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Culture Stage

Call it #Dorasnotsowhite

Good thing Bruce Dow was such a riot last night at Harbourfront’s Concert Stage, where he hosted the Dora Mavor Moore Awards celebrating the best of T.O.’s performing arts. He was just about the whitest thing to hit the boards. 

On a sweltering evening that had Dow glistening with sweat and dry-mouthed – Videocab’s Deanne Taylor saved his ass at one point by leaving her seat to give him a bottle of water – a batch of up-and-comers, many of them artists of colour, walked away with trophies.

For example, in the General Theatre category, awards went to Anand Rajaram, for best performance – male (Mustard), Ravi Jain for direction (Salt-Water Moon) and Debashis Sinha for sound design (We Are Proud To Present…)

In the Indie division, Cliff Cardinal won for male performance in Huff, d’bi. young anitafrika scored the female performance trophy for She Mami Wata & The Pussy Witchhunt.

In the Musical Theatre and Opera divisions, Alan Mingo Jr. took the male performance award for Kinky Boots, Marjorie Chan, co-writer with John Harris (M’dea Undone), took outstanding new work.

The youth movement also triumphed big time. Along with Cliff Cardinal, Jordan Tannahill’s Botticelli In The Fire & Sunday In Sodom won outstanding production, and Kat Sandler won best new play in the General Theatre Division.

Not that the old guard just rolled over. VideoCabaret took best ensemble in the General division and costume design thanks to Astrid Janson and Melanie McNeill. And Michael Levine took home another trophy for hi Siegfried design.

The Audience Choice Award, sponsored by NOW Magazine and Yonge-Dundas Square – presented by me in place of senior stage writer Jon Kap-lan, who received a huge ovation – went to One Night Only: The Greatest Musical Never Written.

Highlights of the night: the opening number featuring Dow singing and dancing alongside flapper dancers from Sheridan College to a rewritten We’re In The Money Maja Ardal’s speech – read by her co-winners for best new play for young au-diences, One Thing Leads to Another, a show for infants (really) – in which she claimed she had the best audience because they bring their own lunch and always shit themselves while watching and a moving acknowledgement of the Orlando tragedy written by show writer Diane Flacks and read by Dow.

See all the winners here.

susanc@nowtoronto.com | @susangcole

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