Long Distance Award Winner!
Just another Manic Monday..!
Well, what a wonderful way to wrap up an epic few days on the road…!
I drove over 1200 km in ONE day to finish the road haul: hightailing it all the way* from Duluth, Minnesota to London, Ontario; take a day to turn around for “show mode”; spend a blistering hot afternoon loading into the beautiful Good Foundation Theatre - located here in London’s Fanshawe School of Digital and Performing Arts - in order to to tech Flute Loops.
*Did I mention there’s nothing quite like waiting out a three-way Great Lakes-sandwiched hurricane-force hulk-strength HAILSTORM on the side of the highway…?!
Little did I know, that while I was catching my breath Sunday evening, over 4000 km away, back at home in Vancouver — I was missing out on my chance to accept the Gordon Armstrong Playwright’s Rent Award in person at the Jessie party…!
Here’s Devon More’s name dropped in the Vancouver Sun with the rest of the winners from the 2018 Jessie Richardson Awards (Celebrating and promoting outstanding achievements in the GVRD’s professional theatre community annually since 1982.):
Presented by Origins Theatre, the Gordon Armstrong Playwright’s Rent Award honours the spirit of a shining local playwright whose spark was snuffed too soon.
Much gratitude to Kenan Mackenzie Realty on the Sunshine Coast for sponsoring this year’s cash award.
What sweet news to celebrate at the start of this insane Fringe circuit season!
Apparently the cost of living crunch was relevant even when Gordon Armstrong passed in 1996…! What a fitting sentiment for an award designed to support a Vancouver-based playwright:
“Hell, call it the Rent Award, shows how hard it is for playwrights, especially Gordon, to just make rent.”
You really shoulda heard it live, but here’s what Colin Thomas said:
“ Gordon Armstrong was a friend of mine and I’m very happy to be able to present this award.
The author of plays including The Plague of the Gorgeous, Blue Dragons, and The Map of the Senses, Gordon was 35 when he died of complications resulting from AIDS. Gordon was impressively smart, talented, and hot—in his cigarette-smoking, leather-jacketed, tender way.
Gordon would be pleased to have his name associated with such a practical prize and I’m sure he’d want to thank this year’s sponsor, Kenan Mackenzie Realty.
TJ Dawe, the king of the Fringe, nominated this year’s recipient. He noted that, by coordinating a performance series called Way Off-Broadway Wednesdays, she helps other playwrights to develop new material. She describes herself as ‘just another post-capitalist, polyglot, feminist, killjoy and middle child with an environmental conscience and a penchant for art-as-activism’, who is trying to smash The Patriarchy and save the world. TJ says she is a remarkable playwright, continually creating original and relevant work.
The recipient is currently on a seven-city Fringe tour with her new play, which is called Flute Loops: a subatomic pop opera where anything that can happen does.
This year’s cash award of 500 dollars goes to playwright Devon More.
Because Devon on tour, I’m going to take the money and run. Just kidding. I will accept it on her behalf. ”