Winnipeg actor earns Edmonton award nod for MLK Jr. portrayal

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This article was published 13/06/2024 (451 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg’s Ray Strachan is nominated for an Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Award, the top professional theatre honour in Edmonton.

For his portrayal of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Citadel Theatre production of playwright Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop, Strachan — one of Winnipeg’s top leading actors — is up for outstanding performance in a leading role in a play.

Strachan, who first plied his trade as a member of the Black Hole Theatre Company at the University of Manitoba, starred in the same role at Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre this past winter, going toe-to-toe with Cherissa Richards on the John Hirsch Mainstage.

Three weeks after that run, Strachan again played MLK Jr. for the Citadel production, with Patricia Cerra as Camae. The Sterlings eschew gender in their nominated categories, so both Strachan and Cerra are in contention for the same award, nominated alongside three other performers.

A Manitoba co-production of The Sound of Music is also in the running for some hardware.

The show, a co-production between the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre and the Citadel, is one of five nominated for the Timothy Ryan Award for Outstanding Musical.

For his work in the pit, Winnipeg’s Andrew St. Hilaire is up for outstanding musical director

Priya Narine, who played Maria in both Edmonton and Winnipeg, is one of five nominees for outstanding performance in a leading role in a musical. Christina Nguyen, who played Liesl von Trapp in both cities, is nominated for outstanding performance in a supporting role in a musical.

Flin Flon-born performer Andrea Menard is nominated for the same award as Narine for her leading role in Rubaboo, a Métis cabaret produced by the Citadel. Menard and collaborator Robert Walsh are also up for outstanding score.

A regular sound designer at Rainbow Stage, including for the upcoming production of Ma-Buhay, Michael Caron is nominated alongside Lindsay Walker for outstanding score for their work on The Spinsters, a Small Matters production. Caron and Walker are also nominated for outstanding sound design.

The Spinsters, nominated for five awards including outstanding production of a play, was dramaturged by Suzie Martin, the artistic director of Theatre Projects Manitoba and former associate season director of the Edmonton Fringe Theatre.

University of Winnipeg and Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers alum Ainsley Hillyard is nominated for outstanding choreography, fight direction or intimacy direction for her work on Mermaid Legs, which ran as a part of Edmonton’s Skirtsafire festival.

Awarded since 1987, the Elizabeth Sterling Haynes Awards are named for the co-founder of the Alberta Drama League, Edmonton’s Little Theatre and the summer school for drama at Banff National Park, a predecessor to the Banff Centre for the Arts.

Winners will be announced June 24 in Edmonton.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com