The $15,000 prize, given annually to a professional Canadian costume designer in mid-career working in Ontario, allows recipients to further enrich their careers through research and travel. Osborne received her award June 18 at a ceremony at the council’s Toronto office.

One of Dana Osborne’s renderings for Hosanna, Stratford Festival, 2011

“I was thrilled,” said Osborne. “I plan use the award to travel to London, England and New 91��ɫ City, plus purchase some drafting and rendering programs for my computer and some new art reference books.  This comes at the perfect time with everything that’s going on in my career and my life. I’ve been very busy lately and was desperate to take some time to recharge.”

Osborne was selected as the winner from an outstanding group of nominees. Citing her strong, creative interpretations, the jury of theatre professionals said: “[Osbourne] is a modern designer for today’s theatre. She uses her strong sense of today’s fashions, cleverly blended with historical looks, to give her shows unique designs. She also makes excellent use of found objects and has strong technical skills.”

Osborne has been working as a theatre designer across Canada for 15 years. In this, her 12th season at the Stratford Festival, she is the creative force behind the costumes for the mainstage production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown and the world premiere of Morris Panych’s musical Wanderlust. Her other Stratford credits include costumes for Hosanna, As You Like It, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Moby Dick, The Comedy of Errors, The Lark, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Timon of Athens, Agamemnon and set and costumes for King Henry IV, Part One.

Dana Osborne (centre) with the Ontario Arts Foundation Vice-Chair John McKellar, and friend of Virginia Cooper (left) and  Alan Walker (right), executive director of the Ontario Arts Foundation (right)

Her work can also be seen this season in Soulpepper Theatre Company’s Speed-the-Plow, currently playing at the Young Centre in Toronto’s Distillery District, and Pacific Opera Victoria’s upcoming production of �Ѳ�������ٳ�.��Osbourne's designs have graced the stages of Regina’s Globe Theatre, the Grand Theatre in London/Ontario, and Canadian Stage, Young People’s Theatre, Pleiades Theatre and Factory Theatre in Toronto.

Blossom Lady from As You Like It, Stratford, 2010

After earning her BFA at 91��ɫ, Osborne began her career in costume management, working with the Canadian Opera Company, Shaw Festival and Mirvish Productions, before choosing to specialize in design. She was named one of the Young Designers to Watch in Entertainment Design in 2004 and received the 2010 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Costume Design for Theatrefront’s production of The Mill.

“Studying theatre at 91��ɫ gave me a great foundation to build upon,” said Osborne. “It taught me how to navigate the politics of the theatre, how to survive working long hours under stress, and to be flexible and creative. Theatre design is a collaborative art. A lot of people are involved in getting it from the page to the stage and they will all leave their mark on your design, so it’s important to embrace that.”

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Theatre Glendon theatre students are pushing the boundaries of audience interaction in their upcoming  production,  , opening Feb. 28.

Inspired by the Occupy movement and adapted from Peter Weiss’ Marat/Sade by student Dan Pelletier, this play explores class struggle and questions the nature of revolution. Directed by Glendon theatre instructor and award-winning director Aleksandar Lukac, it will take its audiences deep into the struggles of the 99 per cent.

Here’s the unusual bit. Every performance will be on the Internet. And – a very big and – viewers will be invited to send comments via and about the production. Those comments will be projected in real time onto the tent city set, raw and uncensored, and the student actors will answer them on stage during the performance.

“T�󾱲� hasn’t been done before that I know of,” says Lukac. Known for mounting , especially in his native Serbia, Lukac has alerted Toronto theatre companies about this experiment so they can witness what happens. The tweets and Facebook messages “will be a distraction or a help. Once we open the gate anything can pass through. It will show who’s watching, anyway.”

The play runs Feb. 28 through March 3 at Theatre Glendon, Glendon campus, at 7pm. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for students. Call the box office for tickets: 416-487-6822.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Established and emerging artists in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Fine Arts bring their collective talents to a riveting new production of a baroque classic: Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas. This epic story of love and betrayal plays out at the Sandra Faire & Ivan Fecan Theatre on 91��ɫ’s Keele campus for two performances only, March 1 and 2.

