Ontario Off Stage

by Brandon Moore, Communications Coordinator

Conversation Starters

An adjudication at Theatre Ontario Festival 2015

• Our Festival has wrapped up for another year—but you can catch up on all the news articles, blog posts, and tweets in our Theatre Ontario Festival Storify.
• This week’s #CdnCult Times reflects on a project that explored and celebrated the Indigenous Body of Work. Contributors were Jillian Keiley, Joseph Osawabine, and Cole Alvis.
• You’ve Cott Mail dedicated a recent edition to issues of crowdfunding, including the question “who makes better decisions—expert funders or crowds?”
• Looking for ideas to integrate the arts into other school subjects? Joe Patti writes on Arts Hacker about the intersection of theatre and physics and how the backstage is a “showcase” of physics in practice.
• Mixed Blood Theatre in the U.S. has launched an innovative program: the Disability Visibility Project. Theatres can access grants of $5000 to produce plays about disability with the proviso that artists with disability are employed as the characters with disability.

Behind the Scenes at Ontario’s Theatres

• R.H. Thomson is one of the recipients of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards.  In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, he reflects on his career including the influence of his mother, Cicely, who was also one of the founders of Theatre Ontario, and his first performance at the age of four on the stage of The Curtain Club community theatre in Richmond Hill.
• Jane Coryell from our Talent Bank is holding a special exhibition of her set designs at the Queen Elizabeth Park Community and Cultural Centre in Oakville, from June 10 to September 30.

TO Toasts

• …to Natalie Ackers of Roseneath Theatre, who was chosen as one of the protégés for this year’s Mallory Gilbert Leadership Award by award recipient Ivan Havel. The award is presented by the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres.
• …to the recipients of this year’s Toronto Theatre Critics Awards.

In Case You Missed It

• Cultivating Tomorrow’s Artists: Kayleigh Robertson, from our Youth Advisory Committee, wrote about the conversation we had at our Festival and Annual General Meeting.
• PTTP Profiles: Exploring current projects funded by the Professional Theatre Training Program.