Talk Is Free Theatre's 2023 F. Joseph Anderson Award Goes To Matthew Macquarrie- Cottle

Talk Is Free Theatre Board of Directors announced today that Matthew MacQuarrie-Cottle is the recipient of the 2023 F. Joseph Anderson Award, presented last night at TIFT's Annual General Meeting.

The award honours the contributions of TIFT's Founding Chair F. Joseph Anderson. It was created to recognize an individual who has made an exceptional impact furthering the objectives of TIFT through a variety of means relative to their capacity. Some of the previous recipients have included Aline Revoy, Bernetta Starkey, Beth Foster, and Joe Pagnan.

MacQuarrie-Cottle was still in high school when he first became involved with TIFT, as a member of the youth ensemble of their 2019 production of Into The Woods, presented at the Georgian Theatre. Since then, his contributions to the company have been varied, far-reaching, and according to Spivak, invaluable:

“Matthew is without a peer in his generation–above all else, the quintessential artist. His human and artistic uniqueness is entirely selfless, which is not only first sign of genius, but also of success. I don't recall anyone transforming as much of an organizational culture as he has at just 21, and continuously influencing the sorts of adventures we like to get into.”  

Most notably, Matthew co-created and project-managed this year's “In Lieu of Flowers”, TIFT's outside-the-box fundraiser that saw participants vying for the chance to be treated to a theatrical funeral honouring their lives of love for the art of theatre, in return for raising the most pledges during the campaign. The endeavour raised approximately $40000 for the company.

He also regularly participates in ongoing fundraising activities, runs youth theatre camps, acts as the production photographer, and recently traveled to South America to lead further testing of TIFT's ARIA translation glasses, a new technology they have been developing to dismantle language barriers in theatre production.

While serving as an assistant producer at Talk Is Free Theatre, MacQuarrie-Cottle is a full-time student at the University of Toronto studying computer science.

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