No top dog emerges as productions share the wealth at METAs
With their acclaimed co-production of Angélique having attracted no less than 10 Montreal English Theatre Award nominations, Black Theatre Workshop and Tableau D’Hôte might have hoped they were about to experience déjà vu all over again. Last year, BTW triumphed with six METAs for its part in a co-production (with Centaur and the National Arts Centre) of The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God, while Tableau D’Hôte took four for Hosanna the year before.
But during Monday’s META gala event, which covered the 2016-17 season and took place at the Rialto Theatre, Angélique, the intense story of an 18th-century slave accused of burning down Montreal’s Old Port district, received just two awards.
Still, it was no mean feat that one of these was the prestigious award for outstanding PACT production. (PACT stands for Professional Association of Canadian Theatres.) The other was for outstanding contribution to theatre, and went to SIXTRUM Percussion Ensemble for its remarkable live soundtrack for the production.
Unlike the last couple of years, no single production ended up being an obvious top dog, though several companies were ahead of the pack.
Geordie Productions took awards for outstanding ensemble for The Halloween Tree and outstanding new text for Erin Shields’s Instant, while Dakota Jamal Wellman was recognized as one of two outstanding emerging artists for his role in that play, as well as for roles in Repercussion’s Much Ado About Nothing. The other recipient in this category was Sophie El-Assaad, in recognition of her costume designs for Much Ado and CABAL’s Tragic Queens. El-Assaad also took home the outstanding costume design award for Tragic Queens.
Matching Geordie’s triple whammy was F--- You! You F--ing Perv!, The Bakery/La Manufacture’s searing piece about child abuse, which earned awards for outstanding lead actress for Leslie Baker, sound design/composition for Peter Cerone and Sam Wylie, and independent production.
The Segal Centre/Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre co-production of My Name Is Asher Lev also received three awards: supporting performance awards went to Ellen David and Alex Poch- Goldin, and an award for set design went to Martin Ferland. The Segal’s associate producer, Paul Brian Imperial, was honoured as this year’s Unsung Hero of the Theatre.
Were it not for those awards going to Steven Schipper’s splendid production of My Name Is Asher Lev, it would have been depressingly slim pickings for the city’s two main anglo theatres. Centaur Theatre came away with just one award, with Andrea Lundy being recognized for her heavenly lighting for last year’s Constellations, a co-production with Canadian Stage.
The award for outstanding lead actor went to Jon Lachlan Stewart for his stunning, shape-shifting one-man turn in his self-penned Big Shot. The award for outstanding direction went to Imago Theatre’s Micheline Chevrier for Intractable Woman, a powerful piece based on the writings of murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. (Imago has more intractable women taking the stage this weekend with its mini-festival Her Side of the Story.)
The outstanding community production award went to Hudson Players Club for its revival of David Fennario’s pioneering bilingual drama Balconville.
This year’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Award (presented in association with the Conseil des arts de Montréal) went to the MAI Centre in recognition of its mentorship program.
The gregarious and ritzy META gala was hosted by two generations of theatre folk: relative newcomers David Noel and Michelle Rambharose, and the more established Danette MacKay and Matthew Kabwe, with Nick Carpenter again providing musical entertainment with his METAfive ensemble.