From Press Release
Wherever Our Heroine goes, she is not Black Enough nor White Enough to find her people. In Who you Callin Black Eh? Our Heroine does not live in the utopian world that is non-racist, non-sexist, multi-racial, and colour-blind that many twenty-somethings claim is their world.
Who You Callin Black Eh?, world premiere at the Toronto Fringe 2019, is a coming of age/identity play set in Canada’s largest, most multicultural, multilingual city, that is not about sexuality, but about colour. Our Heroine is slowly pushed to the unstable brink of personality disorder, colour disorder.
Playwright/Producer Rita Shelton Deverell, broadcaster, theatre artist, and Member of the Order of Canada, says: “I grew up in the US South pre-civil rights legislation. I’m black and that’s that. But I’ve discovered that for many young people, biracial young people especially, black or white is not the end of their story. Shadism is their reality.” The play is written for 5 actors, 21 scenes, and many masks in colours and shades.
Who you Callin Black Eh? boasts an award-winning Ensemble: Director Clara McBride, lecturer at Ryerson School of Performance, teacher in the MA program at RADA, Director “How to Beat Up Any Man” by Carol Zoccoli at the Second City; Designer Jim Plaxton, 8 Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Outstanding Design, Associate Artistic Director for Theatre Passe Muraille in the mid 1980’s; Actor/stage manager Clayton Batson, two episodes of “Paranormal 911”, Gallery 44 and Artscape Youngespace, Featured artist at 2018 exhibit “Exposing Liminalities”. Actors: Jessica Bowmer, “F*cking Perfect”, Best of Fringe 2018, Theatre Performance Scholarship and Academic Excellence in all studio classes award, Humber College; Brendan Chandler, “Spirit Horse” Pa/Grandfather, Roseneath Theatre, “Almighty Voice & His Wife” Voice/Ghost, Theatre Kingston; Chattrisse Dolabaille, High Society Cabaret’s “The Silent Goodbye”, Mysterious Entity Theatre’s “The Blind Eye”; Jason Pilgrim, “To Kill a Mockingbird”, Stage Centre Productions, “Ghostbusters: The Movie Experience”; and Iliana Spirakis, one of the creators and performers of the devised Fringe Festival show “F*cking Perfect”, Best of Fringe 2018; Musician: Osaze Dolabaille who has been performing and teaching African percussion for 18 years.
Toronto Fringe 2019 Performance Times – Factory Theatre Studio Thu 4th Jul, 10:15 pm; Sat 6th Jul, 6:45 pm; Sun 7th Jul, 1:00 pm; Tue 9th Jul, 8:00 pm; Thu 11th Jul, 5:45 pm; Fri 12th Jul, 4:15 pm; Sun 14th Jul, 12:15 pm