Larry Beckwith
Larry Beckwith has been a creative and varied contributor to Toronto’s musical life as a conductor, violinist, singer, writer, educator and programmer for over 30 years. He studied violin and musicology at the undergraduate and graduate levels at the University of Toronto and has since performed and worked with most of this city's leading musical organizations. In 2003, Mr. Beckwith founded Toronto Masque Theatre, which – under his tireless and imaginative artistic leadership from 2003 to 2018 – presented over 70 innovative programs of interdisciplinary performing art, including a cycle of the five major music theatre works by Henry Purcell and stage works by Moliere, Stravinsky, John Blow, John Beckwith, Monteverdi, Handel, Charpentier and others. Through TMT, Mr. Beckwith commissioned and premiered new works by Canadian composers Abigail Richardson, James Rolfe, Omar Daniel, Juliet Palmer, Dean Burry and Alice Ho with texts/libretti by James Reaney, André Alexis, Steven Heighton, Pablo Neruda, Anna Chatterton and Marjorie Chan. Ho's THE LESSON OF DA JI won the 2013 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Opera and was released in November, 2015 on the Canadian Music Centre's Centrediscs label, conducted by Mr. Beckwith. In September of 2018, Beckwith's eclectic new company Confluence Concerts had its first event and has since been going from strength to strength. Since 2012’s Toronto Operetta Theatre production of TAPTOO!. Mr. Beckwith has collaborated many times with Guillermo Silva-Marin for TOT and Opera in Concert, including LOS GAVILANES, ERNEST, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING, LA VIE PARISIENNE, RODELINDA and Salieri’s FALSTAFF. In the summer of 2018, he conducted the successful Festival of the Sound world premiere and subsequent Ontario tour of SOUNDING THUNDER: THE SONG OF FRANCIS PEGAHMAGABOW by Timothy Corlis and Armand Garnet Ruffo. Mr. Beckwith is a committed educator and runs the celebrated voice and strings program at the arts-intensive Unionville High School, as well as conducting the Mooredale Senior Youth Orchestra.
Vivian Moens
Vivian Moens has contributed tirelessly to the success of Toronto Masque Theatre. She possesses a perfect combination of worldly smarts, practicality, deep humanity and a relentlessly positive spirit, as well as being a naturally gifted arts executive.
Vivian joined Toronto Masque Theatre as its Managing Director in 2011. She brought to the organization a wealth of administrative experience from her 22 years with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Business Affairs department and its Archives Website. Vivian has been an active member of Toronto’s arts community, both as a performer (singing soprano with Exultate Chamber Singers), and as a board member for a range of arts organizations. An Honours graduate of McMaster University’s Master’s program in English, Vivian is the mother of three and a home-grown Torontonian. Toronto Masque Theatre’s performances touched her as an audience member long before she imagined being part of its extraordinarily talented, lively and warm team.
Derek Boyes
Larry to write something lovely.
Derek Boyes is a resident artist of Soulpepper Theatre and is currently in his 12th season, acting in Bedroom Farce, The Dybuk and Marat/Sade. He received the Soulpepper Artisic Director's Award for 2009 and was part of the 2015 Dora award winning best ensemble for 12 Angry Men. As an associate artist with Toronto Masque Theatre, he has performed in Masques for a Reaney Day, and directed and performed in Masques of War, Commedia, Dioclesian, Fairy Queen, Venus and Adonis , Histoire du Soldat, Masque for the Muses, A Molière Celebration and directed King Arthur, the double bill of Aeneas and Dido and Dido and Aeneas , Indian Queen, The Mummer's Masque and the Dora award winning The Lesson of Da Ji. Other highlights include two seasons at the Stratford Festival as Cassio in Othello and Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice and a season at the Shaw festival as Tesman in Hedda Gabler.
Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière
Larry to write something lovely.
Director, choreographer and dancer Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière is the recipient of grants from La Fondation Royaumont (France), the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec and the Canada and Quebec Councils for the Arts. She is the co-artistic director of Les Jardins Chorégraphiques and Le Nouvel Opéra in Montréal and Associate Director with Toronto Masque Theatre. Since TMT’s beginning, Marie-Nathalie has choreographed all of Purcell’s stage works as well as new operas including Juliet Palmer’s The Man who Married Himself and James Rolfe’s Europa. She has directed, choreographed and danced in Canada, United States and Europe for over 25 years.
Gabriel Cropley
Larry to write something lovely.
Gabriel Cropley is a Toronto based lighting designer and three-time Dora Mavor Moore award nominee. Recent credits include Category E for Coal Mine Theatre, Yofanana for NAfro Dance (Winnipeg), Tales of China for Little Pear Garden Dance, Moll for Randolph College, Dido and Aeneas for Toronto Masque Theatre, Sphere of Banished Suffering for Sook-Yin Lee & Jennifer Goodwin, Storytellers for Danny Grossman & Rina Singha, and Taking To The Streets (Nuit Blanche - Queens Park exhibits) for the City of Toronto.
Andrew Templeton
Larry to write something lovely.
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Working together with
creativity, energy, respect and affection
THE TORONTO MASQUE THEATRE TEAM
The five of us - Gabriel Cropley, Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière, Larry Beckwith, Derek Boyes, Vivian Moens - worked closely together for many pleasant years. What lay at the heart of our successful relationship is a great trust in the strengths and specialties that we all brought to the table and a deep respect and affection that we shared.