Young, Gifted, and Black is Obsidian Theatre’s arts training program dedicated to supporting Black theatre practitioners in non-performance disciplines. This six-month intensive explores Black diaspora theatre and performance aesthetics through a decolonial and intersectional lens. Participants will benefit from ongoing mentorship, masterclasses, and apprenticeships, culminating in an ensemble creation devised, directed, and designed by the YGB cohort.
We are dedicated to empowering and elevating artistic leaders. We envision a future where Black production professionals are abundant and integral, significantly enhancing our theatre community with their expertise.
2024/2025 Program Goals
- Develop Black Production Specialists: Focus on training directors and designers for theatre.
- Create a Decolonial Culture of Arts Practice: Foster an environment that challenges colonial paradigms within the theatre community.
- Explore African and African Diaspora Theatre Aesthetics: Investigate and incorporate performance aesthetics beyond Western theatrical paradigms, emphasizing the unique and powerful traditions of African and African diaspora theatre.
- Connect Established and Emerging Black Arts Practitioners: Facilitate mentorship and networking opportunities to build a supportive artistic community.
- Enhance Black Theatre Excellence: Encourage the development of unique perspectives and methodologies in theatre-making.
Our 24/25 Cohort
Lilian Adom
Lilian Adom
Lighting Design
Lilian Adom has a background in theatre and performing arts. Born in Ghana and raised in Hong Kong, she now resides in Canada and holds a degree from the University of Waterloo. Initially pursuing acting, Lilian discovered her passion for lighting design during her studies. With experience in programming, and working on a variety of events, she aspires to expand her expertise from theatre productions to concerts, while telling culturally rich stories through her work. Lilian’s diverse background and commitment gives her a fresh perspective on storytelling in the arts.
Germaine Konji
Germaine Konji
Direction
Germaine Konji is a Kenyan-canadian director, actor, singer, writer, and educator. Kenyan by birth and canadian by paper, Germaine’s early love of storytelling was shaped by a vibrant community where art was a tool for survival and connection. Germaine holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music Theatre Performance from Sheridan College, where they pushed institutional boundaries to explore the decolonial potential of the art form. Their work challenges colonial paradigms, blending Diasporic storytelling traditions with contemporary theatre. As a student, Germaine made their directorial debut with The Smearing of Silent Blood (2017) and premiered their first full-length play, Burning House. Smoking Gun, at Factory Theatre in 2019. A passionate educator and activist, their work has earned recognition, including multiple Dora nominations, the 2020 Syd and Shirley Banks Prize, and a mention as a Breakthrough Toronto Stage Artist of 2022 (Glenn Sumi).
Select credits (stage): Universal Child Care (Quote Unquote Collective/ Canadian Stage/ Nightwood Theatre) Grand Magic, Finally There’s Sun (Stratford Festival), Serving Elizabeth (Theatre Aquarius), Dixon Road (Obsidian/ Musical Stage Co), UnCovered, the Music of ABBA, Into the Woods (Talk is Free Theatre)
The core values of Germaine’s practice are disruption, joy, sustainability, and service.
Arianna Lilith Moodie
Arianna Lilith Moodie
Costume Design
Arianna Lilith Moodie is a Costume and Fashion Designer based in Toronto after finishing her degree in Fashion Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Her theatre work includes Assistant Costume Designer on One Man, Two Guvnors and The House That Will Not Stand (Shaw Festival, 2024), Costume Designing a new installment of Esie Mensah’s dance project ZAYO (Dance Immersion, 2024), Art of Ideas: Baldwin v Buckley (Shaw Festival, and will be Associate Costume Designing Table for Two (Soulpepper & Obsidian, 2025). She also works in film and television having Costume Designed Music Videos for the band Housewife including Life of the Party (2024) and Matilda (2025), the short films Astro and Azrael (2024) and Sam Fam (2024) and has apprenticed in costume on CBC’s Run the Burbs.
Outside of Costume Design Arianna enjoys creating art that marry her interest in storytelling, poetry and political activism with her textile background.
