UTM alumna and playwright premieres latest work at Stratford Festival
Andrea Scott has never forgotten the moment, in her Grade 9 English class, when her dreams of becoming a writer were quashed.
“I remember proclaiming something I felt was very literary, and my English teacher shot me down so quickly. It killed my desire to be a writer, and I’ve never forgotten her,” says the University of Toronto Mississauga alum and former UTM instructor. Thankfully that desire to write came back for Scott, who just wrapped up a contract writing for Disney in West Hollywood. Now, her play Get That Hope is about to make its world premiere at the Stratford Festival.
Scott’s journey to becoming an award-winning playwright and screenwriter started when she (temporarily) gave up on writing in high school, and turned her attention to theatre. She received an honours bachelor of arts degree in theatre and drama studies through UTM’s joint program with Sheridan, with a minor in English. Later she earned a master’s degree in drama through U of T’s School of Graduate Studies and Faculty of Arts and Science.
She laughs as she recalls being “an annoying theatre kid” at UTM, but says she had many professors along the way who encouraged her and gave her a well-rounded theatre education.
“It is good to have a three-dimensional education regarding the ‘why’ of certain stories and the historical context,” Scott says. “I have a lot of those books still on my shelf because they inform how I write.”
After school, she pursued an acting career in Toronto. As she auditioned for TV shows, she noticed a theme: Black characters often supported the protagonist – who was usually white – and didn’t have a robust story of their own.
When she auditioned for the role of a grieving mother who had lost her son to gun violence, she turned her attention back to writing.
“I was like, ‘yeah...I could write better than this,’” Scott says.
She wrote her first play, Damaged, a one-woman show that debuted at the b current rock.paper.sistahz festival. Her second play, Eating Pomegranates Naked, which got into SummerWorks Performance Festival, was a turning point for the writer.
“There were people lining up to see the play who did not know me and had never heard of me, and that felt very validating,” she says, adding that the play also earned her the RBC Arts Professional Award. “That was the moment where I realized, maybe I could do this.”
Scott continued to achieve success with her plays, including Better Angels: A Parable, Don't Talk to Me Like I'm Your Wife (produced by her production company, Call Me Scotty Productions) and the award-winning Controlled Damage. She also taught playwriting to undergraduate students in UTM’s department of English and drama.
In 2020, Scott worked in the writers’ room on the CBC/BET production The Porter. Following that, she worked on Murdoch Mysteries for three seasons and wrote four episodes.
“Murdoch Mysteries was a huge achievement for me,” Scott says. “I never assumed that I would ever get a job quite like that.”
Scott recently wrote for the upcoming Disney series High Potential which stars Kaitlin Olson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) with Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas as showrunner.
“The first time that I got to walk into the Disney lot, it just did not seem real,” she says. “It was a dream come true.”
Now, on Aug. 10, Scott is set to make her Stratford debut with the world premiere of her play, Get That Hope. She says she was inspired to write the play after seeing Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
“All I kept thinking was, ‘why don’t we have plays like this about Black Canadian families?’” she says.
Scott is working on a new play called Truthfully Jackie, about Jackie Robinson’s time playing for the Montreal Royals in 1946.
While she has seen success throughout her career, Scott says she has also faced challenges – including not being taken seriously enough.
“I’m a woman, I’m a Black woman, and I’m really tiny – like five feet tall. But I have this voice, and I try to use it to make sure people take me seriously,” she says, adding that her advice for budding writers is to not take criticism to heart.
“Reacting emotionally to something that was maybe constructive criticism won’t help you,” Scott says. “Also, write and write and write – and don’t close off any kind of source material that you can be inspired by. You never know where it might come from.”
Get That Hope opens Aug. 10 and runs until Sept. 28 in the Stratford Festival's Studio Theatre.