Staff

Artistic Director

Mumbi is an acclaimed theatre creator and director raised in Kenya andVictoria, BC and based in Toronto. She recently won a Dora Award for her Outstanding Direction of The Brothers Size, which also won for Outstanding Production.

She is the Founder/Artistic Director of the experimental theatre company IFT (It’s A Freedom Thing Theatre) Theatre and also recently directed the critically acclaimed plays: Trout Stanley (Factory Theatre), Here are the Fragments (The Theatre Centre/The ECT Collective), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Soulpepper) and Oraltorio: A Theatrical Mixtape (Obsidian/Soulpepper).

Mumbi is also the recipient of a Toronto Theatre Critics Award, an Artistic Director’s Award (Soulpepper), a Pauline McGibbon Award , a Mallory Gilbert Protege Award, a Harold Award, and has been twice nominated for the John Hirsch Directing Award. She is a graduate of Soulpepper Academy, York University and University of Toronto as well as Obsidian Theatre’s Mentor/Apprenticeship Program.

General Manager

Michael feels like he is coming home, having stage managed Obsidian’s first show, Djanet Sears’s ‘Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God’ plus several other shows for Obsidian over the years. He now joins the company as our new General Manager. Prior to a career in stage management, Michael worked as an accountant and so he brings a strong financial background to the job. He is well versed in theatre from one end of the country to the other.

Michael is looking forward to marrying the administrative and the production elements in the theatre community and all the challenges that they present. This is what Obsidian does best; we give our community the tools and craft to help people make those major career moves.

Artistic Producer

daniel jelani ellis is a Tkaròn:to-based artist and artsworker raised in Jamaica by a village of theatre artists, poets, and educators. His art practice is Afrocentric and celebratory, working in performance-installation, playwriting, dub poetry, and acting. danjelani is especially passionate about arts-based community organizing for social justice. When producing, he is grounded in Afrocentrism, mentorship, reciprocity, and joy. As a Black queer immigrant he is committed to celebrating those of us who live within the margins.

Prior to landing in the Artistic Producer role, danjelani was Obsidian’s Metcalf Artistic Director Intern for the 21.22 and 22.23 seasons. Before being welcomed to Obsidian, he was Artistic Programs Manager at Paprika Festival, overseeing program delivery and community outreach. danjelani presently also steers Groundwork Redux – an ever-evolving gathering of artists and projects – creating original art, performance, and community activations.

Graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada, danjelani has been resident artist at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and BAND (Black Artists’ Network in Dialogue) Gallery and Cultural Centre, and is currently in residency at The Theatre Centre. He is a proud Siminovitch Theatre Foundation Emerging Artist grant recipient in playwriting.

Marketing and Development Officer

Cherise Solomon, a versatile artist, dance instructor, actor, and marketing expert, has left her mark on grassroots non-profits and prestigious dance organizations alike. With a dynamic career that includes acting and dance in commercials and TV/film, she also imparts the culture of Hip Hop dance to young minds. Now, Cherise eagerly anticipates elevating Obsidian’s brand and expanding its reach to new communities. Her blend of artistic talent, marketing expertise, and dedication to education make her a true force in the world of arts and entertainment.

Producer-On Leave

Vanessa C Spence is a classically trained theatre performer, playwright, producer, and arts educator. She is a creative entrepreneur with over seven years of experience in the performance arts industry and social sectors with a specialization in marketing & communications. Vanessa is the artistic director of Virtu Arts (virtuarts.ca), an emerging theatre company that develops the work and artistry of African, Caribbean, and Black diasporic artists and creators in regions outside of Toronto.

At the root of her artistry, Vanessa seeks to inspire empathy and action by shedding light on the thought processes of folks in marginalized communities. Vanessa is feeling blessed and highly flavoured to begin this leg of her artistic journey as Obsidian’s Producer.

Congratulations and best wishes goes out to Vanessa as she is currently on Maternity Leave.

