Thoughts on the 2025 Dora Award winners (and losers)
The night's big winners included Mahabharata, People, Places and Things and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
The 2024-2025 Toronto stage season is officially over. The 45th annual Dora Mavor Moore Awards were handed out tonight in a ceremony at Meridian Hall hosted by actor Peter Fernandes.
Here are some random thoughts about the theatre awards: who won, who didn’t, and what it all might mean.
The complete list of winners is at the bottom of the article.
Mahabharata wins big and didn’t split the vote with itself
Going into the awards, Mahabharata, Miriam Fernandes and Ravi Jain’s epic, awe-inspiring adaptation of the ancient Sanskrit poem had a staggering 15 Dora nominations, and it came away winning five: Outstanding Production (Why Not Theatre, presented by Canadian Stage), Outstanding New Play, Outstanding Direction (by Jain), Outstanding Performance by an Individual (Fernandes) and Outstanding Sound Design/Composition (John Gzowski and Suba Sankaran).
Keep in mind that all of these wins were for the Mahabharata: Karma (Part 1), The Life We Inherit. For some reason, the Doras considered the two-part show as separate entities. And so, besides taking spots from other worthy productions, there was the fear that the two parts would divide voters and another show might win.
Thankfully, that didn’t end up happening. But going forward, let’s hope the Doras takes the criticism about two-part shows seriously. Note: I wasn’t the only one who pointed out this ridiculous situation. Joshua Chong at The Toronto Star and Aisling Murphy at The Globe and Mail both did, too.
Why is there just one winner in the non-gendered performance categories?
A couple of years ago, the Doras got rid of gendered categories for its performance awards. Absolutely fine, and when will other major theatre awards like the Tonys follow suit? But I always assumed that the jurors would recognize two artists in each category. Nope.
Isn’t it bad enough that “supporting” or “featured” performances have to compete against clear leads? (Q: Has an actor in a smaller role ever won in this reconceived category?)