Theatre Ontario Festival # 5: Festival in Retrospect / Award Winners

This week has proven to be an unusually involving experience for me personally -- for reasons which I have mentioned in the reviews of the individual shows.

Each of the four plays has included themes, events, ideas, or words that have strongly pushed various emotional buttons related to difficult events of my life.

Why, then, can I truthfully say that the week has been an enjoyable experience?

This Festival has been cathartic.  The need to discharge emotional burdens related to crisis events doesn't end a year, or two, or three after the fact.  It can go on for very much longer -- even for a lifetime.  But theatre, like all the performing arts, has the ability to pull you out of yourself and experience these emotions in the mind, the heart, the life, of another human being.  It can be powerfully empathetic as well as cathartic.  More than once this week, I've been reminded of the words of choreographer James Kudelka when he created a ballet about death, loss, and grieving:

"Sometimes we have to make painful things beautiful 

to be able to look at them."

This Festival has been authentic.  It's a fashionable buzzword these days, but in this case it matters immensely.  None of the performances shirked the reality of the difficult issues that their characters faced.  The actors presented their characters with humility and total honesty as flawed, wounded human beings who had to try -- somehow -- to carry on.

This Festival has been challenging.  Even the funniest of the scripts challenged us to look in the mirror and see how our every word and action and thought can rebound into the lives of others around us.  If nothing else, this week's plays challenged all of us to become more compassionate, more truly open and accepting of the flaws of others.

This Festival has been difficult.  The theatre companies have taken on some mighty challenges in staging these painfully honest theatre pieces.  In other ways, the week has been difficult for the audiences.  I'm dead certain that I'm not the only person who has found it hard to see and hear some of what has been presented.  It's a truism that difficult tasks and situations carry greater rewards than easy ones.  But it's a truism because it's true.

This Festival has been stimulating -- for all of the above reasons.

To all the theatre artists whose months of hard work, on and off the stage, have led to this week-long look into the mirror, I say humbly and gratefully, "Congratulations."

I also must commend all of the volunteers who laboured so mightily behind the scenes to organize the entire Festival.  The test of a good Festival is not whether there were glitches -- there always are (three-time Festival Chair's voice of experience speaking here).  The acid test is whether Festival goers realize that there have been glitches.  Generally, we didn't.  Congratulations for that.

The warm-hearted welcome we received all week from the members and volunteers of the Curtain Club, Richmond Hill's oldest community theatre, made us all feel right at home.  A note for all future Festivals: the detailed map with marked routes connecting the different restaurants and Festival venues was a great help and very much appreciated by this visual learner!

And a huge thank-you to all my Festival friends, a theatrical family indeed, for another wonderful week of sharing and caring for and with each other.  Damn, we're good!

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Here are the award winners, as chosen by adjudicator Carolee Mason.

The first group, the Adjudicator's Awards, can be awarded for any facet of any production as the Adjudicator sees fit.

[1]  Adjudicator's Award for Assistant Stage Manager's On-Stage Food:

Susan Poole (Late Company, Bloor West Village Players)



[2]  Adjudicator's Award for Original Music:

Vern Dorge (This Is How We Got Here, Gore Bay Theatre)


[3]  Adjudicator's Award for Irish Set Dressing:

Whitney Purdy (Outside Mullingar, Domino Theatre)



[4]  Adjudicator's Award for Amazing Spectacle of Movement:

Hala Miller (Dance Captain) and the company of Girls Like That (Theatre Sarnia)


[5]  Adjudicator's Award for Strength in Storytelling:

The Company of This Is How We Got Here (Gore Bay Theatre)


The remaining awards are all to be presented in the designated categories of achievement.


[6]  Outstanding Co-ordinated Production :

The winner of this award is chosen by the Festival Production Managers

The Crew of Girls Like That (Theatre Sarnia)



[7]  Outstanding Visual Presentation:

Andrea Emmerton and Walter Maskel (This Is How We Got Here, Gore Bay Theatre)


[8]  Outstanding Technical Achievement:

David L. Smith (Outside Mullingar, Domino Theatre)


[9]  Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role:

Will Smith as "Jim" (This Is How We Got Here, Gore Bay Theatre)


[10]  Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role:

Sandie Cond as "Aoife Muldoon" (Outside Mullingar, Domino Theatre)


[11]  Outstanding Performance in a Leading Role:

Lydia Kiselyk as "Debora Shaun-Hastings" (Late Company, Bloor West Village Players)


[12]  Outstanding Performance in a Leading Role:

Geoff Johnson as "Anthony Reilly" (Outside Mullingar, Domino Theatre)


[13]  Outstanding Director:

Valary Cook (Late Company, Bloor West Village Players)


[14]  The "Elsie" Award for Outstanding Festival Production:

Outside Mullingar (Domino Theatre)