by Mandy Rumbolt, Membership Coordinator
The rain kept things a little quiet on Saturday. People were trying to stay out of the weather, so it was a smaller crowd that gathered for the Detailed Adjudication of Waiting for Godot.
Following the adjudication was Theatre Ontario's Annual General Meeting. Again, probably due to the weather, the numbers were small. But we had almost all members of the board present, several staff members, representatives from all the community theatre regions, and several of both individual and group members represented. The President's Report touched on some of the exciting new developments that had oocured over the course of 2009, and there were a lot of highlights. Things took a slightly more serious tone when the Treasurer's Report revealed that Theatre Ontario is experiencing declining funds and declining membership - not an unusual development for any non-profit in the current economy, but a concern nonetheless. Staff and Board were encouraged to hear members talk about ways in which they could help with Theatre Ontario's current situation, and become excited about helping us find new ways of becoming more relevant, appealing, and useful to the theatre sector and community.
Several exciting new things were unveiled at the AGM, the biggest being the new website! While it is not yet ready to launch, it will be soon. We were able to share the design with the members in attendance, and well as explain in some detail how the new website will increase accessibility to our information and resources, allow for networking between members, provide searchable information, and better integrate social media.
We were also able to announce our newest partnership. RONA building supply stores will now offering our Group Members rebates between 3% - 5% on all of their purchases! We know that this can mean a lot of savings for many of the companies out there, and best of all it can also be used as a fundraising tool - groups can share their RONA account number with their audiences and supporters for them to use, and the purchases will count towards the year-end rebate for the group So everytime your audience shops at RONA, that cash in the groups pocket!
The rain cleared up in the evening so we had a nice full house for the Festival's last show, courtesy of EODL. John Patrick Shanley's Doubt, presented by Domino Theatre follows a nun on her crusade to prove a priest has been molesting young boys at their school. In their public adjudication, Sears & Switzers, big fans of the playwirght's work, praised the production for working well with the subtly of the text. They gave special mention to the individual performances and were incredibly enthusiastic about the lighting design, which they deemed to be of professional caliber.
So now that we've seen all the shows, there is much talk about who will win what at the awards tomorrow. What do readers think? Anyone favour a particular script, or performer, they would like to see awarded?
No comments:
Post a Comment