PLAYWRIGHT TINGS

Sierra Carvery is a young Black woman from Africville, Nova Scotia who, as she completes a university history paper, gets distracted by thoughts about down home and heading back for the Africville Reunion. She recounts these experiences through storytelling, song and spoken word. Scotian Journey reveals the history and stories about Nova Scotia that are still relevant today, but not yet in the history books.

Originally written and performed for The City of Barrie Black History month celebrations in 2018 and then booked at RHCPA for their RBC Black History Month presentation that same year. The Three Friends was then part of RHCPA’s season in 2019.

Susan, a woman in her mid-30’s who has been single for eight years, has signed up to take part in a reality TV show called Cooking For Love. She’s decided that she’s ready to try to take a chance, since other traditional and non traditional ways of meeting men don’t seem to be working. Scott the camera man comes to her apartment to set up for the taping of her segment and then Jeff her date for the show arrives for the taping. Things get interesting for Susan.

SHE is a Black woman asking real questions about life. HE is a Black man searching for meaning and understanding. Together, they fight to make their relationship last in a world where “the rules” are always changing.

A fusion of personal experiences and fiction, playwright Anne-Marie Woods conveys in this new work the vulnerability felt in romantic relationships and the importance of communication.

Through compelling monologues, poetry and song, the female/male rapport is laid bare in this tragicomic battle of wits. SHE SAID/HE SAID is a fresh and nuanced look at relationships through a script that cleverly meanders through the present and past experiences of its two main characters. Where time is subjective, the fourth wall is intermittently torn down and location though specific is universal. Woods has taken a non-conventional approach to telling a modern day love story.

“Woods deserves credit for the composition and elegance with which she seamlessly integrates these moments into the regular dialogue and fabric of the show.” – Marilla Steuter-Martin, BroadwayWorld.com

“Woods, an award-winning multi-disciplinary artist, has infused this semi-autobiographical script with original music, monologue, and poetry to create a unique theatrical experience of spoken word.” – Camila Fitzgibbon, Montreal Theatre Hub

“I particularly enjoyed his fantasizing himself as the black John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever with his moves and attitude.” – Byron Toben, Westmount Mag.ca

Black Theatre Workshop brings award-winning playwright Anne-Marie Woods’ play She Said/He Said — a fresh and nuanced look at love, communication and relationships — to audiences for the first time. She Said/He Said, starring local actors Mariah Inger and Christian Paul, is an intimate, musical and artfully creative collision of theatre and spoken word. The new work uses wickedly contemporary wit to explore how culture, ethnicity and gender affect our lived experiences and our relationship to intimacy, selfhood and love.

“I could sit around and complain about the plight of the Black woman and being single for hours… but that makes no sense to me,” stated -Anne-Marie Woods. “However, creating a script that poetically challenges the conventions of traditional theatre — that makes sense. A script that tackles the stereotypes of Black men and women with the support of Quincy Armorer and BTW – that makes sense.”

She Said/He Said is designed by a team that includes Rob Denton (musical arrangements), Eric Mongerson (lighting design), Elahe Marjovi (set and costume design), and directed by BTW’s artistic director Quincy Armorer with dramaturgy by BTW’s artist in residence Marie Barlizo. Musical composition is by Anne-Marie Woods.

Woods is an award-winning multi-disciplinary artist with roots in England and Trinidad. She is the first African Canadian to have featured a play (Waiting to Explode) in at the National Black Theatre Festival in North Carolina and has won the BBPA Harry Jerome Award for Excellence in Entertainment..