Thank you so much. This is an immense moment in our lives. The list of Siminovitch Laureates over the years is full of our heroes, truly – people who have hacked out the trail forward for the likes of us, following in their footsteps. It was a great honour to have been selected as finalists alongside Itai, Sonoyo, and Deb.

Thank you so much to the jury for taking on such an impossible task and to all the excellent people of the Siminovitch Theatre Foundation – Aimée, Sam, the board of directors, and most definitely the people who donated to the Foundation to make it all possible – and also to the filmmakers George, Patrick, and Dan – you have all been so generous with us, and the fact that you are spending your life’s energy on this work is a great gift to the entire community. And, of course, thank you to Lou and Elinore Siminovitch for being the inspiration for this whole enterprise. 

It’s wonderful to see how the Siminovitch Prize has expanded its scope over the past years to become much more of a process than a prize. Being shortlisted is just the beginning – through the backstage conversation, the documentary, and even the writing of this speech, we’ve all been forced to think about our careers, our lives, our work on this planet in the short time we have.

Part of that beautifully made documentary was a formal interview bit. Patrick and George, God love them, separated the three of us to be interrogated alone. The light blazed in our eyes, and then a voice came from a George-shaped silhouette. His first merciless question, right out of the gate: “why theatre?”

It landed like a boulder fired from some sort of existential catapult. God – why theatre? How can we not have an answer to that question in a holster right there on our hip? Don’t we all have it written on post-it notes on our bathroom mirrors? Don’t we sing patriotic songs about it while we do our vigorous morning calisthenics? What if we don’t even know anymore? What if we never did? What if we stood up and shrieked “you’re right, it was a bad idea, forget it, we’ve wasted our lives,” tore off our lapel mikes and ran off into the tundra, our howls dwindling in the distant wind?

None of us can actually remember what we did say. But now that we’ve had the chance to think it over a bit, we think it’s actually pretty simple. We just really like the feeling of being part of a big group of people. We like the way we feel when we’re chipping away at some puppet part in one corner of the workshop, knowing that a great gang of good chums are working away on other parts of the same whole, with music blaring on the stereo, and sawdust everywhere, and a big pot of stew on the stove. 

We love the sort of friendship that grows out of throwing everything you have into a project that sometimes feels as precarious as a life raft made out of old shampoo bottles and twigs. We love the shared terror of opening night and the shared jubilation when the raft is launched. We love the parties. We love the scene. And we love the feeling of an audience, laughing, clapping, breathing, unwrapping lozenges, whatever – what we mean is, we love human warmth – actual human warmth, not figurative. The presence of other bodies, like we used to feel all piled up on the floor of the cave, huddled in a heap against the cruel world waiting outside, which brings with it the sense that we’re going through something together, being changed together, coming out the other end of something together – spending a little bit of our life on this earth with these particular other people, on the stage, in the seats next to us, comrades on an absurd and beautiful voyage. 

And so the best thing about this whole thing, a gift from all the people who work to make this night happen, is that it’s an opportunity for all of us, the strange and wonderful clan of Canadian theatre, to give a great hooray for who we are, where we’ve been, and wherever we’re going. What is it, a cave, a puppet workshop, or a life raft? Choose a metaphor, Trouts! Whatever it is, we are so utterly happy to be part of it. Thank you for having us.

We would also very much like to thank some particular people. Jill Keiley, our nominator, and the lovely people who wrote letters of support for our nomination, Vanessa Porteous, Bradley Moss, Louise Lapoint, and Brenna Corner – truly, your faith in us has given us courage since the very beginning. 

Marcie Januska, our intrepid Executive Director, who makes it all happen. To our old GM Bob Davis, who steered the ship for over a decade, and Cimmeron Meyer before him, who also designed our lights and did a thousand other things, and Donna Kwan before that, and to our ridiculously stalwart board of directors, and to our friend and landlord Doug McKeag, and our great mentor Grant Burns  – so much of what we’ve done over the years is thanks to all of you. 

To Steve Pearce, Bobby Hall, and all the folks who were with us in the early years. To our much-loved collaborators – Jen Gareau, who breathes life into all our puppets with her exquisite costumes, Lane Shordee, our protégé, brave master of the workshop, Mike Rinaldi, sound designer of poignancy and hilarity, Elaine Weryshko, who runs the Canadian Academy of Mask and Puppetry, and fills our workshop with life and bustle, our fabulous Famous Puppet Death Scenes ensemble, and so many more. 

We thank our parents for all that they have done. We thank our children, Sofía, Max, Juno, Walker, Zaria, Zoe, Zack, who inspire us, endure our absences, and welcome us back when we’ve been away. And most of all, we thank our wives and partners, who are the answer to the question, why life? Mercedes Bátiz-Benét, Nan Balkwill, and Jennifer Coveyduc.