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Trout Stanley – Rising Toronto Star is not a fish out of water in this darkly funny, all Black Canadian Play By Stephen Weir Stephen Jackman-Torkoff has had so many edgy roles in his young acting career, crazy come easy.   This month he plays a touched barefoot wanderer who wanders through a British Columbia forest in a tattered police uniform looking for the lake where his jewelry-thieving parents accidentally electrocuted themselves years ago.   Early in this Black comedy he meets two equally crazy gun toting, noose carrying sisters and falls in love overnight.   Did I mention Jackman-Torkoff’s character only answers to the name of Trout Stanley? Jackman-Torkoff is the runaway star of Trout Stanley, a very dark comedy currently getting rave reviews at the downtown Factory Lab Theatre. Trout Stanley is a remount of play that first hit the boards back in 2004 in Nova Scotia, came to Toronto in 2005 and then on to a wow zowie response in New York City. The pla

Marie-Joseph Angélique will Burn Down The House By Stephen Weir It is not as though the story of how Angélique, a young Montreal domestic slave, set fire to Montreal and was hanged for her trouble is a state secret. However, the fact that there was slavery in Canada, and at least one black woman fought back in 1724, is not a well-known fact. “ The trouble with history is knowing whose version of the facts are real.   While the establishment might see Angélique, as a villain, the Black community will have a different take, " said Luke Reece a Producer at Obsidian Theatre. " Next week we are opening AngÄlique a play that tells her story and gives a vibrant account of Canadian Black history. " Angélique, a classic Canadian play written by the late Lorena Gale, is based on the transcripts of the trial of an enslaved Black woman who was tortured and hanged for the Montreal fire 245 years ago. The current drama (mounted initially by the Quebec based Black Th