Residency spotlight: Conversation with Adam Lazarus

“The difference between Versus and my other shows is that this one is a celebration of community while the other ones were me trying to punch people in the face to say, “wake up.” Rather, it’s me saying, “we’re all like this guy, it’s tough, so let’s keep walking forward together.”

Adam in a black and white photograph holds his hands against his face in anguish with his face squished closely together. VERSUS in bold red capitalized letters crosses in front of his face.
Adam Lazarus Headshot

Residency Artist, Adam Lazarus, is currently preparing for an epic seven-week intensive development phase on his next mindbending vision: Versus. 

Versus has received support from The Theatre Centre, Canada Council, OAC, TAC and a significant investment from NAC’s Creation Fund, to bring together a team of award-winning creators to help design the world. This work will help inform and culminate the premiere presentation taking place in November 2026 (look out for our announcement coming this summer)!

A bit more about the show:
It’s Gerald’s birthday and he doesn’t want to go to his party – everything is just too much. So maybe could you help him with breakfast? Can someone else walk his dog?  He soon finds himself at the emergency dentist and from the first inhale of nitrous, Gerald and the audience are on a ride through the comedy, grief, horror, and joy of being alive and trying to make it to your own birthday party. Cake included. 

Our marketing and communications Intern, Eleanor Yuneun Park, had a chat with Adam to see how he’s feeling leading up to working on the show! 

The Theatre Centre (TC): What does it mean to you to be creating Versus at The Theatre Centre?

Adam Lazarus (AL): The Theatre Centre has always been a massive proponent of my work. I’ve worked with Aislinn for over a decade, and she and everyone at the centre always begins with a question: “what do you need?” When I was first asked this, it was a question that I felt was really unheard of. Working at The Theatre Centre is also really collaborative, so the bottom line is that I love working there. There’s so much freedom that I’m offered to be in that space with support.

TC: Your past work such as Daughter, for example, reflected the political zeitgeist at the time. Does Versus aim to do so similarly with the current moment?

AL: As an artist, I don’t set out to capture the zeitgeist. I’m a human being living in the world and I am part of the zeitgeist. Daughter was written when I was watching things happen around me, my friends, family, and politicians and I reacted to it with a piece of theatre. So it’s important to distinguish that it’s never me thinking about what would be hot right now and trying to capture that, because that wouldn’t be authentic.

Daughter at Latitude Festival

Daughter at Latitude Festival photo by Richard Gray

TC: What inspired Versus?

AL: It came out of a very intense moment of time for me when my father passed, my mother had a stroke, and my sister went through a nasty divorce. My hair went white, and there was a global pandemic. I remember thinking, “what the fuck is going on” and then realizing, “oh, everyone feels like the world is ending. How do I have a good life, and be in this moment?”

We’re always expected to do more like to be good parents and be really smart all the time, but we’re just dumb humans and struggling to do the best we can — some of us with more empathy than others. When I describe the show to people, I ask them if they have a feeling like a baseline tremor. Maybe it’s a baseline diagnosable anxiety or depression, maybe it’s just the tremor of the universe right now. Everyone nods and I’ll say that’s what my play is, because nobody seems to be living right while claiming that they’re living right.

What do I do about the malaise of the world ending? How do I know how to behave right now? And it can be complicated when you have friends who align themselves with certain politics and you realize you don’t agree with them and that the world is not set up for me to be in the same room as you to talk about that and still hug you at the end.

And fighting isn’t the correct mode. I can fight and I will only end up hurting my back, so that’s why the show is called Versus. This guy wakes up and he’s just not approaching anything correctly and catastrophizes every situation, and he also lacks the tools to feel deeply or have a good cry or see himself as a good human. So he’s defensive, angry, and frustrated.

The difference between Versus and my other shows is that this one is a celebration of community while the other ones were me trying to punch people in the face to say, “wake up.” Rather, it’s me saying, “we’re all like this guy, it’s tough, so let’s keep walking forward together.”

