Amaka Umeh is an award-winning performing artist of Igbo & Ikwerre (Nigerian) descent with a shameless love of puns and a super sweet tooth. While exploring the potential for transformative truth through imagination, and wrestling with the limitations of the English language as a vehicle for understanding, their work centers on reviving forgotten narratives and unearthing suppressed voices. Selected credits: Three Sisters (Obsidian/Soulpepper); Hamlet, Death and the King’s Horseman (Stratford Festival); Sizwe Banzi is Dead (Soulpepper); Fall On Your Knees (Canadian premiere tour); The Wolves (Howland/Crow’s). Film: The Strangers’ Case (CBC Gem). Audiobook: Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi (ECW Press). Training: Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre; Factory Theatre Mechanicals; Randolph College. Awards: Dora Mavor Moore Awards (2024, 2023, 2019); Stratford Festival Peter Donaldson Award (2023); BBPA Harry Jerome President’s Award (2022).
Program
Notes to Belonging: An Adaptation
In this timely and poignant performance, critically acclaimed director, playwright and scholar Jaye Austin Williams introduces a live stage adaptation of Toronto-based poet Dionne Brand’s renowned non-fiction book, “A Map to the Door of No Return” published in 2001. Adapted and directed by Austin Williams with excerpts from Brand’s book, this program is staged as […]
October 12
7:00pm – 8:00pm