Mandate

Aphotic Theatre Society is committed to creating vital and innovative performance, with an emphasis on developing new plays written and/or created by women, women of color, and queer/QTPOC (Queer, Trans, People of Color). What distinguishes our mandate and approach is the fact that we prioritize who tells the story and what story theywant to tell. 

As artistic directors, directors, and playwrights, women in Canada’s professional theatre industry have not yet surpassed the 35% employment mark. This number is much lower when it comes to women of colour. Our vision is not only to change these figures and bring more equity in the theatre scene, but also, to create and produce work that is aesthetically innovative, contextually potent and viscerally intelligent. 

“Aphotic” refers to the zone underwater, where there is no more than 1% of light. In those dark places, almost nothing is visible except what is illuminated by bioluminescence. Our goal is to shine light on those people and stories that are often in the “dark” relative to the collective psyche. We strive to make the invisible visible by expanding awareness to places previously unexplored and unexamined by mainstream culture.

Aphotic Theatre contributes to a thriving, diverse and critical arts community. Through work that provokes discourse and new perspectives, we advocate for art’s importance and its relevance in society. 

Core Values

• Through our practices, we aim to decolonize and de-tokenize diversity.
  

• We engage with “outsider” experiences, including stories of the struggle for inclusion, acceptance, and understanding.
  

• We investigate cultural politics in an era of globalization and inclusion of under-represented experiences and identities.