Medina Hahn

Medina Hahn

Protégé, 2008

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Medina Hahn is an actor, singer, writer, and a co-producer of DualMinds. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre from the University of Victoria, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Alberta. She has been a performer since the age of three, when she started dancing in order to become a Solid Gold Dancer. She came to writing and creation after working extensively as an actor on new Canadian plays, although she has kept journals since she was nine years old. A gypsy at heart, when not writing or working as an actress with other companies, Medina can be found travelling.

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Daniel MacIvor

Daniel MacIvor

Laureate, 2008

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2008 Laureate

According to the jury, “the theatre of Daniel MacIvor, protean and perpetually changing, plays out on that fine line between presentation and representation. His playwriting brings to the stage moments in life for which there are no words, exploring those things that escape categorisation by language. Preoccupied by exclusion, MacIvor gives voice through his plays to those for whom solitude provides a perception of the world through a different set of optics.”

Daniel MacIvor was born in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and has written almost 20 productions in 20 years and has 15 publications to his name. His plays include See Bob Run, Wild Abandon, The Soldier Dreams, You Are Here, How It Works, His Greatness, and A Beautiful View, and with long time collaborator Daniel Brooks he created the solo performances House, Here Lies Henry, Monster and Cul-de-sac. His play Marion Bridge received its Off-Broadway premiere in New York in October 2005, and his play Never Swim Alone won the 1998 New York Fringe’s Overall Excellence Award. In 2002 he won a GLAAD Award and a Village Voice Obie Award for his play In On It (PS 122). Mr. MacIvor also has two Chalmers New Play Awards to his credit, and his collection of five plays called I Still Love You won the 2006 Governor General’s Award for Drama. Mr. MacIvor is also a screenwriter and filmmaker (House, Wilby Wonderful, Marion Bridge, Past Perfect, Whole New Thing), and from 1987-2007 he was Artistic Director of the international theatre touring company da da kamera.

Acceptance Speech

When I was asked to speak to you tonight I was asked to talk about how transformative the Siminovitch Prize has been to my life and about how important this Prize is in this country at this time, about how crucial it is to keep this Prize going, and it was suggested that I might refer to us almost having lost the Prize and what a terrible thing that would have been. And then it was mentioned that it wouldn’t hurt if I could be funny.

So, in thinking about how truly transformative the Prize has been for me, by allowing me to be a mentor, and thinking about how important the Prize is nationally by bringing together theatre practitioners and supporters and patrons, and in thinking about how crucial it is that theatre keep a place at the media curated table of cultural relevance and how essential the Prize has been in manifesting that – in thinking about all those things about the Prize there was a word that stood out to me. Prize.

And I got to thinking about the difference between a Prize and an Award, so between mulling, meditating and google-ing on it I’ve found a very simple difference perceived by many people who mull, meditate and google on such notions: an Award is for a thing and a Prize is for a person. Certainly this is true of this Siminovitch Prize. It is not given for a play or a production or even for an idea, it given to a person. For a person. Now in the case of an award, like a Dora Award or a Sterling Award or a Governor General’s Award – the sort of thing you might get for a play – the writing of play, the direction of a play, the design of a play – there is always the sneaking suspicion in the receiving of such an award that maybe you were just lucky. Maybe it was just the right team or the right subject or the right cultural moment. Maybe I was just lucky.

When I won the Siminovitch Prize in 2008 I didn’t feel lucky. I didn’t feel like there was that one good show with the right team in the right cultural moment. It was something different. I felt honoured. And I realized that was a feeling I hadn’t felt very much before. I am a little saddened to say that we live in a country that does not honour its artists. And in that there is always this niggling feeling that perhaps to our compatriots the work we do is not seen as being important. Now I know, in my DNA, that this work is important, as a service to the culture of this country, as a service to the human spirit, but sometimes when all the messages one is getting is to the reverse of that, it’s only human to question our place in our land. To be hounoured is to be told that what you do is important. To be reminded, to have confirmation of that fact. That your work matters. And that’s another reason why Colleen or Hannah or Michel Marc or Olivier shouldn’t feel lucky tonight, because this houour is based on work. It is earned. Luck isn’t earned. This Prize is earned. And maybe that feeling of earning has something to do with the money, perhaps it has more to do with being able to give money away. We’ve earned that honour through a life of work. And at least that’s one thing that we value in this country, hard work. And making theatre is very hard work. So tonight I will not say to the nominees, Good Luck. I will say congratulations on this amazing, important, necessary, crucial honour. Well earned. Well deserved.

2008 Protégé

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Daniel Arnold

Daniel Arnold

Protégé, 2008

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Daniel Arnold is an award-winning Canadian actor and writer for the stage and screen. Most notably, he recently starred as Holloman in the 2013 movie Lawrence & Holloman which he co-wrote with director Matthew Kowalchuk, based on the play by Morris Panych. Daniel also starred in the critically acclaimed Off-Broadway production of Any Night, which he co-wrote and performed with Medina Hahn, and published by Playwrights Canada Press. It won Outstanding New Play at Toronto’s Summerworks Festival, five awards in Toronto’s Now Magazine, including Outstanding Performance, and was hailed among the Best Productions of the Year in Toronto and Vancouver.

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Ronnie Burkett

Ronnie Burkett

Laureate, 2009

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2009 Laureate

Ronnie Burkett has been captivated by puppetry since the age of seven when he opened the World Book Encyclopedia to “Puppets”. He began touring his puppet shows around Alberta at the age of fourteen and hasbeen on the road ever since. Recognized as one of Canada’s foremost theatre artists,Ronnie Burkett has been credited with creating some of the world’s most elaborate and provocative puppetry. His work has stimulated an unprecedented adult audience for puppet theatre, continuously playing to great critical and public acclaim on Canada’s major stages and at international theatre festivals. Ronnie has taught puppetry at universities and colleges in Canada, the UK and Australia, and presents masterclasses, workshops and keynote presentations at numerous festivals and conferences. His current production Billy Twinkle, Requiem For a Golden Boy follows the now-retired 10 Days on Earth, Provenance and the “Memory Dress Trilogy” of Tinka’s New Dress, Street of Blood and Happy. When not touring, Ronnie can be found surrounded by over 1200 books on puppetry, plasticene and woodworking tools in his Toronto studio where he is designing his next two productions.

Acceptance Speech

Thank you Dr. Siminovitch. Thank you to the founders of the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre, BMO Financial Group for sponsoring the prize and this evening, to Mary Adachi for nominating me, and thank you to the jury for their gigantic leap of faith.

