The Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations this year are controversial.
This is not surprising. The Doras, which allegedly honour the best in Toronto theatre, are always a little controversial.
As they should be. Part of what makes arts awards worthwhile is the debate they create. They make us root for our favourite artists and works of art the way we normally do for our favourite sports teams. They force us to ask what art we value and explain why.
Unfortunately, the controversy surrounding this year’s Doras, which are run by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts, is becoming a toxic one (and not because The Toxic Avenger got five nominations). It's moved beyond arguing over the omission or inclusion of certain shows to a more divisive debate over how the jury members are selected and the procedures they follow. This is discussion space that could be spent talking about the wonderful theatre that took place in Toronto this season instead.
There are many different ideas about how awards juries should work. You can read how the “weighted ballot” system the Doras employ operates on TAPA's website.
Toronto Star critic Richard Ouzounian recently offered a critique of this method. Whether you agree with him that this year's nods are a case of the "cool kids" versus "the establishment," he makes many fair points.
While I have a bunch of concerns about the Doras (Outstanding Performance in a Featured Role/Ensemble!?!), there's one quirk of the voting system that I'd like to point out here, because I was truly shocked when I discovered it: There are no rules forbidding jurors from voting for their own work.
Yes, to repeat, there is nothing stopping Dora jurors from nominating shows or artists from shows that they were personally involved in.
They can nominate them, they can vote for them and they can try to convince other jurors to vote for them. And, precisely because of the weighted ballot system, a single jury member can hold a lot of sway.
Has the absence of conflict-of-interest rules or guidelines affected what was nominated for a Dora this year?
More than a little surprised by what got a nod this year and what didn't, I spent a little time taking a closer look at the nominations recently.
In the General Theatre Division, two nominees immediately stuck out.
The first was Carmen Aguirre's The Refugee Hotel, which is up for Outstanding New Play. That's a show that I gave 1.5 stars. Other critics were kinder, but it still seemed somewhat odd to me that it was nominated over the widely acclaimed new George F Walker play and the two new Daniel MacIvor plays.
And so I went and pulled up the list of the seven-person jury for the General Theatre Division. Leanna Brodie, who acted in The Refugee Hotel last fall, is on it.
The second nomination that raised a red flag for me was Paul Sun-Hyung Lee for Oustanding Performance by a Male in a Principal Role.
Now, I didn't see The Monster Under The Bed, the show Lee earned his nomination for. But I did read the reviews and none suggested that I was missing one of the top performances of the year.
There's something else unusual about Lee's nomination (over the likes of Ben Carlson and Evan Buliung, to name just two). The Monster Under My Bed is a kids show that was presented at Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People, but his performance was submitted for consideration in the General Theatre Division rather than the Theatre for Young Audiences Division.
So back I went to that list of the seven jurors in the General Theatre Division. What did I find? Nina Lee Aquino, who directed Lee in Monster Under The Bed, is on the jury.
The Dora jury deliberations are not public, of course, and the nominations are determined by secret ballot. But whether or not Brodie and Aquino pushed for these nominations, it simply doesn't look right that they had the opportunity to do so.
I should stress that Brodie and Aquino are perfectly free to vote for the shows they acted in and the performances they directed. And, if they did so, I'm sure it's because they believed in the quality of the work they were involved in.
The problem here is with the Dora rules. If Toronto's theatre awards want to get to regain some credibility, they could pick a worse place to start than by writing up guidelines prohibiting jurors from rooting for their own work.