Riel Reddick-Stevens
Riel Reddick-Stevens
Sound Design
Riel Reddick-Stevens (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist, from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia; now based in Toronto with strong ties to Montreal. She works mostly as an actor, sound designer/ composer, playwright, educator and producer. She is interested in creating and being part of work that uses multi mediums to portray one cohesive vision or story, by and for voices we don’t traditionally see in western theatre, with themes of; Blackness, JOY, Identity, sexuality, coming of age and familial relationships (both blood and found).
Riel was recently awarded a META for Outstanding sound design/ composition for her work on Infinite Theatre’s production of Dominoes at the crossroads, as well as a Black Shoulder Legacy award to focus on the technical sides of sound design and sound creation!
Select credits include; Actor: Controlled Damage (Upcoming/ Neptune Theatre), Sound designer: Dominoes at the Crossroads (Infinite theatre), Playwright and actor: SEX GODDESS public reading (HOUSE + BODY), Music contributor: Everyday She Rose (Black Theatre Workshop)
Sharine Taylor
Sharine Taylor
Set Design
Sharine is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist working using language and design across various mediums as vessels for storytelling.
Her combined passions for writing, archiving, media creating and curating has informed her approach in editorializing and documenting the expansive and generative cultural production that takes place in the Caribbean, and how it materializes, transforms and takes up itself in different geographies.
As a production designer, her interdisciplinary approach to designing is informed by her desire to create a culturally-sensitive and relevant universe that creates intimacy between characters, their environment and audience. She is especially interested in showcasing the interiority of Black expression, life, characters and their narratives through screen-based world-building. As an art director, she brings her sensibilities of working in different departments within production—producer, production manager, screenwriter and director—to the fore and as a means of creating a comprehensive pathway for her department to succeed.
In 2019, Sharine made her directorial debut continuing her aspirations to share the narratives of people with Caribbean heritage. Tallawah Abroad: Remembering Little Jamaica is a short that explores how a neighbourhood in Toronto’s west end, affectionately known as Little Jamaica, fights to preserve its history and cultural legacy amidst gentrification. In 2021, the film was awarded ‘Best Direction in a Documentary Series’ from the Canadian Screen Academy.
Young, Gifted & Black Program Director
d’bi.young anitafrika
Obsidian Theatre is thrilled to welcome d’bi.young anitafrika as the Young, Gifted, and Black Program Director!
d’bi.young is a playwright-performer, director-dramaturge and activist-educator, who creates, embodies, and teaches decolonial praxis. Culminating their PhD in Black womyn’s theatre at London South Bank University (LSBU), their research centres on the emancipation of the oppressed self, through theatre making. d’bi.young developed the Anitafrika Method—a nurturant Black-queer-feminist pedagogy of transformation—offering arts practitioners globally, an intersectional framework of knowing, doing and being. A widely anthologised Siminovitch Playwright Prize finalist, three-time Dora award winner, and founding Artistic Director of Watah Theatre, Spolrusie Press and Ubuntu Decolonial Arts Centre in Costa Rica, d’bi.young has authored twelve plays, seven albums, and four poetry collections—headlining poetry & literary festivals, theatre seasons, and academic conferences globally. Most recently they have held lectureships at Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance and LSBU as a decolonial theatre practice, leadership & education specialist. Utilising the Anitafrika Method, they design courses that reframe playwriting, devising, acting, performance, directing, dramaturgy, theatre design & curriculum development from an African-Indigenous epistemological, ontological, cosmological, ethical, & aesthetic perspective. d’bi.young is lead faculty at Soulpepper Theatre Academy and currently lectures in the theatre department at the University of Victoria.
As this year’s Program Director and Lead Mentor, d’bi.young will utilize the Anitafrika Method to develop the program curricula, provide comprehensive mentorship to each practitioner, and guide the ensemble creative process.
Contact Details
If you have any general questions about Young, Gifted & Black, please contact our artistic producer daniel jelani ellis at op@obsidiantheatre.com.
Young Gifted and Black is generously sponsored by:
Obsidian Theatre’s Season Sponsor: TD Bank Group;
Program Sponsors: Catapult/Rideau Hall Foundation, Scotiabank, Toronto Arts Council Strategic Fund, Metcalf Foundation.
Venue Sponsor: Factory Theatre