“The words — “you just keep going” — are why I think we’re here. What else are we doing here?
We don’t have an answer.
Let’s just keep going together.”

Daughter

Daughter at The Theatre Centre Photo by John Lauener

TC: It seems like it’s natural for you to have made the distinction that way in your approach now compared to 10 years ago when, as you said, it was a punch in the face. That’s when people could take that and now it’s a different, tougher climate.

AL: I couldn’t agree more. Now, if you tell me I’m a bad person one more time, I’m
going to leave.

TC: You mentioned the pandemic earlier. How long has Versus been in the making?

AL: It’s very different from its initial form. Pre-pandemic, it was a dinner party structure to think about two things: the question of “do you know how to be” and the tremor. The Theatre Centre really helped me keep it alive through the pandemic, and they supported me through my very early residency exploration period. Once the pandemic closed, I wrote a draft, put it up in Summerworks to see if it had legs, and it did. So we then successfully went for the National Creation Fund, which allows people to be in the space thinking about the art.

Adam on stage surrrounded by collapsed furniture strewn across the stage. He holds his face and looks panicked.

Versus Summerworks Workshop Presentation at The Theatre Centre
Photo by Henry Chan

Adam with a cheeky smile on stage for the Residency showings in a brown fall jacket and burnt orange dress shirt.

Adam at The Theatre Centre’s 2025 Residency Showing
Photo by Duane Cole

TC: How I understand Versus from what you’ve described so far is this kind of tense battle between life responsibilities and self-preservation. Do you feel like you’ve reached a necessary conclusion with this battle between the two through creating Versus?

AL: It’s interesting that you put it in that dichotomy, I love it. I think it’s a life’s journey, just like being an anti-racist, anti-misogynist is a life’s journey you continue to learn about. I do think Versus is a love letter to an audience, and telling them, “This is going to be so fun, come to the theatre.” To me, that is the antidote for the general feeling we all have. If you ask someone how they got through the hardships in their lives, every person would say that you just have to keep going. The words — “you just keep going” — are why I think we’re here. What else are we doing here? We don’t have an answer. Let’s just keep going together.

And we’re still in the process of designing this, but everyone at the end of the show would come on stage and we’d have a party together, sharing cake and dancing to a band. Because what the hell else are we all here for? I don’t know. So my conclusion to your question is community, being together, and listening.

Nehal, d'bi, and Adam smiling and laughing at the camera while in the brightly lit Theatre Centre cafe. Nehal and Adam are on the ends with one hand in a pocket and their other wrapped around d'bi. while posing for the photo.

Nehal El-Hadi, d’bi. young anitafrika, and Adam Lazarus at the 2025 Residency Artist Intake. Photo by Jae Yang.

The Theatre Centre is delighted to invite you to its fundraising reception and performance – an exclusive first preview of Versus, on Thursday, May 21, 2026. All proceeds go towards supporting The Theatre Centre as a live-arts incubator and community hub.

The Theatre Centre’s Residency Program is generously supported by:

BMO

Community spotlight: Conversation with dr.d’bi.young anitafrika

dbi young, in traditional attire, hair tied tall, with face painted in red and black, wearing black and jewel beads reminiscent of an armour, regally stares at the camera.

“Performing esu in 2026 is a ritual in listening to my artistic responsibility and accountability“

Esu Crossing the Middle Passage

Across the street from The Theatre Centre in Watah Studio Theatre (32 Lisgar Street), Watah Theatre‘s esu crossing the middle passage has just concluded a run.

Our marketing and communications Intern, Eleanor Yuneun Park, watched and interviewed dr. d’bi.young anitafrika about the show!

The Orisha Trilogy is the second set of trilogies dr. d’bi.young anitafrika is exploring upon completing their PhD. The next plays shx mami wata & the pxssywitch hunt and lukumi dub opera will be held at the Watah Studio Theatre in May.

The Watah Studio Theatre is currently taking applications for the Black Theatre School.

