When Trey Anthony told her real estate agent she wanted a new production office that could double as a spiritual wellness centre for women — and that she wanted it downtown, on the subway line and on a budget — her agent told her to “dream on.”
It’s a phrase Anthony must be used to hearing by now. After all, her success with ’da Kink in My Hair — which rocketed from a Toronto Fringe Festival debut to a large-scale production at the Princess of Wales Theatre to the Global sitcom adaptation she now directs — could not have been predicted from its subject matter.
“This is a play about sexism, about homophobia, about police brutality … and it has broken box office records and just transcended all expectations and race and colour,” Anthony says. “Everybody has come to see ’da Kink, everybody.”
Anthony’s latest project is the Trey Anthony @one Centre, created to be an accessible, affordable place for women of all races, sexualities, ages, body types and abilities to take part in activities focused on “mind, body, spirit, creativity and fun.” Or, as Anthony puts it, “This is gonna be the space where Toronto happens.”
Everything about the @one Centre screams — or, rather, soothingly whispers — “wellness centre.” The varnished wood floor, flowing white curtains and exposed brick walls make it feel minimalist and contemporary, but not cold. There are pictures of women of various ages, races and abilities on the walls, and the room is airy and bright, scented like the waiting room of a classy massage therapist.
So what makes a playwright and director wake up with the overwhelming desire to open a wellness centre? Well, for one thing, eight months in Los Angeles — and, for another, the spiritual awakening she underwent while she was there.
Anthony recalls, “I started going to Agape and some of the workshops they offered around self-esteem and self-empowerment and visioning your life and positive thinking, and I was like, ‘Why don’t we have something like this in Toronto?’”
Agape is the little-known name for a spiritual movement fast gaining currency through its association with a high-profile one: The Secret. The book, by Rhonda Byrne, claims that you can bring about success in your life through positive thinking and “visioning.” One of the movement’s most famous followers is Oprah, who’s taken on Agape founder Michael Beckwith as her personal spiritual advisor.
Anthony says the Agape church she found in LA was “the first space that I could go to as a black queer woman and feel that I didn’t have to leave one of those identities at the door…. They were actually preaching from the pulpit … that you can be black and you can be gay and you can be straight and you can be here and you can be white, everybody is just welcome. That was just revolutionary to me.”
Although the principles of Agape will underwrite much of the centre’s programming, Anthony also has other plans for the space.
“Because we’re right across the street from City Hall, we’re having quite a lot of bookings right now for lesbian wedding receptions,” she says.
Other events the centre has hosted include one called “Inside His Head,” in which five men fielded questions from 35 assembled women on why men won’t commit, and what they really mean when they say they’ll call. It seems like an odd event to hold in a centre for female empowerment, but Anthony insists it was carried off from a firmly feminist standpoint. “The whole workshop was for three hours and the men only talked for 45 minutes,” she says. “The rest of it was around women working on themselves.”
The majority of the activities that will take place in the centre, Anthony says, won’t be led or initiated by her at all. She hopes, instead, that people will use the space to put on their own events. The centre itself will only organize a couple of events a month, although initially Anthony had intended to be far more hands-on.
“When we first opened, I really bit off more than I could chew,” she says. “I was like, ‘On Wednesday night we’re gonna have belly dancing, and on Thursday night we’re gonna have Latin dancing, and on Friday night we’re gonna have lesbian single mingle.’ We opened in November and by Jan. 2, I was in hospital with heart palpitations.
“My doctor said, ‘What are you doing?’ and I said, ‘Oh, I’m running a wellness centre!’”