In this first episode, Cheryl introduces us to her scholarship and a major through line of her work—how systems of production intersect with gender, race, and power structures. Describing blackface as a “socializing agent” during the 19th century, Cheryl explains how the theater acted not only as a form of entertainment, but a powerful educational tool on US enslavement, westward expansion, and the Jim Crow era. Without a school system or nationwide curriculum in place, minstrel shows taught audiences about these topics—but from an extremely biased point of view that introduced or reinforced existing narratives of Black people in the US North and South. Last, Cheryl connects back to the topic of infrastructure, illustrating how the railroads in Canada were integral to the growth of traveling theater groups.

In the second episode, Dr. Cheryl Thompson, Associate Professor in Performance at Toronto Metropolitan University, digs into the timeline and conflict of her book, Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897 (https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/C/C...) . First, she discusses the difficulty in choosing a starting point for the title. Aiming to include the theater’s rich history, she elected to begin at the War of 1812—one of the defining moments of Canada and its burgeoning identity—and intersperse the theater’s techniques and history throughout the book. Additionally, as Cheryl explains, the War of 1812 revealed Canada’s varying viewpoints, with factions of Loyalists versus pro-America/Republic groups, and, later during the US Civil War, Unionists versus Confederates.

In this third episode, Dr. Cheryl Thompson continues the discussion of her book, Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897.  First, she walks through the gaps she encountered in the literature on 19th-century minstrelsy and vaudeville. Finding that much of the canon neglected the 1860s-90s as women began to enter the stage, Cheryl also discovered that texts on this period often portrayed Black women actors and dancers in terms of resistance and exclusion. She explains how she wanted to move beyond these two views, instead focusing on how these women expressed their own agency and found success on the stage. In addition, Cheryl describes the types of archives she used when researching the book—newspapers, playbills, lithographic prints—and digs into the surprising and sometimes frustrating responses she received from librarians and archivists when looking through these materials.

In the final episode of our four-part series with Dr. Cheryl Thompson, author of Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812-1897 Cheryl walks through the development of her project Mapping Ontario’s Black Archives (https://mobaprojects.ca/)  (MOBA), a digital inventory of public archives on Black history and culture. Cheryl explains that while researching for her book she often encountered white-centered archives and discrepancies between an archive’s listed availability online versus when she arrived in person. This frustration inspired MOBA, which aims to simplify workflows for researchers and spotlight open resources. In collaboration with Cheryl’s Black Creative Lab (https://theblackcreativelab.ca/) , MOBA has earned several grants and aims to evolve into storing assets and acting as a model for other provinces to follow, with the goal of scholars using the archives to fuel creative thinking and artistic output.