Pictured d’bi.young anitafrika. Image courtesy of Black Theatre School, Watah Theatre

esu crossing the middle passage, the first of the Orisha Trilogy, is set aboard a slave ship, following a womxn’s journey into the Trans Atlantic slave trade while embodied by the spirit of Esu: the trickster God of Ifa. The show ran at Watah Studio Theatre in Tkaronto from February 17 to March 8, 2026 during Black Futures Month. 

d'bi.young, at the beginning of the show, offer prayers to the shrine set up by the entrance.

Photo by Nicole Brumley (Branded Lens)

The Theatre Centre (TC): What does it mean to you to perform esu a decade after its original creation? 

dr. d’bi.young anitafrika: Performing esu in 2026 is a ritual in listening to my artistic responsibility and accountability — not only to myself but the community and to the world. I think of where the world was in 2016 and how the work addressed our collective anger at systemic racism, institutionalized oppression, the degradation of an entire people, while the world built and continued to build its wealth on the backs and with the blood of those people. 

And when I look at where the world is today; we’ve moved beyond anger, beyond mourning, beyond grief and into something that I don’t quite recognize. I’m thinking about the Epstein files, I’m thinking about the potential World War Three, I’m thinking about the bold, unapologetic oppression that Donald Trump is unleashing onto the world, including bombing working class people in the Caribbean who are in fishing boats and bombing an entire people without any global community intervention. 

The issue is about attempting to provide for myself and the community of people who come and sit in the small circle. It’s attempting to provide us with ceremony in order to metabolize the hopelessness that some of us may be experiencing, and to transform the emotions we are navigating into energetic nourishment and healing.

d'bi, takes a breathe as they talk to the audience.

Photo by Nicole Brumley (Branded Lens)

TC: In a much more exaggerated form than in the past, everyone is now witnessing live everything happening in the world through their screens and social media feeds. There’s a level of proximity that’s removed from us witnessing history. Why is it different and important for people to collectively witness history physically in a space like the theatre? 

dr. d’bi.young anitafrika: While we witness atrocities through our phones, we are nonetheless a social species and the impact of these distant atrocities on our beinghood is undeniable because we are ubuntu on this planet: I am because you are, because we are. We are in a symbiotic relationship with life so the impact of these atrocities on our individual and collective nervous systems is undeniable, so we are suffering. 

Indigenous knowledge systems tell us that the way through is together: through ceremony, ritual, collective confrontation, collective accountability, collective healing. Storytelling has always taken place in Indigenous knowledge systems that presented a circle instead of a hierarchy. Unfortunately, colonization, white supremacy, and other forms of violence have co-opted storytelling to use it as a capitalist tool to condition us towards hierarchy, supremacy, and oppression. 

But storytelling has always belonged to the people and has always been medicine. And that is where I am locating myself as a storyteller, because I am sick. I am sick and tired of this fuckery. So I’m asking myself as a storyteller: what is my accountability and responsibility at this moment? It’s not only to seek my own healing but to provide medicine for the healing of my communities.

“As a storyteller conducting the ceremony, the biggest medicine that I offer is my own breath.“

TC: Is there any moment at any of the shows in particular that stayed with you that you’re comfortable sharing? 

dr. d’bi.young anitafrika: There’s a moment where our central character is broken down by their own amnesia, and cannot remember the teachings. A shift occurs, and they move towards the ancestral space where they sit and contemplate these questions. They pick up the lantern and rediscover the ancestral space — metaphorically, because it’s not there anymore at that point. It happens really slowly, and that moment is one of the moments of the play where I allow myself to be the storyteller to remember. I literally allow myself to rediscover through the artifacts on stage to rediscover who I am and what my role is. 

Then the character finds the bowl of cowrie shells, which were used as money at one point in West Africa. But cowrie shells also come from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean where many of our ancestors jumped overboard. In the play, the shells are so spiritually significant and used throughout the show.

