For  the 2026 Awrds we met at a board room at the Globe and Mail courtesy Aisling Murphy for a potluck dinner (the food was delicious). Previously to the meeting, we had submitted two names for each of the categories. Some categories needed little discussion because most of us were on the same page with our nominees. In other cases, where nominations were all over the map, a consensus had to be found and that’s where the deep debates were centred.

When I look over the final list, I think it’s a fine reflection of the theatre season just past, but there are several stand outs for me. In choreography,  there is the amazing uber talented Alyssa Martin (Dance Nation) being recognized along side world renown Christopher Wheeldon (MJ) and holding her own; then there’s young Thomas Winiker  (Kimberly Akimbo) in supporting actor showing such incredible promise; and costume designer Melanie McNeill  (Night at the Grand Guignol) from a tiny company with a miniscule budget winning over much bigger names; and finally both Sophia Walker (Slave Play) and Nicholas Eddie (Bug) who could have won for other remarkable performances they gave this year and not just the ones they won for. i’m especially pleased about the special citation voted for Eldritch Theatre  and Eric Woolfe which continues to explore all the possibilities within the horror genre, providing endless evenings of entertainment as they do.

And so it’s on to next season and, we hope, its many theatrical gifts to come.

After three months of not posting due to two non-funtioning computers, I am finally able to post once again, not on my main computer, (I’m still waiting for Apple to deliver my Mac Mini, lo these many months), but on my ancient lap top that has been resurrected by two whizkids, well actually a whiz uncle and his whiz kid nephew. The two of them tinkered with my lap top for two months and actually got it to work in a feeble sort of way. It can’t ever go to sleep or be turned off, but it does work and that’s all that matters! Blessings be upon them.

No more paper right? Save the environment right? Enter etickets into our lives. There is only one problem. They all look alike.

We get a confirmation from the theatre that they are about to send us the etickets and the next email has the etickets. And so you put them into your email folder with the other etickets. And then you look at your folder and all the etickets look alike because none of them say which performance the eticket is for. You have to open the eticket to find out which performance it is. All the eticket says on the outside is that it is an eticket.

So my rant of the day is this. Why are most, and I’m not saying all, theatre companies incapable of putting the name of the performance on the outside of the eticket?

Just another one of life’s things-that-could-have-been-avoided irritations.

A delightful if condensed adaptation of the Bard’s classic comedy – one of the best ever Dream in High Park.

A beautifully drawn portrait of the Brontë sisters that treats them as real people and not historical icons – biography with humanity.

A spectacular evening of Leonard Cohen music as you’ve never heard it before.