An Okotoks native is part of a theatrical production company to have recently won an international award.

Jordan Payne, along with his theatre company Theatre Outré (Theatre of the Outrageous) are based in Lethbridge, but have taken shows to the International Dublin Gay Theatre festival for the last six years.

The event has been held annually since 2004 in celebration of Oscar Wilde, himself a Dublin native.

Payne is no stranger to the stage, however he took an offstage role for "Like Orpheus." He worked as Assistant Director for the production, which he says was rather tech-heavy.

"It was well received but people were definitely a little hesitant about it. One thing that people really really enjoyed was the technical aspect of it. It's a big movement piece, so it was a lot of physical dance and the acting kind of took a backseat to that. With the lights and the sounds, it was very immersive for the audience."

Lighting was somewhat of a hurdle, as the production was staged in a hall as opposed to a traditional stage.

"We really had to adapt our lights to that situation. We couldn't go full blackout because we had windows to deal with, and we only had a red light, a blue light, stage left, stage right, and centre stage lights. That's it. That's all we had."

Their efforts paid off however, and Theatre Outré was awarded the Hilton Edwards Award for Best Aspect of Production for their Technical Production and Direction for Like Orpheus.

Payne says it was very much a team effort.

"It was the best award we could have won because it really really spoke to the collaboration of this piece; I didn't just win it, we all won it and that was a really really nice aspect of this win for us."

To learn more about Like Orphpeus and Theatre Outré, click here.

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