Episode 9: Writing and Black Imagination

Old Heads is back with another episode!  We bring in the incredible Sujotta Pace, a casting director in New York City. Together with host's Addae Moon and EB Smith, this episode tackles questions around casting diversity, the challenge with Equity, and much more!

CONTENT WARNING: this episode contains frank discussions regarding suicide, self-harm, police brutality, and racially motivated homicide. Two of our guests from season 1, Yolanda Bonnell and Sadie Berlin, return to talk solidarity between Indigenous and Black communities.  Together with our hosts, this episode touches on artist productivity and burnout, the land back movement, police brutality, and more. If you haven't listened to Canadaland Thunder Bay you can listen here: https://www.canadaland.com/shows/thunder-bay/

The incredible women from the Daughters of Lorraine podcast, Jordan and Leticia, join us to talk about Black Theatre Studies - it's importance, value, why we need it!

Heather Infantry is back with us again and has brought with her the wonderful Conrhonda Baker to talk more about funding and finances in the arts with our hosts EB and Addae.  Chats about funding cover also cover the value of higher education in the arts as EB shares his experience finishing his degree in arts administration.

Teniece Divya Johnson and Siobhan Richardson join our Old Heads hosts to talk about Intimacy Direction, how it's growing and what we need to make rehearsal spaces safe.

Incredible Canadian writer, director, actor, and all around leader Djanet Sears joins EB and Addae to talk about writing by and about Black creators, making space and centring Blackness. Knock that white man off your shoulder and give yourself time to dream.

We're back for another season!  We're bringing on a bunch of new guests, as well as bringing back a few old friend!  But first, where are we now?  It's been one year since this podcast started, EB and Addae discuss what's happened, and what we have to look forward to this season! 

In the wake of the recent shootings in Atlanta and ongoing conversations regarding Anti-Asian hate, EB and Addae sit down with Old Heads producer, Nicole Eun-Ju Bell, a mixed-race Korean theatre artists.  Together, they discuss historical connections between Black and Asian communities, and lateral oppression 

The team's all here for this final episode of the season!  EB and Addae chat with editor Verne Good and producer Nicole Eun-Ju Bell about this past season, reflecting on highlights and lessons and where we might be going next.

Al Letson joins EB and Addae to talk writing for TV and Theatre, the Black imagination, comic books, and the renaissance in television narratives, plus much more!