News: Dora Awards Nominees Press Conference

Megan Follows in Nightwood's Penelopiad (photo: Robert Popkin)

It's 9:45 AM in Rehearsal Studio A in The Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre

A crowded slate for TAPA

by Jasmine Chen

It's 9:45 AM and already Rehearsal Studio A in The Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre is bustling with artistic directors, arts administrators, city councillors, choreographers, and representatives from  the rich variety of theatre companies across the city. Excited chatter fills the room as colleagues catch up with one another over coffee and mini muffins. There are so many people here that there aren't even enough chairs, but the mood is jovial and there is a sense of anticipation for the coming announcements. Ten o clock rolls around and we are asked to take our seats. We soon learn that this year 116 producing companies registered 212 eligible productions for a total of 169 nominations! 

Video of the Week, June 5, 2012

It's Ottawa! It's the Fringe! It's Dirk Darrow (Paranormal Investigator)!

News Roundup, June 5, 2012

Dora noms Michael Levinson and
Arlene Duncan in Caroline...
(photo: Joanna Akyol)

EDMONTON: The Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Awards nominations were announced in the capital, last night. Teatro la Quindicina scored several noms in virtually all categories with Alberta Opera singing big in young audience categories. (See the full list of nominations)

TORONTO: The Toronto Alliance for Performing Artists (TAPA) announced the nominations for their awards in small, medium, large theatre productions, opera and dance this morning. Among the big winners, already, was Obsidian Theatre which took several nominations in several categories (including four of the five noms in the outstanding performance by a female in a musical; child actor, Michael Levinson, was also nominated in the male category). (See the full list of nominations)

TORONTO: Linda Kash, who lost her husband - actor Paul O' Sullivan - in a car crash two weeks ago, will be returning to the production of Lost in Yonkers for its final two performances this weekend.

Blog: Theatre Night Fever

IGNITE 

by Howard Dai

After nearly 8 months of hard work, The Cultch Youth Panel once again put on another week of fantastic IGNITE! Youth-Driven Arts Festival. The Cultch Youth Panel consists of passionate artistic youths between ages 14 to 24, who were given a budget to produce an annual week long festival of our dreams. This year, the beautiful The Cultch Historic Theatre in the heart of East Vancouver was transformed by youths, into a fun-filled festival that featured all youth performers in each of the six nights – Music, Word, Dance, Olivia (a collaboration project), Fruit Basket (gender, sex, and sexuality), and Finale. As a first-year youth panel member, I’ve had a blast working with all these like-minded, talented individuals who are as enthusiastic about arts as I am. I’m also glad to see The Cultch takes the risk every year and gives youth full control of the budget we receive, and the results showed that we’ve done justice to that money – only youths can produce a festival for youths! I’ve regained faith in our generation. The experience with The Cultch Youth Panel was absolutely tremendous, and it had pushed me a step further on my way to becoming a theatre artist.

Interested in becoming a part of The Cultch Youth Panel? Contact The Cultch Youth Program Manager Robert Leveroos

After Dark, June 5, 2012

On Prizes and PR
Yeah, a rant
by Gaëtan L. Charlebois

It seems to be awards season again.

In a few days TAPA (Toronto Alliance of Performing Artists) will announce the nominees for its Dora Awards - one of the most coveted and recognized theatre prizes in the country. TAPA - an organization that truly seems to function - makes a shitload of noise, does everything up nice and I do believe everyone is pleased as punch to get one.

Meanwhile, five Toronto critics (all print) announced the winners of their prizes this week. The Toronto club seems fairly small and more than slightly elitist and denies the growing power of sites like this one but the fact is, those five men saw most of the winning plays and no one can begrudge the sheer, mad amount they work. (Sorry...couldn't resist italicizing "men".)

On our own site Richard Burnett (The Abominable Showman) tore our own critics' prize, The Montreal English Critics Awards (MECCA), a new asshole.  (Full disclosure: I am a founder of the MECCAs and vote in them.) Richard had a few things a tiny bit askew (as does the community which berates the awards every year). One award he mentions is not an award for best text, it is for best new text (and the late Ted Allen doesn't qualify - first, for being late and all...). Lion King was not nominated because no one among the MECCA-ese (12 souls this time out) saw it or if they did, did not care to nominate it. No award was given in Best Visiting or Best Sound, for that matter, not because no one was nominated but because everyone was...once. Yup - over a dozen noms in each category. 

Openings We're Tracking This Week, June 4-10, 2012

Seeds

The Sunday Read: Richard Beaune on The Last Man on Earth (Fringe)

A Physical Silence

Exploring the known of the black and whites

by Richard Beaune

Keystone Theatre will be bringing The Last Man on Earth to Fringe Festivals from Montreal to Edmonton this summer.  Last Man will be the first chance many people get to see the unique work that Keystone has been perfecting in Toronto for the last few years.

It all started over lunch. I had just directed Dana Fradkin in a Chaplin routine as part of the Shakespeare in the Square production of The Comedy of Errors in Brampton. We were getting caught up over Thai food and lamenting how rare it is to find an opportunity like that to explore physical comedy to the degree you find in those classic silent films…so I thought, “Why not do that?” I had acquired a particular interest in silent film when I worked on Simon Bradbury’s brilliant play Chaplin at the Shaw Festival, working with Simon and Neil Munro, and I had a hunch that we could go even further. I made a few phone calls and got some colleagues together to make a proposal. I wanted to create a play in the style of a silent film. I imagined the cast performing in front of a moving projected backdrop, working in silence, with a live piano off to the side. Everything would be in black and white and shades of grey. I pictured it in great detail, and I could see that it could very easily be badly done, but with enough time and work it could be done very well.