Marcus Nance and Hailey Gillis in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812. The show dominated the musical theatre division with 10 nominations, including outstanding production.DAHLIA KATZ/Crow's Theatre
This year’s list of Dora Mavor Moore Award nominees is crowded with shows from Crow’s Theatre and Soulpepper Theatre Company, including two from each company nominated for outstanding production in the general theatre division.
Shows by Mirvish Productions were not submitted for consideration for the awards for the first time ever after the producer withdrew from the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA) earlier in the season. The move meant that the popular Six The Musical – about the six wives of Henry VIII – was ineligible to receive nominations.
See the full list of Dora Mavor Moore Award 2024 nominees
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 dominated the musical theatre division with 10 nominations, including outstanding production. The musical by Dave Malloy is a contemporary retelling of Leo Tolstoy’s 1869 novel War and Peace and made its Canadian debut at Crow’s Theatre late last year in Toronto’s east end.
Also leading in nominations was Soulpepper’s production of Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, with seven nods, including outstanding production in the general theatre division. The show set in apartheid-era South Africa and tells the story of a man named Styles. He debates stealing a dead man’s identity in order to take his worker’s permit, a document Styles had previously been denied.
The Master Plan, Michael Healey’s adaptation of Globe and Mail journalist Josh O’Kane’s 2022 book Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy, made the nomination list six times.
Also nominated for outstanding production was Canadian Stage’s The Inheritance Part 1, which explores the experience of the generation of gay men whose elders were decimated by the AIDS crisis.
Crow’s Theatre’s Bad Roads is about the Russian invasion of Ukraine beginning in 2014 and features testimonies from the conflict. The play, which had its North American debut in the fall, was also nominated for outstanding production.
Soulpepper and Obsidian Theatre Company’s Three Sisters secured outstanding production nominations as well. The play is about three sisters grappling with the death of their father as Nigeria’s Biafran Civil War is about to break out.
In addition to Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, outstanding production nominations in the musical theatre division included Bad Dog Theatre Company’s Holiday! An Improvised Musical. The show is inspired by Stephen Sondheim’s Company and features performances from names familiar to Toronto’s comedy scene such as Ashley Botting (This Hour Has 22 Minutes) and Aurora Browne (Baroness Von Sketch Show).
In February, Soulpepper produced the world premiere of De Profundis: Oscar Wilde in Jail, which earned six nominations. The play is based on a letter that Wilde wrote while serving two years in prison for gross indecency.
Kelly vs. Kelly, from the Musical Stage Company in association with Canadian Stage, received a nomination for outstanding production. The musical tells the story of a mother-daughter dispute that erupts when daughter Eugenia Kelly finds herself in a love affair with a tango dancer.
The category also saw a nomination for Quote Unquote Collective’s Universal Child Care, about growing social inequities, the need for affordable child care and different approaches to child care around the world.
Leading in the opera division were Medea with six nominations, Don Giovanni with seven nominations and Don Pasquale with three nominations.
Highlights from the dance division included Nomada, Deciphers and Young, Gifted & Jazz, each receiving three nominations.
The independent theatre division included nominations for Bremen Town, Appropriate, Prophecy Fog, Tyson’s Song and (Everyone I love has) a Terrible Fate (Befall Them).
And in the young audiences division Storybook Search, Sweeter, Les Zinspiré.e.s: Onze calme et on continue, The Fixing Girl and Truth all got nominations.
In total, TAPA announced 228 nominations for the 44th edition of the Dora Mavor Awards, which will be presentedon June 24 at Toronto’s Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre.