The Brickenden Awards recently announced several changes to this year’s presentations and the registration procedures.

A new category, Outstanding Drama, has been added to the list of awards voted on by the core panel and members of the public. The previous Outstanding Youth Production has been split into two new awards, Outstanding Youth Drama and Outstanding Youth Musical, with both voted on by the youth panel and the public.

As previously announced, the touring category has been retired; in addition, the award for outstanding ballyhoo will no longer be presented.

The awards for outstanding original script (determined by a…

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Every year since 1981, UWO’s English Department has mounted one of Shakespeare’s plays during the summer. The first UWO Summer Shakespeare production, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was overseen by accomplished theatre director Kenneth Livingstone.

The thirty Summer Shakespeare shows, which have been nominated for ten Brickenden Awards since 2001, have included All’s Well That Ends Well, Henry V, Macbeth, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, The Comedy of Errors, The Tempest, The Two Gentlemen of Verona; Measure for Measure, The Taming of the Shrew and The Winter’s…

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The results of the 2010 Fringe Ballot, as voted by patrons of the festival, were announced at tonight’s Fringe Fried awards ceremony. In order of presentation, they are:

• Best Film-on-the-Fringe: Rev Gone Rogue (Tommy Nugent)
• Best VisualFringe Artist: Walter Sayers
• Spirit of the Fringe: Jayson McDonald for The NO Show
• Most Daring Production: unADULTeRATED me
• Funniest Production: The Screw You Revue
• Best Solo Performance: Justin Peter Quesnelle, Monster
• Best Performance: Mikaela Dyke, Dying Hard
• Best Original Production: Gunpowder
• Best Show: Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens
• Producer’s Pick, chosen by

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The London Fringe Festival has announced the shows for this year’s Impresario Series, as well as a special end-of-festival fundraiser featuring two of this year’s performers.

• Nicholas Wallace: Ten million to one, 9:15pm, Spriet Family Theatre (Venue #1)
• The Screw You Revue, 9:30pm, The ARTS Project (Venue #2)
• Emma, 9:00pm, Wolf Performance Hall (Venue #3)
• Monster, 8:00pm, McManus Studio Theatre (Venue #5)
• Gunpowder, 8:30pm, Fanshawe College Theatre (Venue #6)

The Big Word, a fundraising spoken-word performance featuring One Man Riot’s jem rolls and Fruitcake’s Rob Gee, has been added at 9:45pm at The Lounge (Venue #7),…

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In 2006 Rachelle Fordyce brought her one-person show netherwhere:etherwhen, in which she played Charon, ferryman of Hades, to the Fringe festival. This year she’s back with unADULTeRATED me, a completely different show.

1. Theatre in London.ca: You’ve done some interesting training since netherwhere:etherwhen, including a long “Clown through Mask” program. How have those affected your work in general, and unADULTeRATED me in particular?
2. Rachelle Fordyce: I loved the “Clown through Mask” workshop and would recommend it to anyone. The process one goes through in the workshop can be applied to more contemporary styles of

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Jayson McDonald’s name and work are well-known to Londoners, and increasingly to audiences and performers across North America. At the same time he’s performing his solo show Gunpowder in London and touring several other solo plays to festivals across Canada, his play The Last Goddamned Performance Piece is in production at the Ottawa Fringe Festival and his most recent directorial effort, Jeff Culbert’s one-man show archy and mehitabel, is also touring the country.

1. Theatre in London.ca: As well as being one of the most prolific (pervasive?) people on London’s theatre scene, you’ve also become

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If you had to come up with a recipe for a Fringe production, fluorspar miners, standup comedy, Rachel Corrie and a masters degree probably wouldn’t be your first thoughts for ingredients.

Yet all of them contribute to Mikaela Dyke’s one-woman show Dying Hard, which debuts at this year’s festival.

The Newfoundland native moved to Toronto a few years ago to do a masters degree in drama. A long-time improv theatre performer, she had to promise her parents that she’d give it up because “if you start doing that [in Toronto] you won’t finish your masters. They were probably…

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A one-person piece written and performed by Briana Brown, Cassandra appeared at the 2006 London Fringe Festival during a cross-Canada tour. The play returns this year, but with a major change.

1. Theatre in London.ca: I was surprised to see how much Cassandra evolved over the 10 days of the 2006 Fringe, and in the two months afterwards, so I’m curious to learn how it’s changed in the four years since.

2. Briana Brown: I did another significant rewrite after the fringe tour in 2006 before performing it at FemFest (Winnipeg 2007). The

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Christel Bartelse has been to London several times since debuting CHAOTICA here in 2008, most recently as a performer in The Big Comedy Go-To.

1. Theatre in London.ca: It’s your second time at the London Fringe Festival and fourth time performing in London. What brings you back to the city?
2. Christel Bartelse: I had such a great time the first time I came to London. This is where I first performed CHAOTICA, my very first solo show, so it’s special to me, I was overwhelmed with the response. I love the people and the way the

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When I saw the lineup for this year’s Fringe festival, the first thought that came to mind was “look how many performers are back!” Of the 45 companies, fully half are returning for a second, third or even fourth time around; what’s more, half of those are from outside London. I’m always curious to learn more of the ideas and thought processes that go into making theatre, so I asked a few of the folks from away to talk about coming back to London.

Appropriately first up is Detroit’s Tommy Nugent, whose posters for Burning Man & the Reverend…

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Earlier today it was announced that the 2010 Maggie Bassett Award will be presented to actor, director and educator Don Fleckser during this month’s Theatre Ontario Festival. More information about the award, including a list of his accomplishments in over 60 years of theatre, is in the full press release.

Mr. Fleckser’s most recent performance was a storytelling revue with Adam Holowitz, who also directed him in last year’s Grimes of the Borough. In coming months he will be directing Marion Johnson’s adaptation of Emma during this year’s Fringe festival, and AlvegoRoot’s October production of Rope.

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The awards for the 2010 London One Act Festival were awarded this afternoon at the Black Shire Pub. Thanks to all of the participants, the organizing committee and adjudicator Bernard Hopkins, and congratulations to the winners!

Outstanding Supporting Actor

Ben Rowe, The Robinson Family

Outstanding Supporting Actress

Jeannette Klaver, Tribes

Outstanding Director

Robyn Israel, Summer Comes Late

Outstanding Production

Where Do I Begin? by Jocelyn Graham

Outstanding Original Script

Summer Comes Late by Michael Wilmot

Outstanding Actress

Shirley Brown, Poison

Outstanding Actor

Chris McAuley, Summer Comes Late

Special Adjudicator’s Award

Samantha Gray,

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For many years local historian and filmmaker Chris Doty was also a prominent figure in London theatre. He was the first regular reviewer for Theatre in London, wrote plays including The Donnelly Trial and Citizen Marc: The Adventures of Marc Emery (with Jason Rip), and chose half of the first set of Brickenden Award winners himself (the other half were selected by public vote). Occasionally caustic, unrelentingly direct and always opinionated, his reviews chronicle the turn-of-the(-21st)-century boom in local independent theatre productions. His documentary film Let’s Go to the Grand! (released at the same time…

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