{"id":123641,"date":"2026-04-23T13:38:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:38:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=123641"},"modified":"2026-04-23T14:00:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:00:01","slug":"interview-director-mumbi-tindyebwa-otu-talks-catch-creation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2026\/04\/23\/interview-director-mumbi-tindyebwa-otu-talks-catch-creation\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW | Director Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu Talks About How To Catch Creation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The Soulpepper Theatre, Obsidian Theatre, and Nightwood Theatre production of How to Catch Creation (Photo courtesy of Soulpepper Theatre, Obsidian Theatre, and Nightwood Theatre)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Soulpepper Theatre, Obsidian Theatre, and Nightwood Theatre present How to Catch Creation in its Canadian premiere, a play about creativity and finding your purpose \u2014 and how are legacies remembered? The play is written by Christina Anderson, and the Toronto production is directed by Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu.<\/p>\n

It takes the stage at Soulpepper Theatre from April 23 to May 17, featuring Amanda Cordner<\/strong> (Sort Of\/CBC), Shakura Dickson<\/strong> (da Kink in My Hair\/Soulpepper), Daren A. Herbert<\/strong> (The Brothers Size\/Soulpepper), Germaine Konji<\/strong> (Dixon Road\/Obsidian Theatre), Dant\u00e9 Prince<\/strong> (The Christmas Market\/Crow\u2019s Theatre), and Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah<\/strong> (Something Rotten!\/Stratford Festival).<\/p>\n

Anderson\u2019s play saw its world premiere at Chicago\u2019s Goodman Theater in 2019.<\/p>\n

The Play<\/h2>\n

\u201cThis play makes my heart feel full\u201d says Nightwood Theatre Artistic Director Andrea Donaldson<\/strong> in a statement. \u201cThe story is a tender gift of lightness, of intimate relationships, compelling humans I\u2019d like to meet and just the right amount of connective magic. It is inspiring and life affirming and has kept me grinning all year as we\u2019ve prepared to share it with audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story revolves around four artists and intellectuals in San Francisco dealing with issues around creativity and legacy, in the context of love and family. Griffin has been out of prison for a little more than a year after a decade of incarceration for a crime he didn\u2019t commit, and he\u2019s determined to become a parent, a creative act, in the eyes of playwright Christina Anderson. Tami is the director of the painting program at a conservatory \u2014 but she hasn\u2019t lifted her own brush since her last relationship ended. Riley is a successful tech employee, but she hasn\u2019t produced anything fresh in a long time. Her partner, Stokes, has been rejected from 13 art schools. But maybe, he\u2019s really a writer…<\/p>\n

The words written by a Black queer feminist writer of the 1960s affect each of them, bringing them together in unexpected ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cChristina Anderson has written a profound and beautiful celebration of the queer voice. Queerness isn\u2019t in the margins here, it\u2019s visionary. It underscores how we can more fully see ourselves, cutting through convention and bringing us closer to beauty, complexity, and truth\u201d said Soulpepper Artistic Director Paolo Santalucia<\/strong> in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Mumbi\u2019s hands, with this extraordinary cast, the production feels poised to reveal something essential about what it means to live openly, feel deeply, and leave a lasting mark on the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

LV caught up with director Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu<\/strong> to ask her about the production.<\/p>\n

\"Director
Director Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu (Photo courtesy of the artist)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu<\/h2>\n

Acclaimed theatre creator and director Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu grew up in Kenya and Victoria, BC. Today, she\u2019s based in Toronto. She is the Artistic Director of Obsidian Theatre, Canada\u2019s leading creator for Black Art, and Founder\/Artistic Director for the experimental theatre company IFT (It\u2019s A Freedom Thing Theatre) Theatre.<\/p>\n

Among her many theatrical credits: Three Sisters (Obsidian\/Soulpepper), Is God Is (Obsidian\/Canadian Stage\/Necessary Angel), Trout Stanley (Factory Theatre), Sizwe Banzi is Dead, The Brothers Size, Ma Rainey\u2019s Black Bottom (Soulpepper Theatre), Post Democracy (Tarragon Theatre), and Oraltorio: A Theatrical Mixtape for (Obsidian Theatre\/Soulpepper).<\/p>\n

Her work has been recognized by multiple awards, including a Canadian Screen Award, a Dora Award, a Toronto Theatre Critics Award, a Pauline McGibbon Award, and a Mallory Gilbert Protege Award.<\/p>\n

Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu: The Interview<\/h3>\n

The play revolves around four characters whose creative spark, for various reasons, has been stymied. It\u2019s a situation that many people will find relatable.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely. I really feel like I chose the play because I could really relate to these creatives,\u201d Tindyebwa Otu says. As she points out, many Torontonians, after the pandemic, and what she calls the subsequent \u201cshifting landscape in our city economically and socially\u201d, found themselves similarly struggling to keep that spark alive. Part of the goal, what she\u2019d like audiences to get out of the production, is a feeling of encouragement and possibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe characters themselves are so driven with that desire to create and to continue to create,\u201d Mumbi says. \u201cThat desire is so alive, and their pursuit of it is so alive. They\u2019re hungry for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Black Queer Feminist Writer: Uncovering Black Cultural History<\/h3>\n

The four characters, a would-be father, a conservatory director, a successful tech worker, and an artist\/novelist, find inspiration in the work of a Black queer feminist writer of the 1960s \u2014 someone they\u2019d never heard of before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat lens is so refreshing, and one that I hadn\u2019t seen before,\u201d Mumbi says. \u201cIt\u2019s from the discovery of these Black queer feminist books.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the play, it\u2019s a male identifying painter who first comes across the books, which are being given away for free. He picks them up, and becomes engrossed and intrigued by her writings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt changes his life, and intersects with the other people in the story,\u201d Tindyebwa Otu explains. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of mystery in terms of who this writer is, and how their lives may or may not intersect.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the character might be fictional, it\u2019s certainly true that many writers, artists, and other creative people and their works are forgotten and fade into obscurity for a variety of reasons. For those who are Black queer women, the odds tend to weigh heavily against their favour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is really the core of the play \u2014 whose voices do we remember? Who does history prioritize? What voices are passed down to us from generation to generation?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to unearth and uncover those that we still may not know about even in an age where sharing information has become so easy, but who, at the same time, contributed so much to our culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we keep their legacies alive?\u201d she asks. \u201cThe Black perspective is so important.\u201d She wonders about her own identity, in turn, and what will be remembered in 50 years. It\u2019s something the characters in the play consider too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese characters are so relatable and contemporary and easy to relate to.\u201d For Black people, women, and\/or queer creatives, the act of creation itself is a bid against erasure. \u201cWhat we\u2019re doing should be remembered.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a hypothetical situation. North American pop culture is full of examples where pioneering Black voices and artists have been gradually usurped over time, forgotten while their white mainstream counterparts take a lion\u2019s share of the credit and acclaim. Over time, we forget where the impetus came from.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat happens over and over again, especially with women, and Black women, and Black creatives,\u201d Tindyebwa Otu says. \u201cWhat they\u2019re doing is taken and made into the mainstream. Cultural theft and appropriation \u2014 it happens so easily.\u201d<\/p>\n