The 1st Annual Rideau Awards

Well, the 1st annual Rideau Awards have come and gone, and what a night it was….now let me just say it would have been quite nice to have heard my name called out as the winner of Best Female Performer, and I could have used that Physio for my Ernestine pained ankle, but it was not to be. Would have been nice though – we all in the show certainly worked our asses off, and might have launched a remount. Anyways, here are the winners (note I am NOT one of them...GRRRRRRR):

The winners of the first-ever Rideau Awards -- covering theatre presented in Ottawa during the 2007 calendar year -- are:

BEST PRODUCTION
Greek (Repercussion Theatre)

BEST DIRECTOR
Kevin Orr ( Greek, Repercussion Theatre)

BEST PERFORMANCE -- FEMALE
Kristina Watt ( Top Girls, Third Wall Theatre)

BEST PERFORMANCE -- MALE
Peter Froehlich ( Merz, New Theatre of Ottawa)

BEST DESIGN
Rebecca Miller (Lighting Design, Top Girls, Third Wall Theatre)

BEST NEW CREATION
The Churchill Protocol (Gruppo Rubato; original script by Patrick Gauthier and Kris Joseph, directed by Natalie Joy Quesnel)

EMERGING ARTIST AWARD
Michelle LeBlanc (Actor)

24 professional theatre productions were juried by a team of 11 local arts professionals during the 2007 calendar year. Nominations were submitted by secret ballot and tallied by local accountant.

That being said, It was a lovely evening though – well organized, chic, dapper, everyone looked cleaned up nicely, and some connections made.

My only beef has to be, regardless of how good Greek by Repercussion Theatre was, why did a remount done by a Montreal Company win? How did it get approved to be involved in the process? It was originally done in April 2005 by Thirdwall Theatre (before the Rideau Awards) and had original cast, but it was adjudicated in 2007......curious ........

But now that it’s over we can concentrate on getting the Vision Theatre Season out there (coming soon! And it’s exciting!), a play workshop over the next year and the Fringe show as well, which will reunite my Ernest and I in one of the shows -- Riley kids around that we are the new Kat Hepburn/Spencer Tracy of our generation -- with one minor exception, and if you know Riley you know why that is! LOL

Other exciting happens – Maureen and I (Let it Land Theatre) are discussing a potential play project– so if anyone out there knows of any women in the Canadian Military who just got back from Afghanistan, or has served there please direct them to us.