The 35th annual Dora Mavor Moore Awards, named for a Toronto theatre pioneer and celebrating excellence in the city’s performing arts community, was a stylish event held outdoors for the first time, at Harbourfront Centre.
The awards show, produced by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts and directed by Ed Roy, was an SRO event.
It wasn’t an evening under the stars, though. It poured before the presentations and rained again during the post-show party. But that didn’t stop the audience of theatre and dance artists from reveling in a sense of community and artistic strength, and we only heard Porter takeoffs and landings a few times during the evening.
Nearly half of the 48 Doras went to four companies for five productions, drawn from 222 eligible shows presented by 143 producing companies.
In the general theatre category, Soulpepper took home seven awards for Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage, with the awards for outstanding production, adaptation (Vern Thiessen), direction (Albert Schultz), ensemble performance, scenic and lighting design (both to Lorenzo Savoini) and sound design/composition (Mike Ross).
In the same category, outstanding male performance went to Bruce Dow (Buddies in Bad Times’ Pig), female performance to Carly Street (Canadian Stage’s Venus In Fur) and costume design to Ronnie Burkett (Luminato/Ronnie Burkett Theatre of Marionettes’ The Daisy Theatre).
Canadian Stage’s London Road cleaned up with six prizes in the musical theatre/opera division: outstanding production, male performance (Damien Atkins), ensemble performance, direction (Jackie Maxwell), lighting design (Kevin Lamotte) and musical direction (Reza Jacobs).
Rounding out the division were statues given to the touring production Mies Julie (Harbourfront Centre World Stage/Yael Farber/Baxter Theatre Centre), Melissa O’Neil (outstanding female performance for Les Misérables, Cameron Mackintosh/NETworks/David Mirvish), Joel Ivany (new musical/opera for Figaro’s Wedding, presented by Against The Grain Theatre), Ken MacDonald (scenic design for the Tarragon’s Marry Me A Little), Andreane Neofitou and Christine Rowland (costume design, Les Misérables) and Marc Kimelman (choreography for Once On This Island, Acting Up Stage Company/Obsidian).
All five awards in the theatre for young audiences division went to Sultans Of The Street at Young People’s Theatre, including outstanding production, Anusree Roy (new play), Nina Lee Aquino (direction), Colin Doyle (performance) and ensemble.
The Canadian Opera Company had a similar clean sweep in the opera division, two for Peter Grimes (Alan Held’s performance and the COC ensemble chorus) and two for Roberto Devereux (production and Sondra Radvanovsky’s performance).
The independent theatre division’s awards were more spread out there were probably more productions in this category than any other. Outside the March copped three, two for Vitals (outstanding production and Rosamund Small for new play) and a shared award with Convergence Theatre and Sheep No Wool for Passion Play (ensemble).
VideoCabaret’s Trudeau And The FLQ took two awards, for male performance (Mac Fyfe) and costumes (Astrid Janson).
Other awards went to Matthew Thomas Walker (direction, for Litmus Theatre’s Birth Of Frankenstein), Claire Armstrong (female performance for Red One’s After Miss Julie), Camellia Koo (scenic design for Cahoots Theatre’s The Wanderers), Michelle Ramsay (lighting design for Sister Mary’s A Dyke?!) and John Gzowski, Jacquie P.A. Thomas and the ensemble (sound design/composition for The Sacrifice Zone, Theatre Gargantua/The Uncertainty Principle).
DanceWorks was the top winner in the dance division, with three prizes: two for Gotta Go Church (with a trace), for Kate Franklin’s performance and Simon Rossiter’s lighting, and one for WOULD (with a trace), for Marc Boivin’s performance. The World Stage/Ame Henderson/Public Recordings production of what we are saying picked up a pair of awards, outstanding production and ensemble.
Rounding out the category were wins for Louis Laberge-Côté (outstanding choreography for …et même après, presented by dance: made in Canada/fait au Canada von Tiedemann series) and Dustin Peters (sound design for Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie’s Malcolm).
The audience choice award, sponsored by NOW and Yonge-Dundas Square, went to Venus In Fur, while Diana Leblanc won the coveted Silver Ticket Award for her long-time contribution to Canadian theatre.
One of the evening’s best moments was the ensemble acceptance speech for London Road, inspired by the murders of five sex workers in a small English town. Actor George Masswohl told the audience that “despite the honour of the award, we’d all give it up for an end to violence against women.”
The applause was huge, as it was for Anusree Roy when, accepting her award for Sultans Of The Street, she encouraged women playwrights of colour to “write, write, write and believe in yourself.”
Naomi Snieckus and Matt Baram were charming and engaging in their second year of hosting, running the show smoothly and entertaining us with Chris Earle’s sharp script and their own clever ad libs. Though they joked early on that their Dora hosting in 2013 didn’t lead to any other gigs, it would be a pleasure to have them back again in 2015.