I am thrilled to finally be invited to one of those elite cocktail parties our Prime Minister says artists go to all the time. I personally don’t know many working artists who crave putting on a suit, but maybe I just run with the wrong crowd. Nor do I call myself an artist, yet. Hopefully before I draw my last breath that word will escape my lips in a meaningful way, but for me, an artist is one who creates a piece of work that cannot be discussed, only felt. And I don’t think I’m there yet. However, the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre does make me think that perhaps I’m on the right track, so I thank you all for the vote of confidence.

It’s interesting being in the middle of a career, of life, of experience and understanding, of practice. In a world gone mad for all things young and new, I’ve been feeling somewhat invisible the past couple of years. Too old to be the hot new thing, too young to be the revered old master. It’s a beautiful place to be, actually; I’m quite content to just make new work without the annoyance of having to be the a press-mad bad boy drumming up my own persona. If anyone is lucky enough to stand mid-career, it can imply that the technical has been learned and mastered and the second part of that career is about exploration of ideas and content. That’s what excites me most, poised here in the middle of it all. I’m more surprised than anyone to be selected for this magnificent honour. But thank God, and the Founders, there is indeed a prize for simply being here, in the middle. And I can assure you that middle, in this case, means the beginning of the best part.

My chief mentor in puppetry, Martin Stevens, said that “art is the personal contribution to the ever-continuing conversation about life”. Here in the middle of my career, the Siminovitch Prize will allow me to continue that discussion in a significant way.

I think the jury has made a bold choice. An historic choice, that perhaps they are not even aware of. I am a designer; I’m also a writer, an actor, a producer, a roadie, a boss, a collaborator, a huckster and a hustler, a mold maker and a woodcarver, but more than anything, and first and foremost, I am a puppeteer. And there is no category in the Siminovitch Prize three year rotation for my kind. And yet here I am. I thank the jury for that, not only in a deeply personal way; I thank them for the message they send to my odd little sub-community in the arts that puppetry is an artform to be recognized in the theatre. I didn’t have that message when I began, so I hope it encourages some kid building puppets in their parents’ basement to dream large.

To the Founders, I thank you very personally for creating this Prize in honour of the Siminovitchs. I know what it is to want to keep a cherished spirit alive, a significant person remembered. The last time I spoke publicly was just over a week ago when I gave the eulogy at my Mother’s memorial service in Alberta. I learned about being this year’s recipient on the same day she died. She and my Dad, who passed away just last year, would have loved this. I wish they could have seen a bunch of bankers throwing me a party. They were the most loyal, spectacular, funny, simple people I’ve ever known and their support and pride in me was boundless. Not without condition, but endless. And in a world with lowered standards, I appreciate their expectations more than ever. When I was still a teenager, my Dad said to me: “Why is it that any horse’s ass in the room can say they’re an artist and no one challenges them on that? If you’re gonna say it, then prove it. And if they have to say it at all, there’s your proof they probably aren’t.” That, in a nutshell, explains my Dad…and all of Alberta.

What were the chances of a kid from the prairies becoming a puppeteer and having an international theatre career? Actually, the chances were pretty good. When I was emerging, and by emerging I mean young and interested, there was a lot of little money for the arts.

I got a thousand bucks from Alberta Culture when I was fourteen to go to a Puppeteers of America Festival in Lansing, Michigan. The total madness of my parents putting me on a plane and allowing me to cross the border alone to associate with a bunch of old dolly wigglers is one thing; but even better, Alberta said go. Listen. Learn. Bring it home. And I did. I met the masters of marionette craft at that Festival and they took me in. And I, in my own way, brought them home.

When I was eighteen I quit university and with another small grant from Alberta Culture I went to an international puppet congress and festival in Moscow. I can still tell you images I saw in those theatres that changed my life, changed my view of design and performance. And, in my own way, I brought them home, and in another way, I’ve been taking them back to the world on tour with a Canadian perspective.

And several years later, when I had a crazy idea to do marionette theatre for adults, the Canada Council had a little Explorations grant that allowed me to do it. And Theatre of Marionettes has been touring for twenty-three years because of that first investment in a small arts business by my country.

What was the chance that a puppet mad kid from the prairies would ever have an international theatre career? Chances were good. And simply because I was from Canada and part of a generation that was able to not only go into the world and experience my artform there in order to bring it home, but also because the Canada I grew up in had touring theatre and dance and music criss-crossing this country when I was being formed.

I saw the play Ten Lost Years and realized for the first time we were actually interesting onstage. I saw The Canadian Opera Company’s La Boheme. I saw Danny Grossman perform “Higher”. I saw all of that and so much more in Medicine Hat, Alberta.

I agree with our Prime Minister. The arts in Canada are elite. Unlike the Canada of my youth, now, unless you live in a major city and have a lot of disposable income, you can’t see ballet and opera and theatre or hear a symphony orchestra. And while other countries have identified that the very best way to brand yourself as distinct and vibrant in the global marketplace is through the ongoing export of culture, our current government has cut the international cultural export program altogether. Our audacious, unique, new-world voice has been silenced on the world stage. So, even when the kids from Abbottsford, Wawa, Antigosh and Medicine Hat manage to get themselves to a point of international attention, Canada says no. So, in a year of death and destruction, in a year when I looked seriously at the prospect of my little touring company having to fold, and when I was hearing no no no from my country, I’d really like to say thank you to the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre for saying yes so loudly.

This is not the only loud voice I’ve heard recently. The other day I was in the Roncesvalles Starbucks when a woman came in, sat down, and started talking to herself, to the customers, to ghosts, to God, to whoever. She was, for lack of a better description, a Burkett marionette waiting to happen. Toothless, ancient, with that mysterious drape of skin that occurs when lips, chin and neck become one. Blunt cut white hair, far too many shopping bags, asking various young women in Starbucks if they worked at the home she lived in. I tried to ignore her, but my perverse puppet maker desire to study her face, her ankles, her hosiery, the contents of her bags, willed me to look. And she caught me.

She looked right at me and screamed, “You didn’t need the surgery in the first place!” I tried to ignore her, focusing all my attention on my grande skinny vanilla latte. She screamed again, “You didn’t need the surgery in the first place!” This was incredible. Who was she? Witch? Psychic? Madwoman? “You didn’t need the surgery in the first place!” Who told her? How could she know my plan to spend the Siminovitch money on so much cosmetic surgery that by next April my face would be as tight as a Marine Corps cot? Damn the gossiping theatre community!

I fled Starbucks and found refuge on a bench outside. But she followed me. Standing there on the steps of Starbucks she stared at me and yelled, “You’re the finest dentist there ever was!” What an odd thing to say. She yelled it again, “You’re the finest dentist there ever was!” This was awkward. This was crazy. This was potentially dangerous. I mean, what if the Siminovitch jury got wind of this? What if they heard I was a dentist, not a designer? They’d strip me of the prize before I even had it in my grasp. “You’re the finest dentist there ever was!”

