Cherissa Richards wins outstanding direction at Doras

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/06/2023 (1178 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg’s Cherissa Richards scored a win for outstanding direction Wednesday night at the Dora Mavor Moore Awards, an annual event honouring the top professional theatre work in Toronto.

Winning a “Dora” on the strength of her first-ever nomination, Richards was recognized for her work at the helm of British playwright Lolita Chakrabarti’s Red Velvet with Toronto’s Crow’s Theatre. The show — which tells the true story of an African-American actor named Ira Aldridge who starred as Othello at London’s Royal Theatre in 1833 — was a major success at the banquet, nominated for six awards and earning the prize for outstanding general theatre production.

Richards’ Dora win comes on the heels of a 2021 RBC Rising Star Emerging Director Prize from Crow’s Theatre and directing internships with the Stratford Festival and the Shaw Festival. Earlier this year, Richards directed the Royal MTC production of playwright Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind.

The win came as a shock for Richards.

“To be honest, the category was stacked with Canadian theatre directing giants,” she says. “Phil Akin, Weyni Mengesha and Alisa Palmer are all theatre gods to me — amazing, caring mentors and incredible inspirations.” Richards also edged out Marie Farsi, who directed Crow’s adaptation of author Andre Alexis’s bestselling novel Fifteen Dogs.

“Ira Aldridge was one of the first Black actors to grace London’s theatre stages as Othello in the early 1800s, but it would be another 100 years before we would see another Black man in this role,” Richards said during her acceptance speech. “We been doing this from time. Black and brown people, let’s keep shining lights on our stories and raising our voices.”

“Last night, it felt great to be Black, to be able to tell our stories and be celebrated as a Black artist,” Richards told the Free Press. “To be uplifted and given Canada’s highest theatre honours for a story about a major (often unknown) Black icon and trailblazer like Aldridge was incredible.”

Other Winnipeg connections at the Doras included an outstanding costume design nomination for Michelle Bohn for her work on the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre production of Winnipeg-born playwright Pamela Mala Sinha’s New. Bad Hats Theatre was a big winner for its adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, which played at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People last year. The company, which co-produced with Soulpepper, scored the honours for outstanding musical theatre production, outstanding new musical, outstanding performance in a leading role and outstanding direction. Former Prairie Theatre Exchange artistic director Allen MacInnis, currently directing Rent at Rainbow Stage, was awarded the Silver Ticket Award for his contributions to Toronto theatre.

Richards has a busy year ahead of her. The actor-director is currently making her mainstage debut directing Bard on the Beach’s production of Julius Caesar in Vancouver, followed by a production of Will Eno’s Middletown at Dalhousie University and Sleuth by Anthony Shaffer at Calgary’s Vertigo Theatre.

Next February, Richards will be returning to the stage for her first live acting role since 2019 in the RMTC production of playwright Katori Hall’s Olivier Award-winning show The Mountaintop. A two-hander set in Room 306 at Memphis’s Lorraine Motel in 1968, the show is fictionalized depiction of Martin Luther King Jr.’s last night before his assassination, spent discussing the future with a maid named Camae. The show will star Richards and Ray Strachan, taking on the challenging role of MLK Jr.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com