The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) Toronto has named the nominees for its Outstanding Performance Voice Awards.

The Toronto-based branch of the national union has unveiled the nominations ahead of its 23rd annual ACTRA Awards in Toronto, held this year at Toronto’s Koerner Hall at the TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning.

This year, ACTRA Toronto has also expanded the amount of awards in the Outstanding Performance categories from four to seven, adding in awards for Youth Voice, Non-Binary/Gender Non-Conforming On Camera and Commercial On Camera.

In the Outstanding Performance Gender Non-Conforming or Female Voice category, four of the five nominations are for actors in Toronto-based Spin Master Entertainment’s Netflix original Unicorn Academy (pictured). The Unicorn Academy nominees include Sara Garcia, for her performance in the episode “The Vision Pool”; Gabbi Kosmidis for “Under the Fairy Moon”; Sadie Laflamme-Snow for “Star Showers”; and Kari Wong for “Mounting Pressure.”

Also nominated in Gender Non-Conforming or Female Voice category is Genevieve Adam for her performance in the theatre show Deceitful Above All Things (Favour The Brave Collective, Thought For Food Productions).

For the Gender Non-Conforming or Male Voice category, four of the nominations are for animated series. They are Kolton Stewart for his performance in Unicorn Academy; Julius Cho for his work in Toronto-based Fresh TV’s Total Drama Island; Deven Mack for his performance in Sonic Prime, coproduced by WildBrain and SEGA; Joshua Graham for Open Season: Call of Nature, produced by 9 Story Media Group and its Brown Bag Films.

Rounding out the Gender Non-Conforming or Male Voice nominees is Jeff Teravainen for his work in Toronto-based Shark Teeth Films’ documentary series Secrets in the Ice.

Another five actors were selected for their voice work in the Youth Voice category, limited to actors that are 16 or younger. They include Skywalker Hughes for her performance Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum (9 Story Media Group, Brown Bag Films); Liam McKenna for his work in Sago Mini Friends (Spin Master Entertainment, Brown Bag Films); and Logan Nicholson for Caillou (WildBrain).

The other two nominees in the category are Grace Nicolaou-Wood for Let’s Go, Bananas! (9 Story Media Group, Brown Bag Films) and Nylan Parthipan for Vida the Vet (Spin Master Entertainment).

Additionally, ACTRA Toronto revealed that this year’s ACTRA Toronto Stunt Award will be presented to Cotton Mather, who has done stunt work in films such as Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City and Nightmare Alley.

The nominees and winners for ACTRA Toronto’s Outstanding Performance awards are selected by a jury of the union’s members that reflect the membership’s different communities while the Stunt Award is selected by a jury of the award’s past recipients.

In late March, ACTRA Toronto also announced the nominees for its Members’ Choice Series Ensemble Award along with its ACTRA Toronto Stunt Ensemble Award nominees. The former recognizes top Canadian ensembles in Canadian television series while the latter honours ACTRA Toronto stunt co-ordinator and performer ensembles in Canadian and foreign-produced series.

The nominees for the Members’ Choice Series Ensemble Award are CTV’s Children Ruin Everything (New Metric Media), Citytv’s Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent (Cameron Pictures, Lark Productions), CBC’s Murdoch Mysteries (Shaftesbury) and Run the Burbs (Pier 21 Films) and Crave’s Shoresy (New Metric Media).

Prime Video’s The Boys, Citytv’s Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent; Paramount+’s Star Trek: Discovery; and FX’s What We Do in the Shadows are the nominations for the Stunt Ensemble Award.

The finalists and winner of the Member’s Choice Series Ensemble Award are voted on by ACTRA Toronto members while the Stunt Ensemble Award winner is selected by a jury of the union branch’s stunt community members.

Image courtesy of Netflix