Standing to leave, I looked at her and said, “You know full well I am not a dentist.” She replied, “You’re the finest dentist there ever was!” Staring back at her for a split second, I realized two things. One, who was I to argue with her? I can assure you I’ve never dabbled in amateur dentistry, nor do the letters DDS appear anywhere alongside my name. But if she wanted to scream to the world that I was the finest denist there ever was, what harm was there in that? Who knows, maybe there’s a prize for being the finest dentist there ever was too. I could double my windfall!

The second thing I realized was that she was not a witch, or psychic or a madwoman. She was that strange, magical being I search for on the streetcar, in airports, in coffee shops. This beautiful, screaming, flawed creature of inspiration was my muse.

For years, people have said to me, “Geez Ron, how do you think up your characters?” Well, I do keep a cauldron of BS and invention simmering in my studio, but the source of my characters is us. Many puppeteers build fantastic creatures, gargoyles and monsters, angels and devils, elves and talking animals. But I build little people, smaller representations of all of us; for within my species are angels and demons enough.

So that glorious, mad, damaged woman who proclaimed me the greatest dentist there ever was, will no doubt find her way onstage in my next show, a shrunken wooden icon whose madness and despair speak of the human condition. An iconic vision of us onstage who perhaps cannot be discussed, only felt.

I am the product of my mentors and their belief in me. The grand, flawed, beautiful bullies of puppetry who taught me to draw and sculpt and carve and see, but moreso, who insisted I stretch my craft beyond the facile, the cute, the mindless babysitting diversion it had become. I am also the product of my country and its belief in me. And while English Canada might actually not be one of the best places to try and create theatre right now, I still believe I stand here this evening simply because I was a puppet mad kid from Canada. I think perhaps we all have a responsibility to leave our world one step better than we found it; I hope as a puppeteer, as a son, and as a Canadian I will indeed do that in return for huge favours rendered.

I owe a huge debt to the colleagues and artisans who have worked with me over the years to create my marionettes. Their friendship, passion and attention to detail have repeatedly made me better than I am, and kept me going when I found myself sitting in a pile of sawdust facing yet another impossible deadline. I am also grateful and indebted to countless designers, writers, actors, dancers, technicians and musicians who have inspired me, challenged me and moreso, extended their genenoristy of spirit to me. No one has been the recipient of more kindness.

To quote my mentor Martin Stevens again, who, aside from my Dad was the most influential man in my life and certainly one of the most quotable, his definition of a puppet was “the shape of an idea in motion”. He insisted that all three parts be present in order to make a puppet; the physical form, the thought or impulse for the character and the movement of it onstage. I realized the other day it’s a pretty good description of a person’s life too. So I’m grateful for the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre and the promise it brings to keep me thinking and moving along. I have been touring my shows since the age of fourteen. I’ve had a longer career than any prime minister, so this insane act of goodwill and continued belief in the puppet mad kid which the Siminovitch Prize in Theatre represents will only ensure that this audacious, unique, new-world, and very Canadian voice will continue.

Thank you.

I’m pleased that, in return, I get to extend my vote of confidence and a portion of this spectacular prize to a young Canadian puppet designer and performer. A young woman who is probably a thoroughbred; who happened upon a puppet show by a Canadian – this Canadian – a few years ago and thought, hey, I want to do that. Who got herself to the International School of Puppetry in France, graduated and brought it back home. A young woman who, when I phoned to tell her that she was winning part of this prize, started crying and said “I can build a new show”. I couldn’t have chosen better than her. She is Clea Minaker, and I am so happy to introduce her to you as the protégé of this year’s Siminovitch Prize in Theatre.

2009 Protégé

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Clea Minaker

Clea Minaker

Protégé, 2009

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As a performing artist, designer and director, Clea Minaker brings the language of contemporary puppetry to creations for theatre, film, music videos and musical performances. From 2002-2005 Clea trained as a student of the sixth promotion at L’École nationale supérieure des arts de la marionnette, located at the International Institute of Puppetry Arts, in Charleville-Mezières, France. In 2007-2008, she toured internationally with Feist, designing and performing live shadow puppetry and projections for close to one hundred concert performances. Her original theatrical creations include: The Living Lantern (Festival Casteliers ‘carte blanche’ 2009), Beauty (Commissioned by Youtheatre 2010), Oh! What a Feeling (Festival Casteliers 2007), and Immobile (Rhubarb! Festival of New Works, 2006). Clea has taught puppetry as a visiting artist at McGill University, Concordia University, The Deer Crossing Art Farm (Gibsons B.C), and at M.a.i in Montreal. Clea Minaker lives in Montreal and grew up on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.

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Kim Collier

Kim Collier

Laureate, 2010

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2010 Laureate

Prior to her career as a director, Kim studied acting at the University of Victoria, physical theatre at Mime Unlimited in Toronto and in 1994 graduated from the 3 year acting program at Studio 58 in Vancouver. A year later she co-founded Electric Company Theatre whose work quickly became recognized nationally as a driving force behind the resurgence of activity in Vancouver’s independent theatre scene. Under the direction of Collier, the company has created a dozen original works through an intensive collaborative process including three landmark site-specific productions. Kim also has a growing presence on major stages and festivals across Canada with productions at Theatre Calgary, Festival TransAmerique, National Arts Centre, the Citadel Theatre and Canadian Stage. In 2011 her live-cinematic interpretation of No Exit is being presented by the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. Kim is the recipient of multiple awards including three Jessie Richardson awards for directing, a Betty Mitchell for Best Production and in 2009 the Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award.

Acceptance Speech

What an incredible honour this is to accept the Siminovitch (sim-in-ove-itch) prize for directing. I would like to send a heartfelt thank you to the founding donors of this prize for creating this remarkable opportunity in my life and the lives of other recipients and for what it means to our Canadian Theatre Community. Thank you to BMO (BeeMo) Financial Group for supporting this prize and organizing this evening. I extend my gratitude to the jury chair Maureen Labonte and jury members Marcus Youssef, Marti Maraden, Marie Clements, Alain Jean, and Jillian Keiley. As well, thank you to Matthew Jocelyn who took such care with my nomination.

