Dead Name Theatre (DNT) uplifts and centres the voices, experiences and talents of queer, trans and non-binary creatives in Toronto. We acknowledge that Toronto is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. We also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit. We invite you to visit Native-Land.ca and learn more about the history of the land you are on. DNT's three leading values are Representation, Community, and Storytelling as Activism. With Representation we seek to provide more opportunities for the immensely talented theatre practitioners who have been denied opportunity because of their marginalized gender and sexual identities. DNT aims to create a rehearsal space that is populated by queer, trans and non-binary creatives, from actors to designers, directors, stage managers and front of house team. Besides providing opportunities, we believe this representation will inspire the next generation. In regards to Community, with a rehearsal space where we are the majority, we will be able to tell queer, trans and non-binary stories from a place of authenticity and support rather than tokenism. Our representation on stage is far and few between and can often fall into stereotypes and tokenism in character portrayals of these identities. But if we create as a community, we can offer a more nuanced representation of queer, trans and non-binary characters on stage, simultaneously reducing the toxic and harmful rehearsal practices that our community has learned to survive in. The question we are asking is, “If an actor feels affirmed by their cast, crew and creative team, what level of performance might they be able to reach?”
Storytelling as Activism, relates to the core of why we do theatre. If we tell a nuanced, authentic, beautiful, heart-breaking and relatable queer, trans, non-binary story, we can begin to reclaim our full humanity from our audience. If we can share in our storytelling what the weight of homophobia, queerphobia, transphobia, enbyphobia and transmisogyny does to our community, our audience might be able to offer us empathy and start to dismantle these phobias in their own minds.
