Recipients announced for the fourth annual Jon Kaplan Legacy Fund Awards

Today would have been Jon’s 75th birthday. I know we all miss him. Jon cared about our theatre community. He showed up for over thirty years. We are striving to support Canadian theatre makers in his honour.

Thanks to your donations, the Jon Kaplan Legacy Fund has been able to support local theatre makers through our annual awards, a variety of community grants, the funding of emerging artist programs at Toronto Fringe, Intermission Magazine, and the Paprika Festival, as well as a substantial gift this year to the Actors’ Fund of Canada.

We need your help to grow the Fund and expand our work. Please remember Jon and make a donation today.

We are also thrilled to share with you today the Fund’s fourth annual theatre award recipients, three incredible artists to celebrate:

Tuna Gümeli, Recipient of the Graduating Student Award, as a recent graduate of the Department of Theatre, School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design at York University.
Jasmine Chen, Recipient of the Canadian Stage Performer Award.
Julie Phan, Recipient of the Young Canadian Playwright Award

This year we doubled our award amounts, acknowledging the particular challenges of theatre making during the pandemic. Over the past four years the Jon Kaplan Legacy Fund has given away $50,000 in award money in support and encouragement of Canadian theatre artists.

We gratefully acknowledge the work of this year’s jurors: Lee MacDougall, Alison Lawrence, Marcia Johnson, Jeff Ho (Playwright Jurors); Michaela Washburn, Virgilia Griffith, Catherine McNally, Christopher Morris, athena kaitlin trinh (Performer Jurors); as well as announcement support from Ted Dykstra, Jeff Ho, Gillian Clark, Esther Jun, Allyson McMackon, Blair Francey, Daniel Malavasi, and the entire JKLF team.

– Don Cole