Red Velvet tells the story of the first Black man to play Shakespeare's Othello, at the Arts Club Theatre Company
Director Omari Newton and lead actor Quincy Armorer reflect on the importance of Ira Aldridge’s legacy as they commemorate 20 years of friendship and collaboration
Quincy Armorer in Red Velvet. Photo by Moonrider Productions
Arts Club Theatre Company presents Red Velvet at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage from March 21 to April 21; opening night is March 27
FOR DIRECTOR OMARI NEWTON and lead actor Quincy Armorer, working on the Arts Club Theatre Company’s upcoming production of Red Velvet is somewhat of a full-circle moment.
The pair’s connection dates back to the late ’90s in Montreal. They were actors together at Black Theatre Workshop, Canada’s longest-running Black theatre company; Armorer debuted there in 1999 as part of Dennis Foon’s immigration play New Canadian Kid, and it’s where Newton had his big break, too.
Soon after Armorer became the company’s artistic director in 2011, Newton moved to Vancouver and put roots down in the theatre scene here. The pair reconnected numerous times, including for Black Theatre Workshop’s 50th-anniversary season in 2021, when Armorer produced Newton’s Black and Blue Matters.
Over the course of the two theatre artists’ constantly evolving 20-plus-year friendship, Red Velvet marks the first time that Armorer is acting in a show directed by Newton. Playwright Lolita Chakrabarti’s 2012 work centres around main character and real-life Black Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge, a role taken on by Armorer.
“This play was inspired by a true story,” Newton tells Stir of Red Velvet over the phone during a quick lunch break from rehearsals. “Ira Aldridge was the first Black man to play Othello in London in 1833, at one of the biggest, most important theatres in England. And before that, there were white actors who were putting on blackface to play the role. So it’s an incredibly culturally significant moment when he takes the stage as a Black man.”
Despite Aldridge’s symbolic accomplishment at the Covent Garden Theatre, it took over a hundred more years before serious headway was made across the board in the industry. “We know that Laurence Olivier, as recently as the 1960s, performed Othello in blackface. You can find the movie version on YouTube,” notes Newton wryly. Olivier even received an Oscar nomination for the role.
Omari Newton.
Taking stock of how recent disheartening portrayals like Olivier’s are makes it all the more important for companies to continue uplifting Black actors and telling their stories. Speaking to Stir over a separate phone call, Armorer reflects on Red Velvet’s setting, too.
“This is Europe in 1833, and here we are now in North America in 2024, and some of the same experiences that Ira had are still prevalent in our contemporary society,” he notes. “So it’s really interesting to look at where we are, and how far we’ve come, and to ask how much further advanced is our society now, really?
“I think that in many ways, on the surface, things are definitely better than they were 200 years ago,” Armorer continues. “But if you really get into the meat of it, if you really dig a little bit deeper, you can see that there’s still some inherent institutionalized racism that exists. And so it’s easy to make that link to what Ira was experiencing in his time. That’s been one of the most really interesting things for me—to examine the culture in terms of how far we’ve come, and how far we haven’t, really.”
Armorer is still based in Montreal, and Red Velvet marks his first foray into the Vancouver theatre scene. Newton’s play Redbone Coonhound, co-written with his wife Amy Lee Lavoie, premiered here at the Arts Club Theatre Company in October 2022. It seems only natural that Newton and Armorer’s latest collab is at the Arts Club, too.
Nowadays, the pair’s careers are steeped in education. Armorer is co-director of the acting program at the National Theatre School of Canada, and Newton is head of the acting department at the Vancouver Film School.
Despite the heavy topics in Red Velvet, Newton stresses that the play is funny, sexy, and informative. “It has an HBO-like quality for the stage,” he says, “in that it’s an adult play with adult themes, but with lots of humour and lots of drama.”
Armorer adds that Aldridge paved the way for artists like himself to pursue career paths in acting.
“Certainly myself as a Black Shakespearean actor, I was familiar with Ira Aldridge, but I imagine that a lot of the people who will come and see the show will probably be learning about him for the first time,” Armorer says. “So I’m excited to have people learn about who he was. I hope people take away an understanding of the struggles that he faced and endured, and how great his accomplishments are as a result of that.
“And I hope they understand that when someone makes inroads or achieves a certain level of success as the first of anything, how significant that really is,” he continues. “Because we’re still seeing firsts in our society that we really shouldn’t be, you know? We’re finally seeing a woman of colour as vice president of the United States. We still haven’t had a female president. So there’s lots of firsts that are still undone. And Ira was a major first of his time, so I hope people are inspired by his life and legacy.” 
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