Review: The 2009 Dora Awards

A few weeks ago, Wednesday, I opened my email inbox to find a brief, but surprisingly life altering email from Susan Worthington, a lovely administrative genius working over at Tapestry New Opera Works. Now the weekend before this email I had had an epiphany of sorts to no longer try and sell the Ontario public energy contracts no matter how much they were willing to shell out for me. I was ready to quit that obviously downward spiral of a job. I hit a deer at around 10:30pm heading East on the 401 near London coming back from a week on the road of knocking on people's doors. As I stood curbside waiting for the police, tow-truck, and road cleanup crew to arrive, I achingly watched my city slicker crew fight over where the big dipper appeared in the sky above them. I recognised that this was probably not where I thought my life was supposed to be at and something in me knew that I would get some news like the brief email from Susan in the not too distant future. I had been hit in the big white van with the truth: Time to move on.

So the first three days were full of doubt and confusion after avoiding my money maker, I filled my time putting together my apartment which had stayed in boxes for about a month and half since I arrived. On Wednesday I opened this email from Susan:

Re: Dora Nomination for You Two!!

Dear Bill & Taylor: Congratulations – The Virgin Charlie has been nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for outstanding new musical/opera. The awards ceremony will take place on Monday June 29th at the Wintergarden Theatre in Toronto. We’ll need to arrange for your tickets et al, and I will be in touch about this as soon as I can clarify a couple of details with the Dora coordinator.

You can check out the other nominees at the TAPA website

www.tapa.ca

Congratulations on this wonderful credit to your work! Woo Hoo!!


Cheers!!

Susan


Susan Worthington
Producing Director

Tapestry new opera works
55 Mill Street, Bldg #58
The Cannery Studio 316
Toronto, ON M5A 3C4

YAY!

Now I have been working with Tapestry New Opera for a few years now. While still at York University, I applied to be a part of the Librettist / Composer Lab that Tapestry conducts every summer and was originally denied a spot in the workshop, but after somebody important couldn't make it I guess they decided to take a chance on a young pup like me and invited me to join. This workshop is a little over a week, where four composers and four writers come together to write four short operas each. We jokingly referred to each new pairing like a blind date as all the writers were women and all the composers men, and every 48 hours we created a new 5 minute opera with a new partner. At the "LibLab" (abbreviated) 3 pieces I was the librettist of were produced in Tapestry's Opera Briefs Series. At first I thought this might be the end of my life with Tapestry, but the next step in the Tapestry journey is to then work on 15 minute opera pieces to be a part of Tapestry's Opera To Go Series.

One of the composers, William Rowson, and I sat down for coffee to discuss what we would pitch to be a part of Tapestry's Opera To Go. Bill is a PHD student in music at the University of Toronto, and could probably give you the history of the Canadian railroad in a way that would make you think you're learning about roller coasters or ice cream or famous people getting divorces. He finds a way to make the mundane interesting, important, he highlights at the exact right moments. I often believe he would most likely make a much better writer than I and am extremely grateful that instead he choses to play around in the world of music. This way I can greatly benefit from the man instead of compete.

While Bill and I were talking about reasons we thought opera creates possibility I discovered that what the two of us needed was to create something large, something funny, something bigger than the both of us, and yet relateable, caring, sensitive as that is undoubtably key similarities in our personalities. From that discussion I began to create the world of Charlie, our main character and pitched the idea to Bill and with his approval to Tapestry. About a year later I was at the Enwave Centre standing up to bow as "The Virgin Charlie" came to a close. Again, I thought my life with Tapestry had come to an end.

Instead the famous email from Susan brought me back into that world of performance and Tapestry in particular. After handing in my paperwork later that Wednesday afternoon I officially quit my door knocking job and found a new life, a new breath in theatre. I told about Bill about the nomination and his first reation was, "Wait, so there's no cash prize for this Dora thing?" No Bill, just recognition, the kind I wasn't supposed to get at 22 and a year out of theatre school. I enjoyed that he didn't quite get that.

June 29th came fast. The Dora Award day shared another special day in my world: my mother's birthday, therefore before the Me celebrating I spent the day in the kitchen with my cousin baking my first apple pie. No longer making money, and now having quite a bit of free time on my hands meant creating a gift, trying something new or at least forgotten, like baking for my mother. It felt good. A comfortable way to start off my day. And then came the frantic clothing removal and hair taming and make up adventures until it was time to go.