It is really beautiful that this award celebrates the remarkable story of Lou and the late Elinore Siminovitch, and the conversation between the arts and science that existed between them. In the spirit of what this Prize celebrates I want to mention some years ago my collaborators and I at Electric Company were commissioned by Dr. Michael Hayden from the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics to create a play called The Score that would later become a feature film for CBC’s Opening Night. The commission was for a project that would create dialogue around the ethics in the advancing field of genetics. We dove into our research with full access to Michael’s lab and his team of researchers. And what was so surprising to us at the time was that we found a reflection of ourselves as artists in this scientific community: the same passion to move towards the unknown, to explore ideas and articulate questions, to pioneer projects towards the greater good of humanity and driven by a bottomless curiosity for the work. We made some wonderful friends and I believe helped create meaningful dialogue within the larger community. So a special thanks to Lou and Elinore who saw into one another’s hearts, who understood the shared ideals of these two fields that are more alike than different, and in whose honor this award continues.

When I received the call from Maureen that I was to be the recipient of this remarkable prize I was stunned and rather overwhelmed, and when I hung up the phone the first thing I thought was “How did I get here? What was at the origin of this obsessive passion I have for the theatre?”

And right away I found myself considering my family and how they raised me with such dreams and so much faith in life.

I grew up amidst an abundance of practical, essential acts of creation: Grandma’s prolific pottery, her weaving, embroidery, paintings and pastries. Dad working away in the shop at night making jewelry or furniture or carving personalized cutting boards for all the women in the family. His garden. My cousins, my brothers and I making hand made cards, haunted houses, radio programs, super 8 films and forts. Grandpa’s Garden. Grandma playing the piano, me playing the piano. Grandpa bursting into song upon meeting someone, always finding one with their name in it. And the songs at family campfires led by my Aunts and Uncles, handed down from generation to generation. In this incredible application to living, to being together, I was given a head-start by now knowing what was the real material for life.

I come from a powerful family. Powerful in the sense that the family is charged with love; for good or for bad, we put our hearts out, we choose to stand by one another, and we speak our truth.

Growing up my Mom always said “you can do anything you want in this world” My Dad said, “don’t rush to where you are going in life because once you get there, you are going to be there a while, make sure you enjoy yourself on the way” My first theatre training was at the University of Victoria. I quit before finishing and went to the Yukon to perform vaudeville at the Palace Grand Theatre. My Dad suggested I use some of the money they had saved for university to buy a Volkswagen Van. When I wanted to make it into a camper to live in, he helped me pull out the seats, build a bed and cupboards and drawers. A month or so later I called him from Dawson City saying I really wanted to paint drawings on the outside of the van but I was worried it would lower the resale value. I received a box of paints in the mail general delivery. They made me feel that anything was possible. A permission to recognize that the right choice isn’t always the practical choice. And with this, a gift of freedom.

My family is a beautiful, complicated, political, passionate community and I felt so much a part of something, so clear about who I was as a result of this tribe I belonged to. As a kid, I was aware that this made me different from other kids. I was an outsider in that respect; an outsider because I was an insider. But it was this difference that compelled me to create community.

And I believe that ultimately, at the bottom of it all, beneath the love of artistry, beneath my ambition, beneath the sweat and tears and worry and excitement and pressure and doubt, creating community is what my theatre work has been about. To create moments in time that will be undeniably present and shared. To engage audiences directly. To jump-start their emotional or intellectual connection to the material, to themselves and to each other. To provoke or inspire or even insist on dialogue after the show. To give the audience an incredible opportunity to feel alive. Alive because they just participated in an event they had not experienced before and which they never expected.

I believe all people need to feel this quality of being an insider, being a part of some entity larger than themselves, where there is true physical, emotional and spiritual connection to others.

For me, live performance is a rare place where we share the investigation of who we are, what we believe, and find a collective experience in an increasingly mediated world that pulls us apart and forces us into isolation.

Over the past 15 years I have been part of a remarkable renaissance in creation-based theatre in Vancouver. It is one in which many creation-based companies have made a conscious and public choice not to treat each other as competitors, but instead as collaborators and colleagues, as a shared resource, and, most importantly, as friends. I believe it is this choice more than any other that has allowed our theatre art to grow into such a vibrant scene, create new cultural institutions, and help independent theatre artists in Vancouver develop shows that are traveling across the country and around the world. I accept this award in celebration of all the wonderful theatre artists I have worked with in Vancouver, as we have together pursued a dream: the creation and dissemination of theatre art unique to our city, our country, and our place in time.

It has always seemed natural to me that together we are stronger. This has been a great source of motivation for me. It has been my experience that we can effect profound change within this community simply by having a vision and inviting others to join in the vision and then allowing the vision to belong to everyone.

But in Vancouver we face challenges. It is a young city, and a province in which the essential function of arts and culture is not yet widely enough appreciated or understood. The massive and unapologetic cuts to provincial investment in the culture sector over the past year are clear evidence of this. We need our provincial colleagues in culture, government and business to help decision makers in BC understand what many of our citizens already know: that art isn’t a frill. It is central to the development of a literate, engaged and active citizenry; one which, in the context of a market-defined society, helps us actively define the values of the world we wish to live in.

It is so important that major national awards like the Siminovitch Prize recognize excellent work across this enormous country and help communicate the value of the arts. That this prize draws attention to our community inVancouver this particular year of cuts is really valuable.

I now want to speak about a few of the deepest professional relationships that have played a pivotal role in my career.

ODE to Jan. The poetry and magic of ‘Calling’.

The Stage Manager is the maestro at centre of a piece of live theatre, sitting at the helm of a play conducting the machinations of the stage into living stories, illusions, and dreams. A Stage Manager breathes with the audience, sensing with actors the shape of a show, bringing it to life night after night. I love that in the year 2010 when so much around us has become automated, in the theatre, no matter how high tech, there is always a live person calling the show. That beautifully old-fashioned term “calling”. A simple whispered code of ‘standbys’ and ‘goes’ forming a person to person chain of imperceptible physical actions: heaving on ropes, drawing curtains, changing clothes; objects passed from hand to hand, bodies moving in darkness and silence, and all with the threat of detection, of crashing together and grinding to a halt. And then? The stage manager must step up, think fast, and save the day.

I’ve had the immense good fortune to work most of my career with one remarkable Stage Manager who I’d like to celebrate tonight for her phenomenal and superhuman ability to ‘call’ a show and manage a creative process. The beautiful and talented Jan Hodgson. I have so often fallen to my knees in appreciation of her wizardry. She has an artist’s intuition and without it the projects we have created together would be bereft of her grace and timing and style. Love you Jan – see you tomorrow back in tech.

