Abigail Whitney

Abigail Whitney (19/20 Directors Lab) is an actor, stage director, artistic director and an artist educator with Soulpepper Theatre Company. Whitney made her directorial debut with the world premiere of Les Frères, written by New-York artist Sandra A. Daley-Sharif and won “Best Director” at the University of Toronto Drama Coalition Awards in 2019 for her work. Whitney has since directed her second play Father Figures, winner of the “Audience Choice Award” at the UofT 2020 Drama Festival, assistant directed Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu and Leah Cherniak in Here are the Fragments. co-produced by The ECT Collective and The Theatre Centre; and assistant directed Ross Manson in Hannah Moscovitch’s Infinity, which toured Vancouver, BC in January 2020. Whitney was offered to direct The Fairy Ring written by Angela Joyce Froese for the 2020 InspiraTO Festival but the festival was cancelled due to COVID-19. Whitney is the Artistic Director of Theatre for the youth, an arthouse founded by Omolola Ajao that aims to support all new and emerging Black creators within the Canadian film, visual & theatre industry. With this organization, Whitney aims to bridge the gap between emerging and professionally established Black artists in Toronto.

Lately, Whitney has been working closely with Volcano Theatre as a Curator and Coordinator. Whitney will next do a workshop reading of Veronika Gribanova’s Meditaysh, accepted as one of the top 30 plays in The Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival (OOB) 2020 in New York, the leading short play festival in the US.