| The buffet is ample and the dress code is "artistic," meaning either that you have found an innovative/haphazard way to incorporate sandals into an ensemble, or that you have brought out your very distinctive/garish suit. It must be the 2006 Betty Mitchell Awards.
Emceed by comic Cory Mack and her record-spinning sidekick, DJ Thundah (Trevor Leigh), the ninth annual Betty Mitchell Awards honoured the best in professional Calgary theatre on Monday night, packing the rafters of Stage West with our professional theatre community. From the grand "Bettytown" introduction by the cast of Urinetown to Mack’s ongoing quips and DJ Thundah’s comically overblown category announcements (imagine a movie trailer announcer with a little scratch thrown in for good measure), the evening had a self-effacing, but consummately theatrical feel. Its brisk pace was interrupted only by the inevitable presenters and recipients who remained sure in the knowledge that their award was not, in fact, subject to the time constraints levelled against other categories, cutting the show’s momentum near its halfway point.
The night’s big winners included Ghost River Theatre, with three Bettys for Sailor Boy and The Alan Parkinson’s Project; Ground Zero Theatre and Vertigo Theatre, with four Bettys for its co-production of Morwyn Brebner’s Little Mercy’s First Murder; and Alberta Theatre Projects with six Bettys for Vincent in Brixton, The Blue Light and The Syringa Tree (which also took Fast Forward’s own reader’s choice award). Individually, it was tears and impassioned thanks from Mark Bellamy, who won The Greg Bond Memorial Award for his continuing work in musical theatre in Calgary, and Stephen Hair, who took home the Betty Mitchell Outstanding Achievement Award for his lifetime contribution to the community.
A clustered distribution of the evening’s 15 principal awards, the night’s main surprises were in those categories where ties were declared: lighting design (Harry Frehner and Cimmeron Meyer) and performance by an actor in a lead role (Philip Warren Sarsons and Rylan Wilkie). |
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