Fire, CanStage's "gospel-rock" musical based on the life of Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart, swept the boards at Tuesday's 29^th annual Dora Mayor Moore theatre awards ceremony — and not for the first time.

 

The show, which won a total of five statues, was first nominated in 1989 as winning actor Ted Dykstra pointed out. "The last time I was fortunate enough to receive one of these was twenty years ago, and it was for the same part," Dysktra told a packed, slightly under-air conditioned crowd at the Winter Garden theatre. "So stick to what you know. I was zero for twelve before tonight — the Susan Lucci of the Doras."

 

Tuesday's Lucci awards began at 6pm with an industry shmooze-and-amuse-bouche fest at the Rosewater Supper Club (attendees included Sky Gilbert, Soulpepper major domo Albert Schultz, playwright Hannah Moscovitch and the obligatory Don McKellar), and partied well into the night with a more spartanly-attended after-shmooze at the Winter Garden. There was little controversial about the ceremony itself — hosted by the amiable if screechy Sharron Matthews — although guest presenters Daniel MacIvor and VideoCabaret's Michael Hollingsworth at least had the good sense to look embarrassed by the event's high-chintz factor. (The show's opening musical number, which featured Matthews singing a retooled version of "Copacabana" titled "At the Doras," wasn't even the kitschiest moment that evening.)

 

At the very least, as the Star's Richard Ouzounian noted, this year's Doras were a small validation for Martin Bragg, CanStage's artistic producer (and the theatre community's all-purpose punching bag) who resigned two weeks ago. The Canadian Stage company took home seven awards home last night: five for Fire, one for The December Man, and the Outstanding New Play award for Judith Thompson's Palace of the End. Meanwhile, our own awards for the evening would have included:

 

Best Speech (Runner-up): The elegant Anusree Roy,who won two statues for Pyaasa, called her awards "an immigrant's dream come true."

 

Best Speech (Winner): Alisa Palmer, winner of the Outstanding Direction of a Play award for Top Girls, dedicated her statue to David Bowie "for getting me through my drug-addled teenage years in New Brunswick," and then cheerfully ignored the band's attempt cut her speech short. ("I'll just use the music for underscoring," she continued.)

 

Biggest Cheer Award: Unexpectedly, the biggest cheer of the evening didn't go to an actor, director or producer, but to Jon Kaplan, Now's ridiculously charming theatre critic, who announced (through gritted teeth) the Audience Choice award for Dirty Dancing: The Incredibly Long Subtitle. (As a Toronto theatre writer myself, I had to wonder what the reception might have been if I'd walked on stage instead of Kaplan. Silence and confusion, presumably. Or just a well-aimed brick.)

 

Award for Actually Remembering The Existence of Theatregoers: Considering the dwindling number of theatregoers in Toronto, it was heartening to hear Fire's producer describe her show as "a great way to sell subscriptions." The audiences — by which we mean the people who actually pay to see shows — otherwise went unmentioned during what was mostly a self-congratulatory (if cheerful) back-slap fest.

 

Most Well-Dressed (Runner-up): The National Post's unassailable theatre critic Robert Cushman, whose reviews are often far more elegantly composed than the shows themselves, looked smooth in a cream suit accessorized by chunky white New Balance sneakers, whilst sporting the widest grin I've ever seen on a human being over the age of three — as if somebody had just told him he'd never have to see another production of A Midsummer Night's Dream ever again. Lucky bloke.

 

Most Well-Dressed (Winner): Actress Linda Prystawska (Laurier), whose fuchsia dress and killer pointy black boots were as scary and sexy as anything dreamed up by her costume designers at VideoCabaret.

 

And as for the real awards results? At the time of writing, they weren't up on the Doras website, but Torontoist has the full list.

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