Mission’s Opening Nite Theatre Society (ONTS) recently took its production Age of Arousal to Theatre BC’s Mainstage Festival.
The festival ran July 5 to 13 at the ADSS Performing Arts Theatre in Port Alberni, where ONTS won a certificate of merit for Most Inventive and Ambitious Production.
ONTS had performed two additional sold-out in Mission, on June 21 and June 28, to fundraise for transportation and accommodation expenses to Vancouver Island.
Out of eight shows performed by community theatre groups from across the province, ONTS was nominated for Best Set Design (Joe Samorodin), Best Set Decoration and Best Props (April O’Neil) and Best Costumes (Karen Wootten).
Camille Atebe was nominated for Best Actress, and Danielle Donovan, Maria Buganska, Shannon Pedder and Kathy Yewell were nominated for Best Supporting Actress.
Tony Loyer was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
Best Play was won by the Okanagan zone for Late Company by Jordan Tannahill.
Age of Arousal’s set was a giant wedding cake, on which six Opening Nite actors performed their show about feminism and gender bending in Victorian London.
During the festival, ONTS had a busy week of attending the evening performances, followed by morning
coffee critiques by professional adjudicator, director and actor Dean Paul Gibson.
Gibson, who is currently directing Coriolanus at Bard on the Beach, pointed out the performing and technical strengths of each production, as well as areas needing improvement.
He illustrated his points by having many of the mainstage actors rework their scenes with some vocal and character tweaking.
ONTS’s next show is The Art of Murder, a comedy thriller by Joe Di Pietro, running Oct. 18 to Nov. 3. Visit openingnitetheatre.com for more details.
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