Ontario Off Stage

by Brandon Moore, Communications Coordinator

Conversation Starters

Students and audience at our 2014 Next Generation
Showcase. Philip Akin is on the far right.

• Philip Akin, Artistic Director of the Obsidian Theatre Company, writes in the #CdnCult Times about the diversity gap between what we see on our stages (including at our Next Generation Showcase) and who lives in our communities—challenging organizations to Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way
• And from the archives, James Memeji wrote for Carlos Bulosan Theatre about the search for Filipino artists on the Showcase stage back in 2012
• Holger Syme challenges the notion that proscenium stages create distance (more precisely, he says that the notion is a load of twaddle) in In Praise of the Proscenium Stage

From The Wire

• At our Annual General Meeting and Celebration on Monday, we honoured Vrenia Ivonoffski, the founding Artistic Director of ACT II Studio, with our Maggie Bassett Award.  Since 1991, the Studio has offered older adults a home to learn, experiment, hone skills and create a unique kind of theatre informed by a long-life perspective. The Studio provides programs in acting, directing and playwriting led by cutting-edge theatre professionals.  They’re making a similar discovery in the U.K. as Lyn Gardner explores “Old and bold: There’s no age limit on emerging artists” on the Guardian blog.

TO Toasts

• Congratulations to Yvette Nolan, who was awarded the Mallory Gilbert Leadership Award from the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres.  Yvette was a long-serving member of our Professional Theatre Training Program jury, and was honoured with our Maggie Bassett Award for her contribution to theatre in Ontario in 2007.  She chose as her protégée Kristen Holfeuer, an actor and director and founder of Kamikaze Archive Theatre which creates and produces inventive, movement-based, performative theatre.

In Case You Missed It

• Why Theatre?
• Space to Create: Reflections on the Symposium for Performing Arts in Rural Communities 

This column takes a break next week while we’re at Theatre Ontario Festival, but we’ll be back on May 23.  And in the meantime, from The Onion: “Community Theatre Gives Part of Blanche DuBois to Kathy F---ing Hamilton” (language may offend)