Melissa Avalos is back where she started. The 26-year-old aspiring theatre producer joined Nightwood Theatre’s Innovators Program to get production experience in 2024.
But because her cohort chose to support a charity that delivers aid to refugees in Palestine (including Gaza), Jordan and Lebanon, their end-of-program show, “Fempocalypse,” was cancelled.
“To this day, I still have not produced anything,” Avalos told The Grind. “I was highly disappointed.”
At least three young artists, including Avalos, left the Innovators Program or contract work at Nightwood because of the fight over the event.
Nightwood’s leadership maintains that the decision was made because the cohort chose an American charity, and the theatre company could lose its charitable status if it transfers funds to a U.S. organization.
But in a March 2024 meeting with the cohort, a recording of which was obtained by The Grind, Nightwood’s leadership said that supporting Palestinians was the problem. “By inherently holding an event that is promoting Palestinian liberation, the assumption in that is you are against Israel. That is what makes this situation particularly challenging,” said Nightwood’s managing director Naz Afsahi.
The situation reveals the extent to which Toronto artists are being censored if they take pro-Palestine stances or suggest helping Palestinian refugees.
Avalos said that when artists are told what issues they can and can’t support, their work becomes moot. “You might as well be an AI robot pumping out corporate bullshit,” she told The Grind. “What’s the point of creating if you’re not creating from your heart?”
Nightwood known for feminist works
Nightwood Theatre, billed as “Canada’s flagship feminist theatre,” has nurtured the careers of artists such as Anne Marie MacDonald and has reliably produced award-winning shows since 1979. Nightwood is a registered charity.
For eight years, the organization ran a program called Nightwood Innovators for early-career artists who are women, non-binary or trans.
Amanda Lin facilitated Nightwood’s 2024 Innovators program. She first joined the organization as an Innovator and then worked as an employee from 2019 to 2022. As a contract worker, she continued facilitating Nightwood’s Innovators and Rising Moon programs until 2024.
For eight months every year, the Innovators participated in monthly workshops and meetings before producing “Fempocalypse.”
It was a tradition at Nightwood that proceeds from the Fempocalypse cabaret were donated to a charity chosen by the cohort. Past shows supported causes such as assaulted women’s helplines and cancer research.
In 2024, the Innovators were told they could choose which charity to support. Lin set up an online poll and in mid-January, participants cast their votes. The largest block of votes, about 38 per cent, was for Anera, an organization that provides emergency relief to refugees in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan.
“I wasn’t surprised at all that Anera was chosen,” Lin said, “because in my years facilitating the program, Innovators have often gravitated towards the biggest social justice issue in the news.”
Avalos was one of the Innovators who voted for Anera. She said she did so because another participant in the program had friends who were directly impacted by Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza.
On Feb. 8, Lin told Nightwood’s artistic director Andrea Donaldson about the cohort’s choice over the phone.
Six days later, Lin received a call from Naz Afsahi, Nightwood’s managing director, to talk about leadership’s concerns with the charity. Afsahi said Nightwood may not be able to promote the event on social media if it supported Anera.
“I told Naz I would talk to the cohort about it,” Lin said.
‘We cannot support … programming activities that explicitly centre the current crisis in Palestine’
On Feb. 21, 2024, Lin met with the Innovators and gave them the choice to switch charities or to move forward without social media support from Nightwood, she said. “I gave them encouragement that I thought it could still be a successful event.”
The group chose to continue supporting Anera. “They were excited about this event and ready to dive in,” Lin said.
On Feb. 22, Lin emailed Nightwood’s leadership to inform them of the group’s choice.
The next day, Afsahi emailed back to say that the Innovators couldn’t support Anera under any circumstances:
“After long conversations and advice sought, we are sad to note that we cannot support the Innovators choosing a charity and programming activities that explicitly center the current crisis in Palestine. As a public entity that is restricted by specific rules regarding non-partisanship, sadly we jeopardize our funding by being drawn into controversy despite our personal values. Even if our official channels don’t promote the specific charity, we can still get tagged and perceived as being associated with whatever happens at Fempocalypse.”
“I was honestly in shock,” Lin said. “Sending aid to refugees? I don’t see how that’s partisan at all.”
In written responses to questions sent by The Grind, Nightwood agreed that helping refugees is not partisan. The problem with supporting Anera, the statement said, was that it is an American charity.
