| A culture of props in the theatre community may undermine fairness at the Betty Mitchell Awards, says one juror (who chose to remain anonymous).
For all of the selection committee’s efforts to keep the jury impartial, the juror says the Betty Mitchell Awards falls short in its efforts to address the threat of favouritism and a tendency for jurors to pat their colleagues on the back at the expense of other, perhaps more deserving nominees.
"There is no set of guidelines. I’m sure you do get people who vote for their friends, or because somebody is new, or because they tried hard," says juror A. "If people are getting too emotionally close to a show, then you have nominations that are not reflective of the quality of the work."
The juror says problems go beyond favouritism, suggesting that many smaller shows were not given fair consideration, like productions by Shakespeare in the Park and Quest Theatre productions.
"I also think there are a lot of roles this year that were tour-de-force written roles. Just about anybody who has played those roles has won an Academy or an Olivier," says A. "We have to be very careful that we separate the absolute power and the dynamics of the role as written as opposed to the performance of the role as executed."
"I think it’s important to keep the Betties in perspective."
The juror selection process is interesting. Jurors are carefully chosen at the beginning of the theatre season from all disciplines within the theatre community. They are not hardened theatre critics from outside the community, but actors, directors, technicians, etc.
Juror’s selections take into consideration factors like gender, age and amount of experience to produce the broadest possible range.
The selection committee tries to consider conflicts of interest, but with the theatre community being so tight-knit, avoiding favouritism is impossible. Jurors often have friends involved with the nominated productions, or are even involved themselves.
This is a test year for the Betty’s. For the first time, jurors will both nominate and select the winners.
Anonymous juror B has more faith in the jury selection process, having been a part of it in previous years.
"Personally, I think the steering committee works very hard to balance the jury. I actually heard that there were two jurors that had completely different ballots. Different shows resonated with them – that’s the beauty of live theatre."
Evidently, this is true enough. While juror A was underwhelmed by the quality of work, B was impressed by this year’s season, which ran from July to June.
"I found it really difficult to ultimately narrow down my nominations to just four. In many of the categories, there were many different directions. There is a lot of theatre vying for those limited number of nominations." |
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