Sanskrit epic ‘Mahabharata,’ musical ‘Life After’ among leading Dora Award nominees

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This article was published 28/05/2025 (206 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO – A contemporary take on a 4,000-year-old Sanskrit epic is among the leading stage productions vying for this year’s Dora Awards.

Why Not Theatre’s two-part show “Mahabharata” collected 15 nominations overall, including nine for “Part One: Karma: The Life We Inherit” and six for “Part Two: Dharma: The Life We Choose,” both presented by Canadian Stage.

Because each part got separate nods, the elaborate show will compete against its other half in multiple races, including best new play for Ravi Jain and Miriam Fernandes, who developed the work using poetry from Carole Satyamurti’s “Mahabharata: A Modern Retelling.”

The Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts announced 225 nominations for the Dora Mavor Moore Awards, which celebrate Toronto’s professional theatre, dance and opera communities. 

For a second year in a row, Mirvish Productions is absent from the list because it withdrew from the alliance known as TAPA in 2023. 

However, nine nominations in the musical theatre division went to the off-Mirvish show “Life After,” from Yonge Street Theatricals and other non-Mirvish partners, while five went to “A Strange Loop” from The Musical Stage Company, Soulpepper Theatre Company, Crow’s Theatre and TO Live.

The independent theatre division saw eight nominations each go to “Last Landscape,” from Bad New Days in partnership with Common Boots Theatre, and “Mukashi, Mukashi (Once Upon a Time)” from Corpus.

The awards will be presented June 30 at an evening ceremony in Toronto hosted by actor Peter Fernandes, who is up for a best performance award for Canadian Stage’s “Fat Ham.”

Other contenders in the general theatre division include Crow’s Theatre and Obsidian Theatre Company’s “FLEX,” which scored six nominations including best production and Canadian Stage’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” starring Martha Burns and Paul Gross, which pulled four nominations including one for Burns.

The opera race includes seven-time nominee “La Reine-garçon,” a Canadian Opera Company co-production with Opéra de Montréal and two shows with five nominations: “Madama Butterfly,” a Houston Grand Opera production presented by the COC, and “Aportia Chryptych: A Black Opera for Portia White,” from the COC in association with the National Arts Centre’s National Creation Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, and Ontario Arts Council.

The dance division includes two productions with five nominations each — Citadel + Compagnie’s “Everything I wanted to tell you (but couldn’t, so here it is now)” and “Big Time Miss,” from Rock Bottom Movement presented by Fall For Dance North.

The Dora Awards are nominated by members of Toronto’s professional performing arts community. Jurors include performers, designers, directors, producers, administrators and educators.

Online: tapa.ca/doras

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2025.