The Metcalf Basis has introduced the 5 winners and their protégés for the 2025 Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prizes / Les Prix Johanna-Metcalf des Arts de la scène (Johannas). Every winner receives a money award of $25,000, and every protégé acquired $10,000.
As well as, every of the remaining 10 finalists receives a prize of $2,000, with a complete of $195,000 in prizes. The winners had been introduced at a ceremony at Toronto’s Gardiner Museum on Might 5, 2025.
The Johannas acknowledge mid-career Ontario-based artists who’ve made a major impression within the fields of dance, theatre, and music/opera, in addition to within the public eye, and are engaged in ongoing revolutionary practices. The prize is known as in honour of Johanna Metcalf, who led the work of the Metcalf Basis, based by her father-in-law George Cedric Metcalf as a charitable basis in 1960, for greater than 4 a long time.
Winners & Protégés
“We’re thrilled to rejoice such a gifted group of artists via the Johannas this 12 months. Their work exemplifies the resilience, creativity, and daring imaginative and prescient that outline Ontario’s inventive panorama,” stated Owen Pallett, 2025 Johannas Chair, in an announcement. “As Chair, I’m honoured to be a part of this course of and excited to see the unimaginable impression these winners and their protégés will proceed to have on the way forward for the humanities. To know that the inventive follow is alive and effectively in Ontario, and that we’re supporting these trailblazers, is extremely inspiring.”
- Kevin Lau, composer (Ottawa, Ontario) with protégé Michelle Lorimer, composer;
- Alain Doom, playwright and actor (Ottawa, Ontario) with protégé Dillon Orr, director;
- Sarah Gartshore, playwright and director (Sudbury, Ontario) with protégé Adam Francis Proulx, theatre creator and puppeteer;
- Weyni Mengesha, director (Toronto, Ontario) with protégé Luke Reece, poet, playwright, and director;
- d’bi.younger anitafrika, dub poet, playwright, dramaturge, and scholar (Brampton, Ontario) with protégé Sashoya Simpson, author, storyteller, and theatre practitioner.
The remaining ten finalists for the 2025 Johannas had been: Penny Couchie, Christine Friday, Donna Grantis, Haviah Mighty, Lua Shayenne, Louis Simão, Vanese Smith, Adrian Sutherland, Marni Walsh, and Naishi Wang.
Artists are nominated for the Johannas by their friends, in partnership with the Ontario Arts Council. Artists who’ve been producing and displaying work for not less than 10 years had been eligible to be nominated.
Are you seeking to promote an occasion? Have a information tip? Must know the perfect occasions occurring this weekend? Ship us a observe.
#LUDWIGVAN
Get the day by day arts information straight to your inbox.
Join the Ludwig Van Toronto e-Blast! — native classical music and opera information straight to your inbox HERE.
Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 a long time, and a inventive writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
