Ontario Off Stage

by Brandon Moore, Community Theatre and Communications Manager

Conversation Starters

Next Generation Showcase

• Our Next Generation Showcase ran on January 17 and 18—and you can catch-up on all the tweets and pictures on Storify.
• Two new Canadian theatre podcasts have launched with the new year. Stageworthy, produced by Phil Rickaby, profiles people pursuing different theatre careers. The first episodes featured Rebecca Perry, Sam Rosenthal, and Tom McGee.
• PlayME is produced by Expect Theatre in Toronto, and will be a national digital theatre presenting a season of theatre scripts as podcast performances. The season opener featured Nicolas Billon’s Agamemnon.

Behind the Scenes at Ontario’s Theatres

• Antoni Cimolino, Artistic Director of the Stratford Festival, wrote in the Globe & Mail about Brian Bedford and Bill Needles—both who passed away last week.
• A celebration of life for Marigold Charlesworth is being held on Sunday, January 24 at the Performing Arts Lodge in Toronto.
• Carousel Players in St. Catharines recommended six Theatre Creators Reserve projects focusing on works for children, youth, and families.
• The Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts is hosting Indie X on February 28. Indie X is targeted to the professional performing arts Indie community and is a vital networking and learning conference not to be missed! Speakers and panelists include: Sky Gilbert, Philip Akin, Nina Lee Aquino, Ravi Jain, Byron Laviolette, Kelly Straughan, Jivesh Parasam and more.

Migrations

• Michael Rubenfeld is moving on from his role as Artistic Producer of SummerWorks.

TO Toasts

• ... to Jackie Maxwell, Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival, who was invested into the Order of Ontario.  (UPDATE: The Shaw has put out an announcement with some nice quotations in it.)
• ... to Lori Moccio of St. Catharines, who was recognized by Carousel Players with the Norah Morgan Award for contribution to the arts in the Niagara Region by an elementary school teacher.

In Case You Missed It

• Stories from the Professional Theatre Training Program: Viktor Lukawski (Milton) is training in directing with Andrea Donaldson and Joel Greenberg at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, Sehar Bhojani (Hamilton) is training in directing with Robert Ross Parker at Hope and Hell Theatre in Toronto, and Michela Sisti (Kleinburg) is training in directing with Ross Manson at Volcano Theatre in Toronto.

You can also receive news from Theatre Ontario every month by email.  Our archives are online and the January issue is now available.