My cousin Meagan and I took a cab to the Rosewater Supper Club, 19 Toronto Street downtown. Opening the door to the ritzy joint two smiley faced greeters welcomed us in, handing us each a $50 gift certificate to the Club and directed us upstairs. The 2nd floor was of course full of quickly intoxicating formal dresses and blazers and high heels and hats. I recognized some of the people I expected to recognise and squinted curiously at the ones I thought I probably should. As 3 other Tapestry affiliated operas were in the running that night as well, our Tapestry clique could be found against the far wall, with the open wine bar close at hand. Meagan and I giggled like children at our surroundings and pretended confidence. As a natural voyeur I found it difficult not to let my eyes wander from sparkly dress, to crazy feathered shoes, to laughter, to winks. Suddenly I found myself white wine drunk and wishing I had opted for flats while walking akwardly a little ways over to the Wintergarden Theatre.

I walked down and took my seat beside my family. Bill and another Tapestry composer Stephen Taylor were standing surveying the room. I could sense Bill's appreciation for the Wintergarden's indoor garden theme and could feel the two of them discussing the room's possible accustics, discussions with composers always seem to eventually turn that way. It was then that Stephen was surprised with the image of his own face clear on the screen in front of him as they were showing the images of the nominees. At each face there was a new crowd reaction, obviously magnified by the earlier free booze. I liked sitting there knowing soon my picture would appear and the Tapestry crowd along with my loyal family, would make a noise or two in accompaniment. I had already earned this noise and that more than anything was probably what made it so enjoyable.

The actual show itself was put together quite nicely. The many categories were spliced well with jokes from our host Jian Ghomeshi, performances by emerging actors and a dance piece I wish I understood a little better. Power couples like Nina Lee Aquino and Richard Lee, and Colin Mochrie and his wife Debra McGrath were chosen to give out some of the night's awards. Their banter lovely and well timed. It made me genuinely smile.

Of course there were too many categories, there always are in awards shows it seems, but because the theatre community in Toronto is fairly incestuous I ended up playing a game with myself of six degrees of separation. In a way this is something beautiful about the theatre community making it possible for strong partnerships to form from years of collaboration, but sometimes it does create a certain exclusivity and it is my hope that works are still chosen based on merit rather than friendships or time devoted. Either way, who am I to blame at the moment as I am very much on the periphery of the Toronto theatre world and I still managed to get a seat in here accompanied with a tense moment as they call out my name in a list of nominees.

The big winners of the night were Waawaate Fobister for his creation and lead role in Agokwe; The Jersey Boys; and The Sound of Music. And No folks I did not win the Dora, but another Tapestry duo did! Abigail Richardson and Marjorie Chan's Sanctuary Song was the jurors' choice. As the two walked up to the stage I managed to keep it together only making one half joking comment about how I'd seen Abigail in that dress before. Ok, so I'm a little bit of a poor loser. But Meagan did compliment me later for calling the winner as I had told her earlier I was fairly certain Sanctuary Song would take home the prize. Friends joked later about how I had to say "It was an honour just to be nominated" knowing full well everyone wants to win.  But in retrospect, I think those words really do hold something truthful.  I felt that the word honour fit my sentiments quite well.  I was honoured to be a part of the night's events, the night's excitement, the night's tension.  Honoured.

Once the ceremony was over the crowd thined slightly and we cramed our way into double decker buses waiting outside.  I'm grateful somebody was thinking of all those women in high heels.  The 'Doratini' was offered to us upon entrance to the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts and Meagan relaxed a little more as she witnessed numerous dresses and suits doubling their drinks.  These are really just people, I could feel her thinking.  Just people who have come together tonight to celebrate the fact that they are willing to be themselves.  They are not afraid to live a life of the arts in Canada and they will drink heartily to that!

So how did that fateful email alter my life?  This night gave me a new confidence, a reassurance in the fact that I can create.  I can be a member of a vast community of individuals.  We are banded together this one night.  Looking around I watch happiness and strength in each individual and that is what brings us together.  These people get it.  We're not being selfish, we're being ourselves and if somebody wants to recognise us for that, I for one believe that's beautiful.  This night makes me believe that I really do deserve to be happy.