Gabriella Sundar Singh in 'Through the Eyes of God.' It has five nominations for design, direction, writing and performance, plus a nod in the competitive Outstanding Production category.Jae Yang/Supplied
Dora Award season always sneaks up on me: Like most critics in Toronto, I tend to take stock of the city’s theatre at the end of the year. Every May, when the grid of Dora nominees crash-lands into my inbox, I’m newly reminded that theatre inexplicably follows an academic, September-to-June-ish calendar – and that Dora jurors’ tastes regularly deviate from my own.
This year is no exception: As ever, some of these nominees are pleasant surprises. A couple are shoo-ins in their respective divisions. But a few snubs have me tempted to walk over to the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts’ offices to hash these out in person.
Let’s start with the good: I’m pleased to see Anusree Roy’s scorching Through the Eyes of God, which dominated this year’s Toronto Theatre Critics’ Awards, emerge with five nominations for design, direction, writing and performance, plus a nod in the competitive Outstanding Production category.
It’s great, too, to see so many nominations for Théâtre français de Toronto, which more often than not gets overshadowed by anglophone companies. Like Through the Eyes of God, Le malentendu (The Misunderstanding) received five nominations, plus one each for Les Zinspiré·e·s and Michel(le) in the theatre for young audiences division.
The independent division also features some nice surprises: The King Black Box’s superb production of Bug, produced in partnership with Elkabong Theatre Projects, seemed to work as well for Dora jurors as it did for me, with nominations for the production as a whole as well as performers L.A. Sweeney and Nicholas Eddie. (I was less convinced by the King Black Box’s pulpy Romeo Pimp, which nonetheless received four nominations across writing, performance, direction and design categories.)
Thomas Mitchell Barnet in 'Take Rimbaud' at Buddies in Toronto's Bad Times Theatre.Wade Muir/Supplied
Take Rimbaud, Susanna Fournier’s sharp manifesto about art and its place in late-stage capitalism, also fared well, with five nominations across multiple categories. It’s great news, too, that Martin Julien received a nomination for his performance in The Drowsy Chaperone – despite hardly singing a note, he was one of the musical’s brightest stars.
Speaking of musicals: The Doras’ musical division is perhaps the least controversial of the bunch, with nods to Narnia, Octet and After the Rain alongside The Drowsy Chaperone and Bright Star in the Outstanding Production category.
I’m a touch surprised to see Cyclops: A Satyr Play in the mix for Outstanding New Musical – the show, by Talk Is Free and Panic theatres, is non-traditional in structure and, at least the night I attended, not especially strong, owing to tech issues. But for the most part, the musical jurors got it right this year: I’m particularly glad they overlooked Bright Star’s awful book and lyrics to commend its production and cast.
But a few productions, performers and directors – names I’d have thought were surefire winners, let alone nominees – are missing from this year’s list. The Veil, which played in Crow’s Theatre’s intimate studio in the lead-up to Halloween, was among the strongest solo shows of the season, with a spine-tingling performance by Byron Abalos, while Ashley Naomi’s sound design was among the best of the year in any category.
Blackbird, another small-scale show but one no less thrilling than its big-budgeted counterparts, was similarly strong: Cyrus Lane’s performance as a haunted pedophile was some of his best work to date, and Dean Deffett’s tight direction made a teeny church antechamber on Toronto’s east end feel like the end of the world.
Jordan Pettle, Janelle Cooper and Monique Mojica in 'CHILD-ish.'Jae Yang/Tarragon Theatre
The snubs continue: Nothing for CHILD-ish, the charming verbatim show about kids and their views on the world that played at Tarragon Theatre last fall? Nothing for Canadian Stage’s gorgeous, luxurious production of A Doll’s House? Seriously?
Rogers v. Rogers, Crow’s Theatre’s smash hit about Edward Rogers and his fight to take over a Canadian telecom empire, received five nominations – a sweep by any estimation – and yet solo actor Tom Rooney wasn’t singled out for his performance, which saw him play numerous roles back-to-back with each other. Rooney, as ever, was fabulous in the role – his absence from this year’s list of Dora nominees is shocking.
These omissions are confounding, and even more so in the context of the jurors’ chosen nominees: Copperbelt, Natasha Mumba’s epic about the Zambian mineral trade and its intersection with the Canadian economy, was an okay outing for the first-time playwright, but Nina Lee Aquino’s direction was uncharacteristically messy and did little to elevate or refine the text. Still, the work is nominated in production, writing and design categories.
Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary, a misfire at Crow’s Theatre, also received nominations for its ensemble, who were solid but working with insurmountably opaque material, and for its lighting, which was okay but not especially memorable.
The 46th annual Dora Awards will be presented on June 29 at Meridian Hall in Toronto, in a ceremony hosted by fan-favourite actor Amaka Umeh.