For more then 15 years I have been creating shows with my long time collaborators Kevin Kerr and Jonathon Young. We founded a theatre company back in 1996 with David Hudgins called Electric Company. And for years and years and years we have been creating theatre together. How can I begin to express what we have meant to each other and what we have done together. But this prize of course is shared with Kevin and Jonathon, for their ideas, creatively and smarts that penetrate my work. We have been truly brave with one another and dedicated to making the best work possible. We have pushed our own boundaries and at times the boundaries of our art form. I wonder if there will ever be a time we won’t work together because we share an artistic synergy that is rare and … I just want to say how much I have been inspired and challenged by you both, you have both been my greatest theatre allies and my greatest theatre education and my greatest friends. Thank you Kevin and Jonathon for your integrity and your humanity and your relentless complexity. It is truly remarkable that we have withstood the intensity of the creative process across time and call ourselves the greatest of friends.

Today my daughter Azra North Young would have been so proud of her mom. She so beautifully supported me in my work and spent huge chapters of her life beside me in the rehearsal hall, in theatre seats, in script meetings, board meetings, on tour, and she loved all our shows. We always said she was the fifth member of the Electric Company. She was a baby when we started, and I became a director as I became a Mother. And truly that push and pull emotionally for me, between my passion for the work and my desire to be a very good mother, was never resolved. In a lot of ways I felt like a pioneer–creating ways for these two huge commitments to live together. And I believe one of the great gifts Jon and I gave to our theatre community was an example that it was possible, that family can be the centre of your life while your theatre work is too. To all women director / creators with children: bravo, be brave and break the mold–carry them in the hall, breast feed between the seats, go on tour together, whisper about process and actors and what worked and what didn’t. Include your kids in your life, let them learn from your passion.

We lost Azra and her cousins in a tragedy just over a year ago. And this is not the time to speak of these things…but it is…because as one moves through the most painful and impossible loss I rediscovered how vitally resonate art is at these times. Only words arranged in poetry can recognize and give voice to your sorrow. Only music can communicate the spirit of the divine. Only dance can express the essence of my daughter in spirit. Only the community building a Mandela together in an act of ritual could bind me to any kind of hope and faith. Theatre is ritual, theatre is poetry, theatre is communal. Theatre has been my reason to go on in some small hope I can be part of a making life worth living for others–to create a sense of meaning, or hope, or catharsis.

Theatre is that bottomless place of discovery where we can always find the new, the curious, the remarkable, the insight, the wisdom. It is the muse of my questing life.

There is something divine about receiving this prize at this time in my life. I don’t think there could be a better year, month or day. And I pledge to honour this prize, to not forget this gift and how, through this opportunity, I can strengthen my heart, my vision, my knowledge, and my understanding. I vow to bring this inspiration into the work, and may that work ultimately reach and inspire the larger community.

A beautiful part of this Prize is the chance to choose a theatre artist to award twenty five thousand dollars. Wow, what a fantastic opportunity to celebrate a woman who I greatly respect as a director and who is pioneering her own work in the theatre. Some years ago she assisted me on two projects and I knew right away she was a true director; her insights were smart, her intuition keen, her creativity bursting. Last year I attended her latest collaborative creation Kismit and loved its humanity and innovative staging. She is a recent graduate of the National Theatre School in directing. It gives me enormous pleasure to support another creation-based director who is bringing her own vision to the stage. Please allow me to introduce Anita Rochon.

2010 Protégé

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Anita Rochon

Anita Rochon

Protégé, 2010

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Anita Rochon works as a director, writer and actor in Vancouver and across the country. She’s been involved in the development of more than 25 new works of theatre, ranging from movement-based pieces to verbatim theatre to traditional scripts. With The Chop she directed KISMET one to one hundred, co-wrote Townsville, a piece written with second-year acting students from Studio 58, performed in 2 Truths + 1 Lie = Proof (HIVE) and directed the second two shows in the Patti Fedy trilogy. She performed in Theatre Replacement’s BIOBOXES which has toured to OYR’s High Performance Rodeo, the PuSh Festival, BC Scene, The Theatre Centre and the FTA. In Vancouver she directed for Vancouver Opera, Théâtre la Seizième, Theatre Replacement and at her acting training alma mater Studio 58. She is a graduate of the National Theatre School Directing program.

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Jason Hand

Jason Hand

Protégé, 2012

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Jason Hand has created the lighting for the world premieres of The Trespassers at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, The DeChardin Project for The Quickening Theatre, and Tijuana Cure for Theatre Smash, and for the Canadian premieres of The Ugly One for Theatre Smash, and The Silent Serenade for the Royal Conservatory of Music. He developed innovative lighting for site-specific productions Peer Gynt and Gorey Story for The Thistle Project, and the co-op production of Vacancy. He also lit the sold-out productions of La Bohème and Turn of the Screw for Against the Grain Theatre.

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Robert Thomson

Robert Thomson

Laureate, 2012

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2012 Laureate

Robert Thomson is one of Canada’s most versatile and active freelance theatre, opera and dance lighting designers. He designed Much Ado About Nothing and Cymbeline this year for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Over eleven consecutive seasons, his 27 Stratford projects include Caesar and Cleopatra and King Lear both starring Christopher Plummer, The Homecoming and Krapp’s Last Tape starring Brian Dennehy, Dangerous Liaisons, The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet and Into the Woods. Robert served as Resident Lighting Designer for The National Ballet of Canada for twelve seasons. His company projects include Swan Lake, The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet. He has also designed for the Shaw Festival Theatre for twenty-four seasons, including a ten-year term as Head of Lighting Design for St. Joan, Man and Superman, Cavalcade and Cyrano de Bergerac. He designed the lighting for Robert Lepage’s award winning, first opera Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung, which has been performed by numerous companies in Canada and around the world. He has designed for numerous companies including ABT at The MET; Lincoln Center Theatre; The Goodman Theatre, Chicago; Stuttgart Ballet; Canadian Stage; NAC; Citadel Theatre; Manitoba Theatre Centre; Centaur Theatre and the Segal Theatre. Over his 35-year career Robert has received numerous awards including a Sterling Award for Edmonton Opera’s mounting of the Bluebeard’s Castle and four of Canada’s coveted Dora Mavor Moore Awards. Mr. Thomson is a member of the Associated Designers of Canada and L’Association des professionnels des arts de la scène du Québec.

Acceptance Speech

I would like to begin with thanks.

