Announcing the winners of the 2024 Nathan Cohen Awards

The Canadian Theatre Critics Association (CTCA) has announced the winners of the 2024 Nathan Cohen Awards for Excellence in Critical Writing, including two writers from Intermission.

There are three awards categories: outstanding review, outstanding critical essay, and outstanding emerging critic. 

This year’s awards for outstanding review and critical essay were adjudicated by Peter Marks, retired chief theatre critic for the Washington Post. The award for outstanding emerging critic was chosen by Ilana Lucas and Jamie Robinson, winners at last year’s awards.

The Nathan Cohen Award for outstanding critical essay went to Stephanie Fung for “The spectacle of suffering: Toronto theatre’s addiction to trauma porn,” published by Intermission on June 14.

Fung’s essay was a standout in a field of strong entries, Marks wrote. 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 theatre world, advocating a course correction in provocatively convincing terms.”

This is Fung’s second Nathan Cohen Award, having last year taken home the prize for outstanding emerging critic.

In the outstanding review category, Toronto Star arts critic and reporter Joshua Chong won for his review entitled “The Last Timbit, the new Tim Hortons musical, may be the brand’s worst publicity stunt ever,” published by the Star on June 28.

“This review is a demonstration of one of the critic’s most important tools: wit,” Marks wrote. “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.”

And the Nathan Cohen Award for outstanding emerging critic has gone to Haley Sarfeld for “TK Fringe brings a strong mélange of summer shows to Kingston,” a file of capsule reviews published by Intermission on August 10.

“Having never been to the Kingston Fringe Festival before, [the] beautifully diverse range of show options made me want to run, not walk, to next summer’s event,” wrote Robinson. “[Sarfeld’s] 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 collection of reviews for the Kingston Fringe, focusing on Kingston-based artists, packed a lot into its five shorter critiques,” affirmed Lucas. “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 have been given out since 1981. A complete list of past winners may be found here.

WRITTEN BY

Liam Donovan

Liam is Intermission’s senior editor. His writing has appeared in publications like Maisonneuve, This, and NEXT. He loves the original Super Mario game very much.

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