Playwrights Unit Facilitator

YGB Program Director

d’bi.young anitafrika is a visionary African-Xaymacan-Tkarontonian dub poet, playwright-performer, dramaturge-director, and activist-scholar, committed to embodying emancipatory arts-based practice that ritualises acts of liberation from oppressions inflicted upon the people and the planet. Beginning their career with trailblazing work such as writing & performing the play blood.claat directed & dramaturged by Weyni Mengesha, playing Staceyanne in Trey Anthony’s ‘da kink in my hair, and Crystal in the Frances-Ane Solomon television series Lord Have Mercy, as well as being a practitioner in the inaugural Soulpepper Theatre Academy and playing Lady in Red in Ntozake Shange’s For Coloured Girls directed by Djanet Sears, d’bi.young has made pioneering contributions to theatre, education, and leadership through the arts for over twenty-five years. They have authored twelve plays, seven albums & four poetry collections—headlining poetry & literary festivals, theatre seasons, and academic conferences globally—earning accolades such as three Dora awards & over a dozen nominations, a KM Hunter Theatre award, a Rosemary Sadlier Freedom award, a Global Leader in Theatre & Performance award, a Canadian Poet of Honour award, a YWCA Womxn of Distinction in the Arts award, and most recently, a Siminovitch Prize Playwright Finalist award.

d’bi.young developed the Anitafrika Method—a nurturant Black-queer-transfeminist performance praxis and pedagogy of transformation—designed to offer practitioners within and outside of the arts, a decolonising liberatory framework of knowing, doing & being, which they teach across Southern & Western Africa, the Caribbean, Turtle Island, and Europe. Their PhD research centring on the personhood, practice & pedagogy of Black womxn theatre-makers, constitutes a groundbreaking monograph & digital archive addressing the gross research gap in this field. Their work provides a foundation for the emerging discipline of critical studies in Black

Womxn’s Theatre in Turtle Island. Using the Anitafrika Method as a devising framework, d’bi.young has supported the writing and development and served as dramaturge-director of canonical plays such as Ngozi Paul’s Emancipation, Raven Dauda’s Addicted, Najla Nubyanluv’s I Cannot Lose My Mind and Sashoya Simpson’s Lulu.

They have mentored hundreds of practitioners in theatre companies, universities and arts residencies worldwide through their liberatory social justice arts initiatives including The Watah Theatre which offers practitioner-centred performance training for Black Indigenous, and Global Majority artists, Ubuntu! Decolonial Arts Centre—an international hub in Costa Rica for anti-colonial arts practice, and Spolrusie Publishing—a micro-press specialising in transformative works by Black arts practitioners. Notable publications include Decolonial Frameworks by Black Arts Practitioners, introducing nine anti-oppression body-mind approaches to arts training. Funded by Canada Council, d’bi.young designed & facilitated the program with a cohort of nine Black arts leaders. As well as the Dubbin Monodorama Anthology: Black Masculinities in African Diaspora Theatre, featuring biomyths by Webster McDonald, Samson Brown, and daniel jelani ellis. And Dubbin Poetry: The Collected Poems of d’bi.young anitafrika which features four collections: art on black, rivers & other blackness between us, OYA, and black love matters.

Most recently, d’bi.young has held lectureships at Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance and London South Bank University as a decolonial theatre practice, leadership & education specialist. Utilising the Anitafrika Method, d’bi.young designs courses that reframe playwriting, devising, acting, performance, directing, dramaturgy, theatre design & curriculum development from an African-Indigenous epistemological, ontological, cosmological, ethical, & aesthetic perspective. They are lead faculty at Soulpepper Theatre Academy. d’bi.young anitafrika lectures in the theatre department at the University of Victoria on the traditional territory of the WSÁNEĆ (Saanich),lək̓wəŋən (Songhees), Wyomilth (Esquimalt) peoples of the Coast Salish Nation. Their latest research involves completing Dubbin Theatre: The Collected Plays of d’bi.young anitafrika, co-editing The Art of Black Activism anthology alongside Dr. Syrus Marcus Ware & Ra’anaa Ekundayo and leading the Black Womxn Theatre Archive Project.