Black Theatre Icon Returns To Toronto

By Neil Armstrong

Photo credit: Shekeidra Marche

After a bout of unfortunate situations, Trey Anthony, a four-time NAACP Award-winner and critically acclaimed Canadian playwright, took a 5-month break from social media and is back with an immersive workshop reading of her new play, “Confessions of A Black Girl Who Should Have Known Better,” that will be held at the Factory Theatre in Toronto, May 28 to 30.

In recognition of May as Mental Health Awareness Month, she is sharing her personal journey with functional depression through the raw and intimate lens of the play and helping to dismantle mental health stigma in the Black community.

On the phone from Atlanta, Georgia, where she lives with her 6-year-old son, Anthony laughs while recounting the domino effect of unfortunate incidents: the ownership of a theatre falling through because of zoning laws and the cancellation of a contract by the school board.

“It was all of those things and just this sense of isolation. And all of my friends usually joke and say when Trey is going through it, she writes the best stuff.”

She knew she wasn’t the only person job searching, dating in her 50s, being a mother, and feeling that everything was too much. The playwright realized that she was not matching up to the curated version of people’s timeline on Instagram and couldn’t look at them anymore.

“I feel people are faking it and the reason why I know people are faking it is because I faked it.” The play pulls back the curtain and focuses on some of the things she struggled with.

In this solo performance reading, Anthony cracks open the parts of life we’re taught to keep quiet: the God she contended with, the people who she ignored her intuition about and shouldn’t have dated, the depression appearing as strength and the deafening loneliness that success couldn’t fix.

The show allows her to go back to her stand-up roots and mix it with theatre and being a motivational speaker.

At its core, the play interrogates everything: religion, relationships, motherhood, race, and the generational cycles and patterns Black women inherit and are expected to break without a roadmap.

Anthony invites people to a space to laugh, release, confront, heal and reclaim. She wants women in their 50s to come with their confessions and to know that they are not falling but reinventing themselves.

“I really want the audience to partake so we’re sharing, talking, laughing and crying. And it’s me shaping the show from their responses — some of their responses will actually go into the second draft of the show.”

The actor, producer and ‘da Kink in My Hair creator is a leading voice in contemporary Black theatre. Her acclaimed works include How Black Mothers Say I Love You and the bestselling book Black Girl in Love (With Herself). She recently began teaching theatre at Spelman College and is currently writing her second book.

This play marks the directorial debut of Ordena Stephens-Thompson, a professional actor and acting coach who has worked in theatres in Canada and the US for many years. She is a two-time Dora nominated actress and a twice-Dora award recipient for best ensemble.

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