wanted I want to hear about how you first you got interested in theatre because you came from an artistic family but but how did how did the interest in theatre translate into a theatre career

[Dian Marie Bridge]
I played King David in Crawford it isn’t hot in the furnace and my sister played King Nebuchadnezzar and so yeah it was this oh I probably written in the 60s or something this really jazz infused musical you know it is not boom you in the furnace man that sort of thing and I was the kid who I just like was so excited to be there and I took it seriously even though it was like after school and after church on Sundays and at one point I remember we were gathered and all the other girls were like you’re chatting and I got upset with the group and I said wait this is serious we’re opening next week or something like that and the teenagers who were leading us I now know that they were teenagers but at that time they seemed so grown they they said that they really appreciated that got me a fluorescent pink sweatshirt as a thank you and told me I was a director and I was like oh yeah okay so from that point on I think I was in grade four I was just like always in something in theatre if I wasn’t in you know theatre sports or like directing or writing the plays my grade 12 English special project was I wrote a play I wrote a comedy at first and I handed that in for my creative writing class and you know I was like the kid who got kicked out by the janitors because we were in the theatre or like in other in the theatre or in the art room one of those two yeah and just I had a really good group of friends who were always into theatre in high school you know Sears Drama Festival was a big part of it I went to the University of Minnesota in my second year as an exchange student and just saw a bunch of stuff you know just I think I saw 40 shows that year as a student and it just cemented everything and teachers who believed in me you know would pull me inside be like yeah you’re directing you need to work on that but then you’re good with that sort of thing and just a bunch of yeses

[Phil Rickaby]
to be honest yeah yeses are really important and I think that sometimes when people leave theatre school and they’ve been through this theatre school they don’t know that people want to give them yeses that like you can like send an email or a message to the the that playwright that you want to whose brain you want to pick and chances are if they’re available they’ll say yes yeah

[Dian Marie Bridge]
I was always amazed at how generous like folks are and I always find it so wild when people are like Diane like they’re like Diane Mary Bridges I’m like oh sweetheart it’s it’s like just time you’ll be here in five years like it’s just resiliency it’s just sticking around to be honest

[Phil Rickaby]
I’m curious about your move from Toronto to Montreal was that was there like a culture shock heading into from Toronto to Montreal what was that what was that transition like

[Dian Marie Bridge]
I have been in love with this city for a very long time I had a very romantic relationship with this city you know when I was younger in my 20s sometimes I would just hop on a bus and couch surf and I just walk you know just I’m going down to the river and I’m going down to I’m going to this park and then like the deaths the night scene that all that now that I’m older I see it differently like the romance is gone a little bit and I realize though that people live with culture differently here like it’s it’s part of their citizenship you know it’s like ingrained in how they live their lives people know who the what the French theatre companies are they they go to dance they the festivals here are like amazing I saw the rodeo here for free you know during the jazz fest I saw so many like amazing amazing performances and Toronto has some stuff but it’s not the same like this the city soaps in so much cultures that I I have an envy of

[Phil Rickaby]
of that aspect of Montreal how the arts are very much baked into the the the people who are in and you know in English Canada we tend to be like the arts are there if people think about them at all whereas I know in Quebec they’re they’re like no you don’t you dare like I remember hearing about people like out in the streets when if they’re if the arts funding was being cut like just like like really really passionate about the arts I envy that yeah I I don’t know why

[Dian Marie Bridge]
Toronto doesn’t see that like I remember when Nuit Blanche first started in Toronto it was this amazing opportunity to like spend all night international artists were involved Yoko Ono did a project and then it turned into this kind of street frat party at one point it was super disappointing I didn’t get a chance to see this year’s but the the new curator Nora Nani who I’ve known for years I’m super excited at the opportunity for her to really shine but the way that the arts are seen in Toronto feels like a luxury or it feels like something outside of yourself and here it’s like you’re you’re expected to know who the artists are you’re expected to know what’s going on what conversations are being had who the dancers are you know that they have this amazing huge like five room exhibit of Kent Mumpin at the Beaux Arts right now and like I don’t know when the last time I went to the AGO or the ROM was where it wasn’t it didn’t feel like it was like some spectacle you know like I went to see oh I think it was Frida Kahlo and I couldn’t get five feet within like five feet of the the work because it was just jam packed with people and maybe what I’m saying is actually counter to the point but there’s just there was just something about it being like the thing to do as opposed to actually living with

[Phil Rickaby]
the art that’s that’s actually the very the the distinction because when the AGO has an event like the the Frida Kahlo or the the the Infinity Rooms by Eric Kusama there it’s it’s like that becomes like I went I got my picture I you know that’s that becomes a thing people are not living in it they’re there for the spectacle they’re there for their instapick and it doesn’t have as much meaning to them they’re not living with it which is too bad it’s it’s it’s a thing

[Dian Marie Bridge]
we’re missing here yeah I think so I mean the Mumpin exhibit I think just opened and it’s here for I think also March right so months you have months of opportunity I don’t know when how long the AGO has the exhibits open but I’m and I’m going on memory from before but I just remember feeling like I had been robbed an opportunity you know in a way you had because you you didn’t get

[Phil Rickaby]
to experience that art you didn’t get to to sit with it you were in there being jostled by a crowd of people who were getting their picture getting their picture take taken with it or all that sort of thing and it’s you’re missing your opportunity to to sit with it and to have your moment with the art have your dialogue yes yes exactly yeah yeah well just as we as we close I’m curious as you are working on you know you directing our place what are you most looking forward to about this piece

[Dian Marie Bridge]
and having an audience see it the fun of it I’m I we’ve read it it’s a fun piece to read I want to I want to play with because when you read it there’s a lot of laughs but I want to find those moments that of duality with within each character like when are they when do we see that side of them that is not so likable or when do we see that side of them that’s really vulnerable how to how to fill out these comical characters that these come these characters that read as comical right now and read could read as stereotypical how do we make them full human beings who are making choices with you know limited resources and just bringing life to the to the play like real life struggles real decisions

[Phil Rickaby]
yeah yeah yeah beautiful Diane thank you so much for joining me I really appreciate it pleasure it’s been a lot of fun thanks for sticking around I really appreciate that give me a second and in just a moment I will tell you who my guest is next week but first let’s do the housekeeping if you’re watching on youtube make sure that you like this episode leave a comment so that I know that you were here and also make sure you subscribe and click that bell icon so that every time I release a new episode you’ll get notified and if you’re listening to the audio version and you are not already go to your favorite podcast app search for stage worthy and hit the follow button that way every time I release a new episode it will get downloaded directly to your device I need to talk of course about my patreon and I could not do this show without the patrons who’ve chosen to back me on patreon putting out a podcast for free still has costs involved there’s costs for website hosting for hosting the audio files and distribution to the various platforms there’s editing software there’s image creation software because I create an image for every episode and so these are all costs that I have to pay for my patrons are helping me to do that currently we’re covering the cost and we’re not covering anything having to do with my time which includes scheduling and doing the interviews and editing all the podcasts if you would like to help do that if you want to be part of the making of this show go to patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron patrons get early access to episodes there are discussions about issues that might be coming up and also the more people who join the more we’re able to offer so I would love to have you as a partner in making this podcast so please go to patreon.com/stageworthy and join the patreon now next week my guest is Fiona Sauder from Bad Hats Theatre who are producing in partnership with SoulPepper their production of Narnia this year Bad Hats has been doing shows during the holidays at Salt Pepper for many years now and their shows are whimsical and wonderful and I can’t wait for you to hear the conversation with Fiona Sauder next week on Stageworthy