OTTAWA, November 10, 2008 – The Capital Critics Circle today announced the winners of the ninth annual theatre awards for plays presented in the National Capital Region during the 2007-2008 season. The winners of the English theatre awards are:
Best professional production: The National Arts Centre English Theatre/SoulPepper Theatre production of The Way of the World by William Congreve, directed by Peter Hinton.
Best community theatre production: The Kanata Theatre production of The Seagull by Anton Chekhov, directed by Jim Holmes.
Best director (professional): Joel Beddows for his direction of the Third Wall Theatre Company/The Empire Builders Collective production of Empire Builders by Boris Vian.
Best director (community): Michael Gareau for the Orpheus Musical Theatre Society production of the Lynn Ahrens/Alan Menken musical version of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
Best actor: Roger Forbes for the title role in the National Arts Centre English Theatre/ Old Castle Group, Stratford, in association with Richard Jordan Productions, U.K., production of Falstaff, adapted from the Robert Nye novel.
Best actor (community): David Holton for his performance as Sidney in the Tara Players production of Smash by Jeffrey Hatcher.
Best design (professional): Lynn Cox for her lighting design of Empire Builders.
Best design (community): David Magladry for his lighting design of the Ottawa Little Theatre production of The Woman in Black by Stephen Mallatratt (from the novel by Susan Hill).
The Audrey Ashley Award for a major contribution to theatre: Peter Hinton, for an outstanding body of imaginative and challenging work.
The Audrey Ashley Award is named for the Ottawa Citizen’s longest serving theatre reviewer and sponsored by theatre producer Barbara Crook, a former theatre critic at the Ottawa Citizen and the Vancouver Sun.
The CCC instituted the awards in 2000 to honour the best in theatre on stages in the National Capital Region. The members of the selection committee for the 2008 English theatre awards were: Alvina Ruprecht and Tom McSorley (CBC radio), Patrick Langston (Ottawa Citizen), Denis Armstrong (Ottawa Sun), and Iris Winston (Variety). The CCC is affiliated with the Canadian Theatre Critics Association.
Winners receive cash awards, plaques and commemorative certificates. The sponsors of the 2008 CCC awards are the Ottawa Citizen and Barbara Crook. The Ottawa Little Theatre kindly provided the venue.
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For further information, contact:
Iris Winston
Telephone: 613 256-4747
E-mail: iris.home@sympatico.ca