Canadian Theatre Critics Association Reveals Winners of the 2024 Nathan Cohen Awards
The Canadian Theatre Critics Association is pleased to announce the winners of the 2024 Nathan Cohen Awards for Excellence in Critical Writing.
The annual awards, administered by the CTCA and named after legendary Canadian theatre critic Nathan Cohen, are presented in three categories: Outstanding Review, Outstanding Critical Essay and Outstanding Emerging Critic.
This year, the Outstanding Review and Outstanding Critical Essay were decided by guest judge Peter Marks, retired chief theatre critic for The Washington Post and past chair of the Pulitzer Prize drama jury. He has given the Review award to the Toronto Star’s Joshua Chong and the Critical Essay to Intermission Magazine contributor Stephanie Fung.
Chong won for his review headlined “‘The Last Timbit,’ the new Tim Hortons musical, may be the brand’s worst publicity stunt ever,” published by the Toronto Star on June 28, 2024.
“This review is a demonstration of one of the critic’s most important tools: wit,” Marks noted. “A Tim Hortons musical might be an easy target, but when such a project is skewered deftly and delectably, it forges a special bond between writer and reader. It also supports the critic’s key function: giving their audience fair warning. What makes the review more than a hit job is that it does take fair measure of what is on the stage, and gives plenty of justification for the judgment. A delightful, hilarious read.”
Fung’s winning essay was “The spectacle of suffering: Toronto theatre’s addiction to trauma porn,” published by Intermission Magazine on June 19, 2024.
Fung’s essay was a standout in a field of strong entries, Marks said. It “does what criticism is supposed to do: alert the arts community and the reading public to a vital (and in this case, confounding) trend, analyzes it, cites examples, offers a compelling argument, and accomplishes it all in gripping (and entertaining) style. The writer sends up a warning flare to the theater world, advocating a course correction in provocatively convincing terms.”
This is Fung’s second Nathan Cohen Award, having previously been named Outstanding Emerging Critic in 2023.
The 2024 award for Outstanding Emerging Critic goes to Haley Sarfeld for “TK Fringe brings a strong mélange of summer shows to Kingston,” published by Intermission on Aug. 10, 2024.
The award is chosen by the previous year’s winners of the Review and Critical Essay categories. The judges for the 2024 award were Ilana Lucas and Jamie Robinson.
“Having never been to the Kingston Fringe Festival before, Haley Sarfeld’s poetic, precise, at times harsh, and beautifully diverse range of show options made me want to run, not walk, to next summer’s event,” Robinson said. “Their advocacy for all the hard work that artists go through to make their magic soar, no matter the size of the venue, was a wonderful blend of storytelling and criticism that any reader, theatregoer or otherwise, could enjoy and comprehend fully. Sarfeld’s unique play on words and respect for all five shows reviewed weaved flawlessly, creating a narrative inclusive of all aspects of the theatre-making process, from performers to designers to even the vocal director.”
Added Lucas: “Haley Sarfeld’s collection of reviews for the Kingston Fringe, focusing on Kingston-based artists, packed a lot into its five shorter critiques. Sarfeld’s facility with language is evident, with a unique lede for each review and specific, detailed observations that clearly describe not only the premise of each show, but the experience of attending it. As a reader, I immediately knew which of these shows would be to my taste. Sarfeld balances intellectual critique with a conversational tone. Each review is bite-sized (well, maybe two or three bites), but, as she writes in one of her capsule reviews, ‘it’s a voracious, mouth-watering bite’!”
The Nathan Cohen Awards were established by the Toronto Drama Bench in 1981 in honour of Cohen (1923-1971), the influential critic for the Toronto Star and CBC, to encourage his ideals of rigorous and insightful arts criticism. Since 1990, the awards have been presented by the Drama Bench’s successor, the Canadian Theatre Critics Association. More information on the awards, including a list of past winners, may be found on the CTCA website.
