The richest award in Canadian theatre, the Siminovitch Prize honours a professional theatre artist with $100,000, part of which goes to a young artist mentored by the recipient.
The winner rotates annually between directors, playwrights and designers.
This year’s award goes one of four nominees, playwrights scattered across the country.
The jury includes John Van Burek, Rachel Ditor, Brian Dooley, Brendan Healy and Jean-Denis Leduc.
Two of the writers are Franco-Canadian. Michel Marc Bouchard was recently on the Stratford Festival roster with a production of Christina, The Girl King. He’s also well known for such works as Lilies, The Coronation Voyage, The Orphan Muses and The Madonna Painter. Olivier Choinière’s plays are less well known in English Canada, though Bliss, the translation of his French script Félicité, was a success here first at SummerWorks and then at Buddies.
Hannah Moscovitch is a familiar Toronto theatre artist and the author of East Of Berlin, Essay, This Is War and The Russian Play. Colleen Murphy’s works, some of which use real-life events to look at human frailties and tragedies, include The Piper, The December Man and Pig Girl.
The winner will be announced Monday (October 20) at Hart House Theatre, the evening hosted by Susan Coyne and Mark McKinney.
For more information, see siminovitchprize.com.
Several events lead up to the presentation. On Thursday (October 16), Chris Abraham and Mitchell Cushman, the winner and protege recipients of the 2013 Siminovitch, will be in conversation about mentorship in the arts. The U of T’s Banuta Rubess, also a director and writer, will moderate the evening at Hart House Theatre. See listing and uofttix.ca.
You’re guaranteed laughs at this month’s National Theatre of the World’s Script Tease, where the four finalists will be asked to write the first few lines of a new play. The National’s talented Naomi Snieckus and Matt Baram then improvise the rest of the scene. The improv session, hosted by 2008 Siminovitch winner Daniel MacIvor, is Sunday (October 19) at the Tarragon Theatre. See listing.