  • To Joe Rotman and the other Founding Donors, for their vision and generosity in establishing this prize.
  • To Andrew Auerbach and the staff at BMO, for orchestrating this fine evening.
  • And to Lou and Elinore Siminovitch: I’m sure that Elinore would be delighted with the legacy of the last 12 years; how many lives she has touched — not just the prize winners, but the ripple effect, as that impact is shared with colleagues, the community, and ultimately the audience.
  • Maureen Labonté and her distinguished jury: Alison Green, Shawn Kerwin, and Jock Munro, who are here tonight; and Claude Goyette and Leigh Ann Vardy. No one would envy the task that you were given.
  • And to Jennifer Tarver, who submitted such an elegant and persuasive nomination — which is surely the reason I am here. You have been my director, collaborator, champion and sparring partner on many projects now, and I am very proud to call you friend. (And the box of enchilada sauce you got me to smuggle across the border? – it wouldn’t fit it in my carry-on, so I’m holding it ransom until the next time we work together.)

My fellow designers! I value your experience, am inspired by your vision, and delight in your accomplishments and success. It has been such a great honour to be shortlisted for this prize with Richard Feren, Anick La Bissonière, Richard Lacroix, and my lighting colleague, Alan Brodie.

I would like to acknowledge the previous winners, some of whom are here today: John Mighton, Ronnie Burkett, Kim Collier. It is very humbling to see myself in such distinguished company. (I was hoping one of you would buy me a drink and tell me what to do with my nerves.)

And to everyone else here this evening who makes theatre a part of their lives – either through practice, or through support and appreciation – I salute you.

The medium of my work and creativity is light, not language, so this is more than a little daunting for me. Ironically, though I work with spotlights, I am rarely in them. In fact, lighting designers are often the last to join the rehearsal process and the first to leave, so it’s easy to feel on the fringes; that people you meet in the hallways aren’t quite sure who you are … or what exactly it is that you do. So thank you for noticing.

I fell in love with theatre in high school. I suspect it had as much to do with discovering the “community of theatre” as it did with having an excuse to miss class. This was abetted by the Math teacher (Mr. Hurst) who, seeing something in me that I did not yet recognize, wrote me an all-access hall pass: a license to skip class at will … to spend even more time in the auditorium.

For a summer job, I applied to work at the Ontario Place Forum. My dad suggested I ask our MPP (George Kerr) to write a letter of support, which I did, and, miraculously… he did. More miraculously: I got the job … which must have stunned the seasoned crew, who couldn’t know that this high school keener was effectively a political appointment.

At the age of 18, trying to figure out what you’re going to be when you grow up, is a daunting task. My younger daughter is in the throes of this deliberation right now, and I want to tell her – as my father told me – “Do something you love!” After a wasted semester in agricultural science, I knew I wanted to study theatre design. My father, ever the engineer, knowing I would need drafting skills, gave me a pad of graph paper and told me, “Learn how to print: one letter per square”. (He also told me to be prepared for unemployment … which, miraculously, has not been a major concern in my career. For the most part, I’ve been steadily self-employed for 35 years … one month at a time.)

I was incredibly blessed in my formative years. In my third summer at Ontario Place, I was farmed out to the Shaw Festival to run sound (the beginning of a 25-year long relationship). Then I was accepted to the Studio and Forum of Stage Design in New York City, where I studied under Lester Polokov for two years (thank you, Canada Council). Lester, probably my greatest teacher, taught me to see the world with fresh eyes, and to imagine how others might see and perceive things. I learned from some of Broadway’s best designers, and was exposed to the American theatre scene in a huge way. Yet this only served to make me appreciate my identity. I wanted to learn all I could, but more and more, I felt the imperative to return to Canada and apply that knowledge in a Canadian way. Working in Canadian theatre. It’s a decision I’ve never regretted.

My career in lighting started here in Toronto – like so many, at the Tarragon Theatre. Bill Glassco took a characteristic leap of faith and made me his Resident Lighting Designer. Two and a half years of steady employment … working with writers … on new scripts … discovering this extraordinary family of creative people — I learned by doing. (I still take pride that a Tarragon survey of audience favourites once listed my lighting designs alongside the concession cookies.) (Which were great.)

When Christopher Newton arrived at the Shaw Festival in 1980, he radically transformed the entire theatre. He brought his wonderful team of designers and together they retooled the visual landscape of design and its importance on the Festival’s stages. As a young designer, this was likely the most transformative experience of my career. This is how I met lighting designer Jeffrey Dallas who became one of my most significant colleagues and mentors. (He is still so sadly missed.) I had the honor to design many shows with Christopher, each a truly unique experience with memories that I will always treasure.

New York had been filled with Assistant Designers, apprenticing in the trenches to learn their craft. But in Canada, in the 70s, there were few role models to turn to. So my peers and I began to create structures for the future: establishing positions for Assistants; keeping a watchful eye for new talent.

Theatre is a journey of perpetual apprenticeship — to my colleagues, to my craft, to the work itself. Over the years I’ve had the privilege to work with many great artists and artisans on theatre, ballet, and opera projects, large and small. I’ve especially been fortunate to work with, and be influenced by, some great directors and choreographers: Robert Lepage, who exploded my preconceptions of opera; Robert Carson; Peter Hinton, who never feared the dark; William Forsythe; Jonathan Miller, who taught me how to light Shakespeare; James Kudelka; Neil Munro, who set the standard in research; Eric Bruhn; and Derek Goldby, who introduced me to Berlioz and taught me to light with panache! This is not an exercise in name-dropping. I just want to acknowledge my extraordinary blessings. And of course Jennifer. Who is so intensely collaborative, loves process, and lets me try crazy things.

The challenge of talking about lighting design— to paraphrase Martin Mull — is that “talking about lighting is like dancing about architecture”. My medium – light – is conjured and crafted for the human eye. It is elusive, difficult to document, and virtually impossible to articulate. (Hard enough with my colleagues, let alone a room as diverse as this!) The fact is, that theatrical lighting design only exists in that moment of time. It expresses time, exaggerates time, and, like the characters who people the stage, is intrinsically performative. Alive.

And the beauty of lighting design is its capacity – like sound design – to have an emotional impact on a production – ergo, the audience. But it’s no simple trick to quantify. I come home at the end of the day and what can I say…? That I’ve spent 14-hours making something more beautiful. More suggestive. More sinister. More provocative. More alluring. More … what it needed to be.

I’m currently working in Montreal on a production of John Logan’s play RED: the fictionalized story of American painter Mark Rothko, and his young assistant. It’s a fabulous cantata, exploring the nature and definition of art. As I’ve been considering what to say this evening, the themes of this discourse have continued to resonate. And it’s made me reflect on whether I can ever call myself “an artist”. Which is not false modesty, or some cliché of insecurity — though I do live in constant fear of the gig where I’ll be found out!

The other trick about lighting is that it only exists in concert with the other creative elements. Theatre is surely a true concert of artists. Lighting only has meaning in the elaboration of an idea, or a vision … be that a director, another designer or the story … or the emotional moment that wants shape, or guidance.