When she discovers the same bowl of cowrie shells which were used to symbolize the dead, she cradles it and lays in this metaphorical grave to properly bury the ancestors who jumped overboard. After, she steps out of the space they’ve been in for the whole show and into the space with the audience. Then they directly and deliberately break the fourth wall to offer the audience the bowl for them to each take a cowrie shell. That moment is where I begin to regain strength.

It’s also impactful to see people remain sitting in the theatre after the show, allowing themselves to be reintegrated.

TC: How has the show changed since its 2016 production?

Photo by Nicole Brumley (Branded Lens)

dr. d’bi.young anitafrika: There have been so many changes, that the folks who saw it in 2016 would feel like it’s a different show. The script is the same with some edits, but I’ve grown the show. The fact that the central character does not speak while dancing the Egungun Masquerade — a Yoruba spiritual, cultural tradition — is completely new. In 2016, I had spoken the lines you hear in the soundscape during the dance so that’s a huge poetic shift.

I did this because I needed to respect that, in tradition, the Egungun does not speak through words. The Egungun speaks through the body. So I knew I wanted to embody Egungun. And the huge cowrie shell mask that is centre stage now was the mask that I danced in in 2016. 

TC: And have you observed a shift in audience reaction from that in 2016 and now? 

d’bi.young anitafrika: There is. The 2016 show provided a medium for us to metabolize our anger felt at the atrocities that are becoming more transparent. 

The show now is supporting us in reintegrating and recalibrating our nervous systems. Because our nervous systems are experiencing such activation and dysregulation, I find that what people say after the show is that they felt like coming back from a journey that allowed them to metabolize all the things they’re feeling while regulating their nervous system. So the audience members are co-regulating their nervous systems while participating in this ceremony that’s grounded in breath. As a storyteller conducting the ceremony, the biggest medicine that I offer is my own breath. Our relationship with the breath — the in, out, depth, length, and the practice of it — is centred in this show, and it also supports the co-regulation.

TC: The funds raised from the show are going towards building the Black Theatre School you founded. How does the focus of the show align with the school’s initiative?

dr. d’bi.young anitafrika: The Black Theatre School is an initiative I’ve been developing since 2007 and I’ve always run the programs out of my pocket. After repeating the cycle of running the program out of pocket, I came back after finishing my PhD last year and did a pilot out of my pocket. I think raising money, though, is also about developing an awareness around the project happening. I’ve trained hundreds and hundreds of artists in Tkaronto, in North Turtle Island, in the world, and I think of how I was raised and supported as an emerging practitioner. I continue to be supported and femtored by Djanet Sears for years.

So this role I’m playing is not new, but part of a kinship circle. I am, because you are, because we are. So the choices I’m making as an artist are ubuntu. 

Watah Theatre

Watah Theatre specializes in the professional development of arts practitioners and was founded in 2008 by d’bi.young anitafrika. Arts-engagement sits at the core of Watah’s commitment to provide Black artists with the tools to self-actualize, create relevant art and uncover crucial skills for each one to teach one. Watah Theatre was recently announced as the first-ever Company in Residence at The Theatre Centre.

Black Theatre School

25 years in the making, Black Theatre School (BTS) is a legacy project rooted in a long lineage of concentric kinship circles* centering the transdisciplinary arts pedagogies of African-Caribbean Black womyn arts educators such as Anita Stewart, Vera Cudjoe, Amah Harris, ahdri zhina mandiela, Djanet Sears, Winsom Winsom, Alison Sealy-Smith, Rhoma Spencer, Lillian Allen and Itah Sadu. Featuring practitioners from the African continent, the Caribbean, Turtle Island and Europe, BTS is a bold blueprint for Black diasporic futures. Black Theatre School is presented by Watah Theatre.

Company in Residence at The Theatre Centre

In 2025 we announced dr. d’bi.young anitafrika’s Watah Theatre as our Company in Residence, with a 3-year commitment to the company’s overall organizational growth, including structural, fiscal, and artistic support. In the fall, we presented the 20th anniversary of the critically acclaimed Sankofa Trilogy, a Watah Theatre Production.

The Theatre Centre’s Residency Program is generously supported by:

BMO