Fall on Your Knees, the epic six-hour co-production by Neptune Theatre and the National Arts Centre, among others, of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s novel by Hannah Moscovitch, and Downed Hearts, a new play staged at Ship’s Company Theatre, Parrsboro, by N.S. Governor General’s award-winner Catherine Banks, dominate this year’s list of Merritt theatre award nominees.

However, most of the province’s major players including Festival Antigonish Summer Theatre, The Villains Theatre, Shakespeare by the Sea and Sydney’s Highland Arts Centre, are in the running as well as indie productions including a one-person show about life as a trans woman and the TV/stage hybrid soap opera The Crevice. It was a good year for theatre. (See below for some upcoming productions involving the 2024 nominees.)

The winners will be revealed at the Robert Merritt Awards Gala, hosted by Kathryn McCormick and Dan Bray on Monday, April 15, at Alderney Landing, in Dartmouth. Tickets are open to the public at www.merrittawards.ca. There is a pre-show event honouring emerging Nova Scotia theatre artists and a post-show music and dance party.

In addition to the juried nominees, Theatre Nova Scotia will present awards for Outstanding Technician and Stage Manager, the Neptune RBC Chrysalis Emerging Artist Award, the Outstanding Accessibility award, and the TNS Legacy Award.

The nominees are:

Outstanding Performance in a Leading Role:

Emma Vickers, The Adventures of the Little Girl and the Wind, Festival Antigonish; Jackson Seib, The Suspect, Murder for Two, Festival Antigonish Summer Theatre; Samantha Hill, Kathleen Piper, Fall on Your Knees; Jenny L. Wright, Mercedes Piper, Fall on Your Knees; Deborah Hay, Frances Piper, Fall on Your Knees; Jeff Schwager, Robert Grove, The Play That Goes Wrong, Neptune Theatre; Ryan Brown, Prince Charmin, Cinderella, Neptune Theatre; Daniel MacIvor, Peter, Let’s Run Away, reWorks Productions and 2b theatre; Zach Faye, Aaron, Downed Hearts, Ship’s Company Theatre and Eastern Front Theatre in association with Matchstick Theatre; Geneviève Steele, Albertine, A Beginner’s Guide To the Night Sky, The Villains’ Theatre.

Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role:

Jenelle Cooper, Adelaide Taylor, Fall on Your Knees; Eva Foote, Lily Piper, Fall on Your Knees; Nicola Lipman, Grandma, Billy Elliot The Musical, Neptune Theatre; Patricia Zentilli, Mrs. Wilkinson, Billy Elliot; Dan Bray, Elsworth/Gorman Roach, Rain on the Parade, The Villains Theatre; Wally MacKinnon, Stuart MacPhail, The New Canadian Curling Club, Festival Antigonish; Sherry Smith, Pearl, Downed Hearts, Ship’s Company Theatre and Eastern Front Theatre in association with Matchstick Theatre; Elm Reyes, Lucas, Downed Hearts; Chris Vergara, Boutons, Cinderella, Neptune; Becca Guiderson, Deetah, Cinderella.

Outstanding Choreography:

Sarah Prosper, Jack and the Beanstalk – A Musical Comedy Pantomime, Highland Arts Theatre, Sydney; Ray Hogg, Billy Elliot, Neptune; Stephanie Graham, Cinderella, Neptune; Jade Douris-O’Hara, Pinocchio, Shakespeare by the Sea; Liliona Quarmyne, The Movements, Zuppa.

Outstanding Costume Design:

Diego Cavedon Dias, The Adventures of the Little Girl and the Wind, Festival Antigonish; Judith Bowden, Fall on Your Knees; Tea Stewart, Pinocchio; Oliver Dorais-Fleming, Rain on the Parade; Diego Cavedon Dias, Wind in the Willows, Two Planks and a Passion Theatre.

Outstanding Direction:

Alisa Palmer, Fall on Your Knees; Ann-Marie Kerr, In Lieu of Flowers, Highland Arts Theatre and Neptune Theatre; Jeremy Webb, The Play That Goes Wrong, Neptune Theatre; Jesse MacLean, Pinocchio; Samantha Wilson, Downed Hearts.

Outstanding Lighting Design:

Ingrid Risk, The Adventures of the Little Girl and the Wind; Leigh Ann Vardy, Fall on Your Knees; Jessica Lewis, Billy Elliot; Alison Crosby, Downed Hearts; Jessica Lewis, The Movements, Zuppa.

Outstanding New Nova Scotia Adaptation (Playwright):

Zoë Comeau, F*cking Trans Women, F*cking Theatre Co., staged at the Bus Stop Theatre, Halifax; Highland Arts Theatre artistic director Wesley J. Colford, Jack and the Beanstalk – A Musical Comedy Pantomime; Hannah Moscovich, Fall on Your Knees; Drew Douris O’Hara, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare by the Sea.

Outstanding New Nova Scotia Play (Playwright):

Wesley J. Colford, The Beloved, Highland Arts Theatre; Alison Crosby, In Lieu of Flowers, Highland Arts Theatre and Neptune Theatre; Daniel MacIvor, Let’s Run Away, reWorks Productions and 2b theatre company; Catherine Banks, Downed Hearts; Colleen MacIsaac, A Beginner’s Guide to the Night Sky, The Villains Theatre.