Each production is unique. My approach, as much as possible, is to have no approach at all … seeking all my inspiration from the text or score, the rehearsal hall, and the collective journey of my fellow artists. My preparation is that of a voyeur: everyday obsessively collecting images and observations of nature, architecture, media and visual art. Noting the effects of light on people, their lives and environments… and the emotional interpretations these evoke.

I try to reinvent myself with each new project – disconnecting from previous experience. I see my work like any other performer: discovering, with the director, the world of the play, and what we’re trying to say with it. This is the allure and great joy of the work that we do: with each new project, the opportunity to immerse ourselves in a new ocean of experience.

Of course it’s not all “swimming with dolphins”. Few artists can survive solely on their theatre earnings. The rigours of freelance life, the perpetual pursuit of employment – it can be grueling. You’re forced to make choices, wear too many hats. And for me, the night before a lighting plot is due – which is always too soon – never gets easier.

And the world in which we create is getting tougher and colder. One community mourns the loss of a major institution. Another grapples with governance scandal and a shoddy dismissal. Theatres are tightening their belts and it’s reflected in the programming… and in our shrinking vision. How do we compete with streaming video and reality TV?

In RED, the fictional Rothko rails desperately against the rising power of market-driven culture. More than anything, he abhors the commodification of art: work that seeks to be decorative, or fashionable, or simply convenient.

Of his own painting he says, “Not nice. Not fine. Real. And whatever it is, it’s not pretty. I am here to stop your heart, you understand that?! I am here to make you think!”

It’s important, theatre. The capacity to reflect on our experience, and tell our stories. To challenge society’s perceptions, assumptions, superstitions. And to do this in a live medium, in collusion with an audience. Now more than ever — as borders are shifting and distances shrinking, when the need to participate in a global exchange of culture is so urgent — we have a responsibility to share our stories with each other, and the world.

The Siminovitch Prize represents the highest level of peer recognition in Canadian theatre. How truly humbling! And beyond recognition, its purpose is to support the recipient in furthering their craft. How wonderful! In a world that fetishizes youth and newness, it’s reassuring to hear that I’ve still got something to give. Something to do.

In Red, Rothko instructs his assistant to spend time with the masters. He says…”Courage in painting isn’t facing the blank canvas. It’s facing Manet. It’s facing Velasquez.”

I’m excited by this gift, to spend time with some “masters” myself. Thirty-five years later, it’s like being given another hall pass.

From the other side of the footlights, the Siminovitch Prize has stood for the passion and commitment of donors and patrons. In the face of increasing government indifference, to see that there are still individuals and organizations who care deeply for the arts … gives us hope. The importance of an award like this in communicating the value of culture to the country cannot be overstated. And for this, I applaud you.

The very best part of being the Siminovitch recipient is the delightful task of selecting a rising talent to share a portion of this prize. I have selected two emerging designers to share the Protégé Award. It has been my honour and pleasure to have mentored and worked with both, and I believe they will soon be at the forefront of Canadian Lighting Design.

The first is a young man I met when he was an Assistant Designer at Stratford. I was so impressed with his talent, astute eye, calm manner and wonderful potential that I could not help urging (along with others) for his promotion. The following season, I shared a Rep Plot with him as one of the company’s Lighting Designers.

The second is a young woman who first assisted me on the transfer of a large musical to Canadian Stage — this while she was still finishing her final year at Ryerson Theatre School. She supervised the setup in my absence, and by the time I arrived, she was running the crew with the aplomb of a seasoned veteran. She has since assisted me on several projects and I have been so impressed with her bold ideas and design vision. We recently co-designed a production, and she will be taking over the completion of my current project in Montreal.

In RED, Rothko eventually fires his assistant. He says: “You don’t need to spend any more time with me. You need to find your contemporaries and make your own world, your own life. You need to get out there now. Into the thick of it. Shake your fist at them. Make something new.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my great privilege to introduce you to my colleagues: Jason Hand and Raha Javanfar.

2012 Protégé

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Raha Javanfar

Raha Javanfar

Protégé, 2012

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Raha Javanfar is an Iranian-born, Toronto-raised, self-employed lighting and projections designer and musician. As a designer, she works primarily in theatre, opera, concert production, and international touring. As a musician, Raha’s main focus is playing the violin in several Toronto-based bands, as well as composition/arrangement and teaching privately.

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Annick Lefebvre

Annick Lefebvre

Finalist, 2020

Protégé, 2014

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Biography

Annick Lefebvre holds a degree in playwriting and theatre critique from UQAM (2004). She is the founder of Le Crachoir, a company dedicated to placing the author, female or not, at the centre of the creation-production-performance process. She has written several plays, including Ce samedi il pleuvait (shortlisted for the 2013 Michel-Tremblay Award); La machine à révolte (shortlisted for the 2015 Louise-LaHaie Award); J’accuse (shortlisted for the 2015 Michel-Tremblay Award, the 2015 Critics’ Choice Award from the Association québécoise des critiques de théâtre [AQCT] and the 2015 Governor General’s Literary Award); Les barbelés (shortlisted for the 2019 Critics’ Choice Award from the AQCT); ColoniséEs (winner of the 2019 Michel-Tremblay Award and shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award); and several short scripts for collective events. She adapted J’accuse twice, once for a production in Belgium, and once for a French production. Annick Lefebvre was chosen as protégée by playwright Olivier Choinière, laureate of the 2014 Siminovitch Prize. Her plays are published by Dramaturges Éditeurs.

In September, 1999, I am doing my B.A. to become a high school French teacher. Some friends who are studying theatre take me to see the first production of le Théâtre du Grand Jour. The play is called Autodafé and is written by Olivier Choinière. I’ve never heard of Olivier Choinière but I do know the play makes me discover writing that’s like a punch in the face and to which I respond. Along with seeing the show, the audience can take part in a contest: “Write your own Revolutionary Manifesto.” I try my hand. A full year later, I get a call from Sylvain Bélanger, Artistic Director of the company, telling me “In the end, we commissioned manifestos from professional writers, but we’ve organised an event that will take place at Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui and we want your piece to be part of the show.” That’s how, in 2000, when I couldn’t be further from thinking I would ever write for the theatre, Olivier Choinière staged To Shout From All the Rooftops wherein my words were heard by an audience for the very first time.

