Long Live The Doras!

by Tim Chapman, Professional Theatre Coordinator

The Dora Awards for 2010 have come and gone. The Awards were in the news more this year as Toronto Star readers will know. Richard Ouzounian wrote a couple of columns sniping at the Doras in the weeks leading up to their presentation night on June 28. Also Globe and Mail theatre critic J. Kelly Nestruck has addressed the Doras in three separate blog entries on Nestruck On Theatre. So I thought I would give you my take on the Doras.

I am sure you are all aware of the proliferation of arts awards. Professional theatre in Canada is no exception with Vancouver’s Jessie Awards, Edmonton’s Sterling Awards and, in Ontario, Ottawa’s Rideau Awards. And I am sure most of you are aware of the many fringe festival awards across the country. One of the main reasons for the growth of awards in the theatre or in any discipline is the value of the promotion which they bring. The media controversy in the past month alone makes the case for the current significance of the Dora Awards which have been around over 30 years now. Today you cannot read a program bio or resumé for any theatre artist which does not mention their Dora Awards or Dora nominations if they have any. The Doras certainly have not yet achieved the recognition level of New York’s Tony Awards but they are well known in Toronto even beyond the theatre-going public. Theatre producers will use the Doras in the promotion of their shows should they be fortunate enough to take advantage in the timing of their productions.

The other central value of the Dora Awards for me are the two occasions when they bring so many artists and theatre workers together for both the announcement of the nominations and the Award ceremony itself. In fact the Doras, to a lesser extent, also include opera, dance and theatre for young audiences so I cannot think of another occasion which includes such a large and diverse representation of performing companies and artists. I have attended many Award ceremonies over the years but I really cannot remember sharing a more unifying and enthusiastic evening than the most recent one on June 28. Granted many, if not most, of the people attending are connected in some way to the nominations but any theatre gathering which can bring a company as huge as the Canadian Opera Company with theatre companies as small as Aluna Theatre or Acting Up Stage Company is such a cohesive and valuable event.

The recent media wrangling has mainly concerned the process of nominating and awarding the Dora Awards. I have twice been a Dora Award juror, once in the Independent Theatre category and once in the General Theatre category. From the outset I will say that I prefer the current system of voting where professional peers are responsible for the nominations and the awards, rather than a free vote by the theatre community. We have had the free vote in the past and it often led to a popularity contest with theatre community members frequently voting for artists and shows they had not even seen.

In the General Theatre category there are usually around 90 productions to see in a year and around 50 to 60 productions in the Independent Theatre category. Individual jurors are expected to see about 80% of the yearly productions. In both my years as a juror, I never felt unduly influenced by the other jurors, nor did I feel that the respective Dora Awards those years did not reflect the consensus of the juries. There are complaints that the weighted ballot system allows a minority of jurors to push through their choices if at least a few of them work together. I found that this rarely happens, if at all.

For example in the year I was on the General Theatre jury, there was a show which divided the jury somewhat. I rather disliked this particular show – it was not even in my top thirty productions of the year much less my top five. This show did end up getting nominated for best production that year to my horror. BUT this show did not win the Dora and I was relatively happy, if not really happy, with the other four nominees that year. While I do not think this example is simply a matter of taste, one can never rule out that ephemeral arbiter. I have certainly found in my theatre-going in general that the old expression—‘there is no accounting for taste’—to be sometimes true. There are not many times I disagree about a show with a colleague or colleagues I respect, but it does happen. Sometimes all you can do is agree to disagree. I am certain you all have had this happen to you. In my two years of Dora duty this was the only example I can think of where the weighted ballot allowed a few jurors to press through a choice that was questionable to me. I might add there is no suggestion that these jurors had any personal connection to this particular show.

Finally I’d like to address the difficulty in sometimes selecting five choices especially in the categories of best production and best performance. The two years I was a Dora juror I would have often ten bona fide candidates for best production or best performance. The process of reducing it to five, and then putting the five in order of preference was extremely difficult. What this says to me is that I personally would have to leave out very good shows and very good performances in my final choices So it is inevitable to me that, among a group of jurors, very good shows and very good performances are also left out. But, I will defend the choices made the years I was a juror and I will also defend the worth of the Doras in both promoting Toronto theatre and in celebrating the year in theatre with the vast theatre community we now have in Toronto.  Long live the Doras!