Marcus Nance and Hailey Gillis in a scene from Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. The musical took home the Dora Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical on Monday night.DAHLIA KATZ/Crow's Theatre
Although Mirvish Productions dropped out of consideration for the Dora Mavor Moore Awards this season, the commercial theatre company still came out a big winner at Toronto’s theatre, dance and opera awards on Monday night.
Crow’s Theatre and Musical Stage Company’s hit production of Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812, which is set to return as part of the Mirvish season next summer, went home with four Doras – including outstanding production of a musical – more than any other play or musical from the 2023-24 season.
The Great Comet’s director Chris Abraham, choreographer Ray Hogg and musical director Ryan deSouza won a collective award for outstanding creative direction of a musical, while Julie Fox and Joshua Quinlan were jointly honoured for their outstanding achievement in design.
These five artists will be sizing up their vision of Dave Malloy’s electro-pop musical based on a section of Tolstoy’s War and Peace for the Royal Alexandra Theatre in July, 2025 – in a production that can now be marketed by Mirvish as a Dora dominator.
Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 also took home an award for Outstanding Ensemble. Back, from left: Evan Buliung, Andrew Penner. Front, from left: George Krissa, Brendan Wall, Lawrence Libor.DAHLIA KATZ/Crow's Theatre
While the secondary cast members of The Great Comet won a group award for outstanding ensemble in a musical, however, it was Damien Atkins who beat out four individually nominated Comet stars to win outstanding individual performance for his lead turn in the title role of De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail at Soulpepper. (The Doras, run by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts, no longer have acting awards either separated into lead or supporting, or divided by gender.)
De Profundis, a Wilde-inspired fantasia created by Gregory Prest, Mike Ross and Sarah Wilson, was also named the best brand-new musical of the season.
In a season that saw some companies cancelling shows amid inflation, and others setting attendance records, the work at Soulpepper and Crow’s Theatre was deemed the strongest by the peer juries who vote on the Doras in the general theatre division as well.
In that division, which recognizes larger productions of plays, Three Sisters, the latest team-up between Soulpepper and the Obsidian Theatre Company, was named the top show of the season.
Director Mumbi Tindyebwa Otu’s production of this classic play by Anton Chekhov, adapted by Nigerian-born British playwright Inua Ellams won outstanding production and outstanding ensemble for a stacked complete cast, including Toronto stage stars such as Akosua Amo-Adem, Virgilia Griffith, Oyin Oladejo and Amaka Umeh. (Theatre companies decide whether to submit a production’s entire cast for consideration as “ensemble” at the Doras, or have the leads considered separately for “outstanding individual performance.”)
Umeh, meanwhile, walked away a double winner Monday night, picking up the outstanding individual performance award for playing Styles in Sizwe Banzi is Dead at Soulpepper, which, like Three Sisters, was directed by Otu.
It was Andrew Kushnir, however, who won the outstanding direction award for the Canadian premiere of the Ukrainian war play Bad Roads at Crow’s.
Another Crow’s show, The Master Plan, Michael Healey’s hit comedy about Toronto’s Sidewalk Labs fiasco based on a book by The Globe and Mail’s Josh O’Kane, was named outstanding new play. (Crow’s artistic director Chris Abraham’s production returns next to the stage in November at Soulpepper.)
In the independent theatre division, where smaller productions (or productions in smaller venues) are honoured, Coal Mine Theatre’s production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s play Appropriate was named outstanding production, just a week after a Broadway production of the same family play won best revival at the Tony Awards in New York. Outstanding new play in this division went to Tyson’s Song by Peter N. Bailey.
In the theatre for young audiences (TYA) division, Bad Hats, a collective that regularly contends in its categories, won outstanding production for Storybook Search, an immersive scavenger hunt it put on at the Harbourfront Centre. Playwright Kanika Ambrose, meanwhile, won the outstanding new TYA play award for Truth, which went on at Young People’s Theatre; she won the award for outstanding new play in the general division last year for our place.
In the opera division, Medea at the Canadian Opera Company – a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera, Greek National Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago – swept all five awards, while, in the dance division, Young, Gifted & Jazz, a presentation of dance Immersion and Holla Jazz in association with Canadian Stage, was named the outstanding dance show of the season.