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An international trilogy of plays that will focus on the West’s relationship with Africa.

The three playwrights come from three regions: Africa, Europe, North America. The directors come from different countries within these three continents, thus making the project a six-country, three continent effort.

The theatre artists joining the project are relatively young, and formally experimental – mid or early-career innovators, already with national or international reputations.

The starting point is the 2005 series of Massey Lectures given by Stephen Lewis, United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa from 2001 to 2006.

In November 2007 the creative team gathered in Toronto for an initial planning meeting. A launch event was held on November 3 at the Gladstone Hotel.

METHOD

The choice of Stephen Lewis as a starting point is a pragmatic one. His overview of the pandemic is exhaustive – his Massey lecture transcript runs to 206 pages. In spite of, or because of, his intimate knowledge of the pandemic he is also able to put a human face on the suffering he has witnessed.

Each commissioned playwright will choose which aspect of the African/Western relationship they most want to focus on, using the Lewis material as a point of entry. The way the West imagines Africa, deals with Africa, and vice versa – the invisibility of the latter in the imagination of the former – this underpins much of what is currently happening on the subcontinent.

The tenor of the project is one of innovation and independence – much like the institution driving the trilogy. We are interested in non-traditional and/or multidisciplinary modes of creation. The teams being assembled reflect this aesthetic.

Together, we will work together to make an innovative trilogy slated for production at Luminato in 2010.