Outstanding Musical Direction:

Sean Mayes, Fall on Your Knees, Paul de Gurse, Billy Elliot; Garry Williams, Pinocchio; Lisa St. Clair, Cinderella; Avery-Jean Brennan, Murder for Two.

Outstanding Score:

Sean Mayes, Fall on Your Knees; Garry Williams, Pinocchio; Garry Williams and Evan Brown, Rain on the Parade, The Villains Theatre; Jenny Trites and Colleen MacIsaac, A Beginner’s Guide to the Night Sky; Stewart Legere, The Movements, Zuppa

Outstanding Ensemble:

The New Canadian Curling Club, Fall on Your Knees, Billy Elliot, The Play That Goes Wrong and Downed Hearts.

Outstanding Production:

Murder for Two, Festival Antigonish; The New Canadian Curling Club, Festival Antigonish; Fall on Your Knees; a Neptune Theatre, National Arts Centre, Vita Brevis Arts, Canadian Stage, Grand Theatre production; The Play That Goes Wrong, Neptune Theatre; Downed Hearts, Ship’s Company Theatre and Eastern Front Theatre in association with Matchstick Theatre.

Outstanding Projection Design:

Stevey Hunter, MACRO Series: ISOLATIONS (GENTLY, SOFTLY,NOW), Eastern Front Theatre; Matt Downey, Billy Ellio, Neptune Theatre; Christian Ledwig Hansen and Anna Sheppard, The Movements, Zuppa; Victoria Ryan and Matthew Downey, F*cking Trans Woman, F*cking Theatre Co.; MacKenzie Cornfield, Downed Hearts, Ship’s Company and Eastern Front Theatre with Matchstick Theatre.

Outstanding Scenic Design:

Sue LePage with assistance from Brenda Duran; Downed Hearts; Andrea Evans, Half-Cracked: The Legend of Sissy Mary, Theatre Baddeck; Vickie Marston, The Adventure of the Little Girl and the Wind; Zach Faye, The Crevice: Season 2, Bus Stop Theatre; John Dinning, The Play That Goes Wrong, Neptune.

Outstanding Sound Design:

Deanna H. Choi, Cinderella; Jackson Fairfax-Perry, Downed Hearts; Brian Kenny, Fall On Your Knees; Deanna H. Choi, Let’s Run Away; Stewart Legere with Thomas Rice, The Movements.

UPCOMING:

A new work by Catherine Banks takes the stage again this summer when Two Planks and a Passion Theatre and HomeFirst Theatre present her epic adaptation of Ernest Buckler’s The Mountain and The Valley. It has taken years to get this amazing work to the stage and it’s a dream come true that it’s being staged in the Annapolis Valley where the novel is set. Two Planks and a Passion Theatre is also staging a new fireside musical by Allen Cole and Ken Schwartz, Chased by the Bear, adapted from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. Both plays run outdoors at the Ross Creek Centre of the Arts near Canning.

Matchstick Theatre presents Leaving Home, the classic by Newfoundland playwright David French, March 20 to 31, at the Bus Stop Theatre. Set in 1950s Toronto on the eve of a shotgun wedding, Leaving Home is a play about love, loss, and intergenerational conflict. Staged in the round for a limited audience, Matchstick’s production features an all-star local cast of Shelley Thompson as Mary Mercer, Lou Campbell as Ben Mercer, Sam Vigneault as Bill Mercer, Hugh Thompson as Jacob Mercer, Abby Weisbrot as Kathy Jackson, Sharleen Kalayil as Minnie Jackson and Sébastien Labelle as Harold.

2b theatre company produces the world premiere of the newest play by Hannah Moscovitch, a Governor General’s Award-winner, at the Bus Stop Theatre in Halifax from April 3 to 21. The new play about consent is already a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and is the feature programming piece for 2b’s annual SPRINGboard mini-fest.

The Villains Theatre – ever busy! – is at the Bus Stop this week with Dan Bray’s new play Deepwater, which has just added a Sunday matinee to its soldout run. This play is different for Bray, often a comic playwright. Set in rural Hants County, Deepwater follows police inspector Questa as she investigates a strange and inexplicable tragedy involving May – a reclusive marine biologist – and her young daughter. .

Today the stars of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead spoke to Q’s Tom Power; the Neptune Theatre production is now at the Mirvish Theatre. Neptune, itself, will soon start rehearsing for this season’s year-ender The Full Monty. At Neptune’s studio this week to March 24 is Addicted, a Dora award-winning, one-person show by Raven Dauda. Raven plays 10 characters in Addicted, based on her own experiences and the story of Penelope Day, an alcoholic, who finds herself on the brink of despair.

Theatre Baddeck just announced its summer season of two Nova Scotia classics: The Fly Fisher’s Companion by Michael Melski, directed by Natasha MacLellan, starring Bill Carr and Stephen Cross, as two lifelong friends on a fishing trip on the Margaree River, June 27 to July 27, and The Company Store, by Mary Vingoe, adapted from the novel by Sheldon Currie, directed by Natasha MacLellan, August 1 to 28.

• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern a soldout hit; some tickets available Wednesday 2 p.m.
• DEEPWATER: gripping mystery from Dan Bray

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