Stage Door News
Stage Door News
The Western Ontario Drama League Theatre Festival held at the Roxy this past week has been deemed a smashing success.
"It was just absolutely fabulous," Festival Chairwoman Yvonne Korince said Sunday, the day after the week-long event wrapped up with its awards gala on Saturday evening. "All of our out-of-town guests were over-the-top complimentary about the Roxy and the Owen Sound community in general."
The community theatre festival, which ran Monday to Saturday, featured five different plays from communities across western Ontario. The Aylmer Community Players kicked things off Monday night with Norm Foster's Mrs. Parliament's Night Out.
Members of Chatham's Theatre Kent performed John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men Tuesday night, followed by Paris Performers' Theatre putting on Love, Loss and What I Wore Wednesday night.
Theatre Sarnia performed The Clean House Thursday night, while London Community Theatre put on Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Friday night.
Each play received strong turnouts, with well over 300 people attending each night and almost 2,000 total over the course of the week.
"Our visiting groups really appreciated the turnout," said Korince. "There is a certain part of that that is the WODL community from Southwestern Ontario, but a good portion of that was our local Owen Sound region patrons."
Korince said the festival was "gifted with a great playbill" by pre-festival adjudicator Virginia Reh, who chose the five festival plays from a total of 11 entries.
"I think she gave us an entertaining lineup that had some diversity in terms of comedy and drama," said Korince. "There was also diversity in terms of the size of the acting roles and also in terms of the sets."
On Saturday night the awards were handed out with Theatre Sarnia's production of The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl taking the award for best production in the festival. The play will now move on to the Theatre Ontario Festival in Oshawa May 15 to 17.
Other awards included:
• Outstanding Direction - Matthew Wilson, director of Paris Performers' Theatre production of Love, Loss and What I Wore, by Nora and Delia Ephron.
• Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Major Role - won by Henri Canino, who played the role of Virginia in Theatre Sarnia's The Clean House.
• Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Major Role - won by Graeme Millington, who played Lennie in Theatre Kent's production of Of Mice and Men.
• Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role - Catherine Sullivan, who played Big Mama in London Community Players production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
• Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role - Paul Blower, who played Carl Lewicki in Aylmer Community Theatre's production of Mrs. Parliament's Night Out.
Korince said the event was a huge undertaking that was two years in the making and she is proud what the local theatre community has done and she expects the event to come back again.
"Certainly there is a great enthusiasm to host again down the road," said Korince.
By Rob Gowan for www.owensoundsuntimes.com.
Photo: Jan Walker-Holt and Megan Hadley in The Clean House. ©2015 Carl Hnatyshyn.
2015-03-22
Owen Sound: Awards given at conclusion of Western Ontario Drama League Theatre Festival