“There are parameters under the Income Tax Act that regulate and prescribe in what circumstances Canadian charities are permitted to provide funds to non-Canadian entities. … If any charity fails to comply with those obligations, it could result in consequences that include (in some cases) the loss of its tax-exempt status.”
Nightwood offered Innovators the choice to support the United Nations Population Fund or UNICEF Canada instead, the statement said.
In her interview with The Grind, Lin explained that Nightwood’s justifications had never made sense to her because Innovators had always produced their event independently from Nightwood, which provided a small budget, venue and social media re-posts.
After receiving Afsahi’s email on Feb. 23, Lin responded to share a draft email she wanted to use to inform the Innovators of the decision and schedule a meeting for further discussion.
Afsahi wrote back with a suggested edit that removed Lin’s apology and her statement: “Nightwood is unable to support Fempocalypse happening at all unless … our new charity does not explicitly support Palestine.”
Afsahi wrote that she did not want that information stated in writing.
At that point, Donaldson and Afsahi took over communication with the Innovators. Lin said she thought the Innovators deserved an apology and that she disagreed with Afsahi’s decision to spring the decision about Palestine on the cohort in a meeting instead of giving them notice so they could prepare for the conversation, emails obtained by The Grind show.
At an online meeting on Mar. 5, 2024, Donaldson and Afsahi told the group that they couldn’t donate the proceeds of Fempocalypse to Anera or produce an event that centred Palestine.
“We basically can’t compromise our public funding, our private funding,” they told the group. “We feel like we can’t do a Fempocalypse that is centred around this event because of the controversy that it will bring.”
Nightwood presented three alternative options: to choose another charity, to create a new collective unassociated with Nightwood and produce an event without any funding, or to receive the funding earmarked for Fempocalypse for individual professional development.
The Innovators, including Avalos, chose to receive Nightwood’s funding directly for professional development.
Avalos said she felt like the rug had been pulled out from under her. “I just didn’t expect it,” she said, from a company that “outwardly brands themselves as the feminist theatre company.”
She left the program early and donated her $500 honorarium and $50 for professional development to Anera.
The situation was particularly frustrating, she said, because Nightwood had mentioned Palestine in a land acknowledgement at the beginning of the program.
Lin said she seriously considered leaving the industry altogether. Instead, she chose not to renew her contract with Nightwood and found work with another theatre company.
“We’re not putting out fires or resuscitating people. But I do think that theatre is important and art has the ability to create social change,” Lin said. “The way that this was shut down and with such lack of care for the artists involved, it made me wonder if it was possible anymore.”
Previous funding denied over posts about Ontario government
At a theatre industry town hall, Donaldson and Afsahi said their actions were motivated by fear of losing funding after a past experience with the Ontario Trillium Foundation, according to Lisa Alves, a producer and playwright who was present at the event.
Nightwood is financially supported by the Government of Canada, Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Ontario, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council.
The comments Alves recounted to The Grind were made at the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT) Conference in May 2024 in Montreal.
At the event, Afsahi said Nightwood had lost a funding opportunity from Trillium in the past after posting a shout-out to an actor who had previously acted in a play that commented on the provincial government. The Trillium Foundation is an agency of the Government of Ontario.
While Afsahi didn’t name the actor at the conference, one of Nightwood’s 2024 shows casted an artist who had previously written a whole musical about Premier Doug Ford.
Afsahi and Donaldson also alluded to this in their March 2024 meeting with the Innovators cohort.
“Nightwood has had grants denied to us in the past because there had been posts on our social media that were perceived to be against a particular provincial government. That is how detailed they are. They went back three years,” they told the cohort.
In its statement to The Grind, Nightwood said that it has never received direction from the Ontario government not to talk about Palestine. The company also said that funders do not dictate artistic content.
In Nightwood’s 2023/24 annual report, the Ontario government is listed as a sponsor but the Trillium Foundation is not.
In a statement to The Grind, Trillium said it looks at “public information” about applicants. Organizations that promote or oppose political parties or candidates are ineligible for funding, the statement said.
Both Lin and Avalos said they were deeply concerned about Nightwood’s actions, especially because it is a feminist organization that explicitly supports women, trans people and people of colour.
“It really proves that that was all lip service,” Lin said. “If you could benefit financially from those people, then you would platform them. But the second it starts to threaten your finances, you’re like, ‘Never mind. Go back to hiding.’”
She added: “If the art has to be approved by funders, then it’s so close to just becoming propaganda, it’s not honest.”
This article appeared in the 2025 April/May issue.
