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Alan Mingo Jr., who plays Lola in Kinky Boots, now appreciates what women do to be glamorous.Cylla von Tiedemann

Kinky Boots walked away with the most pride at this year's Toronto Theatre Critics Awards.

The local Mirvish production of the Broadway musical by Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper was named the best of the 2015-16 Toronto theatre season – and picked up two additional awards from the city's critical corps.

Alan Mingo Jr. – who played the drag queen Lola in Toronto and is now playing it on Broadway – was named best actor in a musical, while AJ Bridel was named best supporting actress in a musical.

Chasse Galerie, a collectively created new musical based on a French Canadian legend with songs by James Smith, was named the best new musical of the year, however – and Tyrone Savage was named the best director of a musical for his work on the Storefront Theatre holiday hit. (I didn't review it, but I saw it; it was a heck of a lot of fun and is back again next year.)

Justin Bott was named best supporting actor for his work as the Cowardly Lion in Young People's Theatre's recent production of The Wizard of Oz. But, in an unusual selection, comedian Carly Heffernan was named best actress in a musical for One Night Only: The Greatest Musical Never Written. Heffernan played a different role in a different show each night as the whole thing was always improvised.

In the play categories, no production received more than one award, reflecting a season where excellence was spread across the city.

Best production of a play went to Butcher – Nicolas Billon's new thriller directed by Weyni Mengesha for the Butcher's Block Collective and Why Not Theatre at the Theatre Centre. If you missed it, you'll get a chance to see it again: Butcher's been picked up for the 2016-17 Off-Mirvish season.

In a strong season with new writing, however, Jordan Tannahill beat out Billon for best new Canadian play for his two, loosely connected one-acts Botticelli in the Fire and Sunday in Sodom at Canadian Stage. (For the first time, the critics could not reach a consensus on best new international play – and so the category was put aside for the year.)

Factory Theatre's highly successful Naked Season was well rewarded. Ravi Jain, recently named associate artistic director at Soulpepper, was given the gong for best director for his ethereal, non-naturalistic production of Salt-Water Moon. Kawa Ada, who starred in that production, was named best actor for his work on a different Factory show: Bombay Black. And Danny Ghantous picked up the best supporting actor award for a third: A Line in the Sand.

Laura Condlln was named best actress in a play for her work in Tarragon Theatre's remount of An Enemy of the People. In a notable casting choice, Condlln had replaced a man – Joe Cobden – in the role of Dr. Stockmann in that production.

As for best supporting actress, the gong went to Anna Chatterton for her role as Alice B. Toklas in Gertrude and Alice at Buddies in Bad Times.

Finally, a special citation went to Videofag, the tiny, performance space run out of a former barbershop in Kensington Market by Tannahill and William Ellis. During its short existence, it punched well above its weight, developing pieces that went on to play at Vancouver's PuSh festival, Montreal's Festival Transamériques and the Kitchen and Dixon Place in New York.

The Toronto Theatre Critics Awards will be handed out in person at a ceremony in June at the Spoke Club. Critics from The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, the National Post, Now Magazine and Torontoist participated in this year's selection of winners.

Follow me on Twitter: @nestruck

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