News Roundup, June 15, 2012

Calder

NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE: The Shaw Festival has named a new Executive Director: Elaine Calder. Calder's resumé is impressive. "Ms. Calder is recognized as one of North American’s most sought after arts administrators. After leaving The Shaw in 1994, Ms. Calder went on to hold executive positions in the Canadian Opera Company, the National Arts Centre, the Edmonton Symphony, the Hartford Stage in Connecticut and the Oregon Symphony — where she has been President of that renowned institution since 2007."


TORONTO: According to a Tweet today from J. Kelly Nestruck, critic at the Globe and Mail, Daniel Brooks will be stepping down as artistic director of Necessary Angel as of the end of the present season. On the subject of the Globe and Mail, it was also announced that the paper would be merging its Arts and Life sections and, as of August, only be publishing the new section four times a week.

CALGARY: A new, as-yet-unnamed, critics's award has been launched in Cow Town. "Myself [Jessica Goldman], along with Stephen Hunt and Bob Clark of the Calgary Herald and Louis B. Hobson of the Sun have banded together to establish the first annual Calgary Theatre Critics’ Awards." (Source)


MONTREAL: The new award for theatre publicists, to be handed out annually as of December 31, 2012 by The Charlebois Post, has a name: The CharPR Prize. (Pronounced: Sharper)


OTTAWA: The federal government has restored funding to the SummerWorks Festival in Toronto. You will remember that the festival did not receive an anticipated grant last year and there was speculation that it was because the Festival had hosted a play, in 2010, considered by the Tories to be por-terrorist. (Source)


TORONTO: The Mirvish organization will be launching a bi-weekly arts newspaper in the Ontario capital. The reason for the new print organization, to be called Snail, was stated by David Mirvish in a press release: "Although there is plenty of choice these days in the media world, we have also discovered that, paradoxically, there is very little information about arts and entertainment in traditional media.  The arts and entertainment pages of the daily newspapers have shrunk. The time allotted to coverage of Toronto arts events on television newscasts is almost non-existent. And let’s not even consider the radio landscape."


MONTREAL: Olivier Sylvestre has received this year's Gratien-Gélinas Award for his play La beauté du monde. The prize is handed out annually by the CEAD. Sylvestre is a graduate of the National Theatre School. (Source - in French)