Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Ottawa (Canada) —The Who’s Pete Townshend performed to a full-house at Canada’s National Arts Centre (NAC), paying tribute to his friend and musical colleague, Des McAnuff. McAnuff is the winner of the annual NAC Award, which recognizes work of an extraordinary nature by an individual artist in the past performance year. McAnuff is the former Artistic Director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. He recently revived Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway and the production received two Tony Award nominations last week.
McAnuff and Townshend created the rock musical The Who’s Tommy in 1992, which opened at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, California and then went on to Broadway where it closed after a two year run and 899 performances.
Other special guests of the Governor General Performing Arts Awards gala at the NAC included
Booker Prize-winning author Sir Salman Rushdie. The author of 11 novels as well as several works of non-fiction, Sir Salman’s novel Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize in 1981, and was named the Best of the Booker—the best winner in the award’s 40-year history—by a public vote.
Sir Salman was one of several special guests who took part in the Gala. They include South Park co-creator Matt Stone, actor Nikki James, opera singer Russell Braun, dancer and choreographer Peggy Baker, arts journalist Shelagh Rogers O.C., and Marie-Hélène Falcon, founder and artistic director of Festival TransAmériques.
Each of the presenters has a personal connection to this year’s laureates of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards, and paid tribute to them during a live performance in Southam Hall hosted by Colm Feore. The laureates for Lifetime Artistic Achievement were Janina Fialkowska, Paul-André Fortier, Denis Marleau, Deepa Mehta, Rush and Mary Walsh. Two other distinguished national awards were also conferred as complements to the GGPAA for lifetime artistic achievement. This year Earlaine Collins received the Ramon John Hnatyshyn Award for Voluntarism in the Performing Arts, while Des McAnuff was the recipient of the National Arts Centre Award, which recognizes exceptional achievement over the past performance year.
The Governor General's Performing Arts Awards also feature a unique Mentorship Program, which unites past Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award recipients and talented mid-career artists. This year’s mentor is comedy legend Eugene Levy, who selected a talented young writer and Director from Toronto, Daniel Perlmutter as his protégé.
The National Arts Centre is proud to produce the 2012 Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards Gala in partnership with the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards Foundation and the National Film Board of Canada. The Awards are presented with the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Photo: Des MacAnuff and Pete Townsend. ©2012 George Pimentel.
2012-05-05
Ottawa: Pete Townshend is the “surprise guest” for the Gala of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards