Dear Dora

I had the exciting experience of attending the Dora Awards after party! Woo! (Anyone can go...you just have to buy a ticket...but let's pretend it was super exclusive) It was a great time with boozing, schmoozing and musing. I also went to the press conference a few weeks earlier when the nominees were announced.

Amanda Cordner and I at the Dora afterparty

I am still awstruck by the ordinariness of the shows nominated. Now in all fairness I haven't seen all of them so I may not be the best judge, but plays that generally got panned by myself and my colleagues are getting Dora noms. What is that? When we left theatre school we were told that the future was going to be different. That remounts of the same old same old would not be rewarded and that we needed to be new, original and risk taking in order to create something worth a damn. In the recent weeks I have come to terms with the fact that I will probably never be nominated for a Dora. Maybe because I'm not as hot shit as I think I am, but also because the type of work I want to create is never going to be acknowledged on that stage. But, I think I'm okay with that. Who needs the ceremony? The after party is where its at anyway.

P.S. Mad props to Anusree Roy (who graduated from York) for winning Outstanding New Play for Brothel #9. There's an artist telling new stories, her stories.