Ontario Off Stage

TO Toasts

• Christopher Morris of Toronto and Gaétan Paré of Montreal were awarded the Canada Council for the Arts 2012 John Hirsch Prizes; Christopher was a past recipient of a grant from our Professional Theatre Training Program for a directing apprenticeship, and shared some really nice things about how the program helped him
• Finalists for the 2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for plays by women working in English have been announced; Hannah Moscovitch and Melissa James Gibson were both finalists last year, unfortunately no Canadians made the list this year

Conversations

• First, a good blog post round-up from Praxis Theatre—Sky Gilbert is blogging; Mark McGrinder of Studio 180 proposes positive spin-off for the arts from Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s weight loss challenge; and much more
• David Nairn, Artistic Director of Theatre Orangeville, attended our annual Showcase, and reflected on what he saw; especially a couple of graduating students with roots in youth training programs in Orangeville
• From J. Kelly Nestruck in the Globe and Mail: In “the Toronto vs. Chicago theatre war,” Illinois is introducing tax credits for prestigious, big-budget productions to lure away the War Horses and Priscillas: Queen Of The Desert
• Playwrights Guild of Canada is launching a campaign called “Scripted For Schools” to encourage the use of plays in the classroom.  A lot of good articulate arguments in the launch video—and there’s cute kids too
• From 2AM Theatre, Travis Bedard is a noted and vocal advocate for shaking the “minor league” pejoratives away from regional theatre—something with which every theatre artist working outside of Toronto can relate, I’m sure.  He makes an argument for vertical integration based on an American model that I think is just as applicable for us north of the border
• Also on 2AM, Eric Ziegenhagen proposed a new way to think about how to approach audience talkbacks and The Conversation After The Show

From The Wire

• The St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival in Prescott is celebrating their 10th anniversary—and the local media is commending them for changing people’s lives in the community
• The Milton Centre for the Arts had its grand opening
• Artscape has launched ArtscapeDIY, a new website resource “designed to inspire and support you in creative place-making projects in your community”
• Social Media Week is coming up, and Praxis Theatre and the Toronto Fringe Festival are holding a panel on Theatre & Online Interactivity on February 14
• From You’ve Cott Mail: Ways to think about Board member recruitment (very timely for us as we just launched our Call For Nominations)
• El Ateneo in Buenos Aires is apparently the largest bookstore in South America—and an imaginative repurposing of an old theatre

Assembled by Brandon Moore, Communications Coordinator