National Theatre School Of Canada Announces 2021 Gascon-Thomas Award Recipients

The 2021 National Theatre School of Canada's (NTS) Gascon-Thomas Awards ceremony will be presented online this Friday, March 19, at 6 P.M. This year, Mellissa Larivière and Yvette Nolan respectively won the award in the Innovation and Career categories. The School thus wishes to reward and highlight the necessary pioneering work of these two creators.

Created in 1990 by the Board of Governors of the NTS, these awards are named in tribute to two of the founders of the institution: Jean Gascon and Powys Thomas, who were also among the first great professors to make their mark at the School. They are awarded each year to a French-speaking artist and to an English-speaking artist associated with one of these categories: Innovation or Career. These prizes are honorary and symbolic. Those who receive them have contributed to today's theatre scene or will impact its future.

Mellissa Larivière - Innovation Award

Playwright, director, and executive director of the //SAS// Laboratoire de création festival, Mellissa Larivière (Interprétation 2011) was chosen for the Innovation Award for her incredible commitment to the Montreal arts community, and for the relationships, partnerships, and groups that she has established thanks to her ability to bring people together and make theatre accessible to everyone, regardless of their origins, age, or milieu. Her radical voice is rooted in change and has allowed many up-and-coming artists with a strong desire to create, take their first steps onto the stage and start to build a network of contacts in the Quebec theatre world.

A graduate of The National Theatre School of Canada (interprétation, 2011), Mellissa Larivière was the founder/artistic and general director of ZH Festival, a major summer testing ground for Montreal's emerging artists from 2009 to 2020. In 2021, ZH Festival concluded its 12-year run by becoming //SAS// Creation Laboratory, which champions Montreal's live arts scene. Since 2017, she has occupied the role of artistic programs consultant for Usine C.

Yvette Nolan - Career Award

Yvette Nolan, an Algonquin playwright, director, and dramaturg from Saskatchewan, was chosen for the Lifetime Achievement Award, not only for her incredible contribution to Canadian theatre, but also for her plays that have introduced characters with a distinctly Indigenous voice. Her gripping and profound works bring to the forefront the grievances and issues experienced by Indigenous peoples in Canada and denounce social injustices that are still all too prevalent.

Yvette Nolan's career spans more than 3 decades. She has written dozens of plays, including Blade, Annie Mae's Movement, The Birds (a modern adaptation of Aristophanes' comedy), The Unplugging and Wild West Show by Gabriel Dumont (co-author). She has also signed some fifteen productions including Bearing, an opera-dance on the consequences of Indian residential schools in Canada. From 2003 to 2011, she was the Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts, the oldest professional Indigenous theatre in Canada. She is Associate Artist at Signal Theater and Playwright at Sum Theater. Her book Medicine Shows, about Indigenous theatre in Canada, was published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2015, as was Performing Indigeneity, which she co-edited with Ric Knowles, in 2016.

 

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