Name Djanet Sears Role Playwright | Movies Suspect | |
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Awards Governor General's Award for English-language drama Nominations Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Guest Role Dramatic Series Books The adventures of a Black, Harlem duet, Afrika Solo, Harlem Duet - Duo Harlem | ||
Playwright djanet sears on creating african canadian music for the stage
Djanet Sears is a Canadian playwright, actor and director, nationally recognized for her work in African-Canadian Theatre. Sears has many credits in writing and editing highly acclaimed dramas such as Afrika Solo, the first stage play to be written by a Canadian woman of African descent; its sequel Harlem Duet; and The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God. The complexities of intersecting identities of race, and gender are central themes in her works, as well as inclusion of songs, rhythm, and choruses shaped from West-African traditions. She is also passionate about "the preservation of Black theatre history," and involved the creation of organizations like Obsidian Theatre, and AfriCanadian Playwrights Festival.
Contents
- Playwright djanet sears on creating african canadian music for the stage
- Writer director djanet sears of the play the adventures of a black girl in search of god
- Early life and education
- Career
- Plays
- Awards and honours
- Directing credits
- Discography
- References
Writer director djanet sears of the play the adventures of a black girl in search of god
Early life and education
Born (1959) in England, to a Guyanese father and a Jamaican mother, Sears lived there until 1974 when her family moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and then settled in Oakville, Ontario in 1975. Her birth name was Janet — she added the D after a trip to West Africa where she came across a plateau called "Djanet," inspiring her to change her name as a nod to her African Ancestry.
Sears attended York University where she obtained an Honours Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre in 1999, followed by studies at the Canadian Film Centre and New York University.
Career
After returning from a trip to West-Africa Sears wrote her stage play Afrika Solo, which premiered in 1987, and sparked the creation of many other full-length plays like Double Trouble, and Harlem Duet. Sears is not only a writer for theatre, she has many credits in acting, directing, and editing multiple volumes of an anthology of Canadian African plays called Testifyin': Contemporary African Canadian Drama.
Sears contributed to the creation of the AfriCanadian Playwrights Festival in 1997, which is a culmination of African centred plays on the Canadian stage. It was held in Toronto in 2003 as well as 2006. Sears also belongs to and is a founding member of the Obsidian Theatre "dedicated to producing works by authors of African descent living or working in Canada."
Sears as an educator worked as an adjunct professor teaching drama at University College, University of Toronto. Additionally she has held many positions like the international artist-in-residence at Joseph Papp Public Theatre, the writer-in-residence at the University of Guelph, and playwright-in-residence at Nightwood Theatre.
Plays
Awards and honours
Sears full-length play Afrika Solo won the International Armstrong Award for Outstanding Radio Play (1991), and the Silver Prize at the International Radio Festival of New York (1991); its sequel Harlem Duet has acquired multiple Dora Mavor Moore Awards, and The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award (2004). Sears's other distinctions include an even more extensive list including Canada's highest literary award.