Next, we jump ahead thirteen years. Thirteen years, during which I ditch my B.A. in teaching, become an apprentice in the creation of the play Incendies (Scorched) by Wajdi Mouawad and I write my first play. Olivier Choinière offers to mentor me in the rewriting and production. On April 9, 2013, at the opening of my play, Ce samedi il peuvait (That Saturday, It Rained), Olivier’s girlfriend, Mélissa, comes to sit beside me and asks if I’m nervous. I say yes. She tells me Olivier is, too. I say impossible. I can’t imagine Olivier could be stressed. Olivier arrives and Mélissa takes his hand and puts it in mine. The clammy palm confirms that he’s a mess, but I know he believes in the work one hundred percent. And in the play… And, I think, in me.

In the spring of 2015, my second play will be produced at Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, on the same stage as new works by Wajdi Mouawad and Olivier Choinière, which moves me deeply. This season, I will also take part in a collective orchestrated by Olivier. For it, I have dedicated the text I will read to Marianne Dansereau. Marianne is a young actor of 23, but most of all, she is someone who writes plays that blow me away. And, like Olivier once did with me, I will do whatever it takes to ensure that audiences can hear her voice as soon as possible. Just last week, I got a call from Marianne, telling me that Olivier has offered to mentor her in the writing of her next play. I immediately ran out to buy champagne because all these threads meet with a confluence that still moves me deeply.

Thank you, Olivier Choinière, for guiding all my flights; I never thought I’d use the metaphor of a bird to thank you, but I’m sticking to it: thank you for my wings. And “my wings” is also the term we use for a licence to fly, and to me, that feels just right. Yes. To thank you for having taught me to pilot the machine that lets my words take flight in a way that I can make them land wherever I choose, that indeed feels absolutely right!

Thank you, Paul Lefebvre, thank you Marcelle Dubois, thank you Marie-Ève Milot. And thank you to the Siminovitch Prize; thank you for creating an award that encourages real mentorship across multiple generations of artists. I am happy, blessed and honoured to be among you tonight.

Merci à vous tous! Bonne fin de soirée.

Protégé, 2014, Selected by Olivier Choiniere

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Olivier Choinière

Olivier Choinière

Laureate, 2014

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2014 Laureate

Olivier Choinière graduated in Playwriting from the National Theatre School in 1996. He first made a name for himself with Le bain des raines (1998) followed by Autodafé, created by André Brassard in 1999. Félicité was created in 2007, and subsequently done in English at London’s Royal Court Theatre, under the title Bliss, in a translation by Caryl Churchill. It has since been performed in English Canada, Scotland, Australia and Switzerland. Venise-en-Québec (2006) and Nom de domaine (2013,) were both short-listed for the Governor General’s Award. Mommy (2013), won four awards at the Cochons d’or gala, in addition to being a finalist for the prix Michel-Tremblay. Olivier Choinière directed 50 actors in Chante avec moi (2010), a play that won a prize from the Association Québécoise des Critiques de Théâtre, before going on to play at the National Arts Centre, the Festival TransAmériques and the Théâtre du Trident. His latest play, Ennemi public, will be created in February at the Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui. The Canada Council has recently awarded him the prix Victor-Martyn-Lynch-Staunton in theatre.

Acceptance Speech

The honour bestowed on me allows me to speak to you tonight.

And this honour demands a certain honesty. So, I will be honest with you: very often, I detest theatre. I detest theatre, one could say, in order to love it more deeply. That which has driven me away from it, often wanting to abandon it, is also what draws me to it and allows me to make it my own. To be hard on theatre is, in my estimation, what makes it healthy. To become aware of the context in which this art form is practiced here, today, is to become aware of the way in which we live here, and today. What infuriates me about theatre is also what makes me furious with life.

Right now, in my corner of the country, theatre is thriving, it’s boiling over. New spaces open up, new companies are born and productions multiply. The theatre is exploding; one could even say it’s having “une crise de croissance.”

This growth crisis is happening at precisely the time when budgets shrink and government programmes disappear. It is accompanied by disengagement in politics which, if some fine but unlikely day, were to choose to defend things cultural, it would only be to repeat the argument for the all-triumphant economy.

In my corner of the country, it’s not only politicians but artists who engage in the merchant discourse, using vocabulary gleaned from marketing without an ounce of shame, which is frightening. Our large and small stages are monopolised by a way of doing business, clearly imposed by financial restrictions, but also by a product-driven
logic that has become ingrained in our minds as if it were evidence incarnate. The administration of our theatres takes precedence over the creative work we do in them, turning us into small, bustling entrepreneurs, smiling in defeat because “what can you do, we no longer have the luxury to dream.”

The dominion of the economy over our lives, especially in the discourse of power, seems nothing less than a tragic fatality. Despite all efforts, we cannot escape it. It would seem it’s a law of nature when in fact, it’s but an idea, a convention, imposed upon us like a truth.

When I write a play, it is these pre-determined conventions I want to illuminate. It’s the power structures, beginning with those I impose upon myself or to which I feel bound without even realising, that I hope to derail. And because theatre cannot escape these structures –after all, it’s the art of convention!—it is first and foremost with theatre that I take issue. For me, this duty is borne in the form. With each play, I strive to build a new way of reading the world, in the hopes that, if it’s new for me, it will also be new for others. My efforts, however, are not to make me look clever, or even to make my cultural product more appealing, but rather to address each audience member as directly as possible. If I try to make him or her active, an actor, and to assign them a role, sometimes even the lead, it is absolutely to recognise his or her presence and to declare loud and clear that without the audience, theatre cannot happen, and to allow each spectator to escape, however briefly, from the usual codes of entertainment that obliterate her or him, making them passive, even invisible. Because this escape, however small, tiny, is still one more step towards his or her own freedom.

I don’t want to preach to anyone. I seek, as honestly as possible, to share my fears. I find sense in theatre when it makes me free. I hope to write plays that will have an echo in the lives of others and which ultimately answer the questions that I ask myself when I take my seat: “Why am I here? What do these people want to tell me? And why now?”


Theatre is an art form from another era, which is why it reveals something unique about our own. As if we tried to bear witness to our modern reality by painting the walls of a cave with our fingers. It’s this time warp that allows it to be our contemporary: to rendezvous in a real place, to gather there for a given time, an hour, two hours, to breathe the same air, to live the same “now.” To take all that keeps us from an awareness of our own power and to put that on stage; to try to see it, to understand it, and to go back home with a bit of freedom, perhaps minute, but which remains, and will endure.

Thank you to the Jury members and to all who work for this extraordinary prize. Thank you to Paul Lefebvre, Caryl Churchill, Maureen Labonté and André Brassard who have not only supported my nomination but have encouraged and inspired my work for almost 20 years. For over and above the money or the time and means it provides, the real significance of this prize is this: to encourage the pursuit of an ever greater freedom, among those few that last and endure.

2014 Protégé

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