Lead artists Joseph Farahat and Charlotte Gagnon

Based on a chapter from The Aeneid, penned by the Roman poet Virgil in the first century BC, Dido and Aeneas recounts the tragic tale of Dido, Queen of Carthage, and the Trojan hero Aeneas. Dido loses her heart to the fierce, handsome warrior Aeneas after he is shipwrecked on her shores, only to be devastated when he abandons her to continue his quest to find Rome.

This story of doomed love has resounded through two millennia. 91��ɫ’s production, a collaboration between faculty and students from the departments of Music, Theatre and Dance, is a strikingly contemporary but timeless re-imagining. Thirty performers play the characters as well as the place, forming a living set on an otherwise empty stage.

“T�󾱲� Dido project is the realization of a dream I’ve had since I joined 91��ɫ,” said Professor Catherine Robbin (left), who heads 91��ɫ’s classical vocal music program. “There’s so much talent and expertise in our performance programs, and it’s a joy to bring it together in an opera production. The experience of combining our creative energies is tremendously exciting and rewarding, both for the students involved and for those of us who teach and work professionally in the field.”

An internationally renowned mezzo soprano, Robbin fills the dual roles of music director and producer for the production. She is no stranger to Dido and Aeneas, having sung the title role in the 1982 Stratford Festival production, which earned her critical accolades as  “a voice which is unquestionably the greatest, in its range, that Canada has produced in several decades” (The Globe and Mail). Her discography features many baroque composers, including Purcell, Handel and Vivaldi, in collaborations with leading conductors such as Christopher Hogwood, Trevor Pinnock and John Eliot Gardiner.

Presiding over the orchestra pit for 91��ɫ’s Dido and Aeneas is Robbin’s Music Department colleague, award-winning choral conductor and composer Professor Stephanie Martin (above). Martin, who serves as music director for the historic Church of St. Mary Magdalene and conductor of Toronto’s Pax Christi Chorale, directs the 16- member 91��ɫ Baroque Ensemble.

The stage director is theatre Professor Gwen Dobie (left), who brings extensive directing credits in contemporary opera and theatre to the table. Dobie‘s most recent productions include ���������������dzپ���ܱ� and Sound in Silence for her company, Out of the Box Productions; the Canadian premiere of the Danish opera On this Planet by Anders Nordendoft; and the world premiere of the opera Eyes on the Mountain by Canadian composer Christopher Donison.

Susan Lee (BFA ’90, MFA ’10), an alumna and current faculty member in 91��ɫ’s Department of Dance, brings her long-standing interest in interdisciplinary collaboration to Dido and Aeneas. In a performance career spanning two decades and three continents, Lee has originated roles in almost 50 world premieres by some of Canada’s most highly acclaimed choreographers. Her own choreography has been described as “… a tour de force of magic and mystery” (The Globe and Mail). She brings that magic to bear on this production, contributing original choreography to the work.

Starring in the role of Dido is fourth-year music major Charlotte Gagnon. Gagnon recently won first prize at the Newmarket Voice Festival Senior Scholarship Competition, as well as two awards for opera performance and the prize for outstanding performing ability and career potential in classical singing. She also placed second in her class at the 2011 National Association of Teachers of Singing Ontario chapter competition.

First-year music student Joseph Farahat sings the role of Aeneas. Both young artists are studying with eminent soprano Norma Burrowes in 91��ɫ’s classical vocal performance program.

In total, the cast for Dido and Aeneas features 21 singers, four actors and five dancers. Not only performers, they also play an active role on the production side. Dressed all in white, they have designed their own costumes based on their personae in Purcell’s opera – or  in the case of the non-speaking roles, inspired by characters drawn from the classical literature of five centuries, who were betrayed or betrayers in their time.

Eschewing a physical set, Professor Elizabeth Asselstine, chair of the Department of Theatre, and Professor William Mackwood, who teaches design and production in the Department of Dance, have created elaborate lighting and projection designs for the show. Working with a technical team of four theatre students, they paint the white-costumed canvas of the performers with evocative colour and special effects.

Tickets are $17, or $12 for students and seniors. For tickets, contact the Box Office at 416-736-5888.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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