Award amount: $2,500
The Jon Kaplan Fund Awards will offer support and encouragement to theatre artists of merit and need. There is no “best” associated with these Awards, and the adjudicating committees will be focussed on selecting the most appropriate recipients based on these criteria.
Nomination Guidelines:
Who can make a nomination? Each award cycle, the Jon Kaplan Legacy Fund selects a different theatre program from which to find the award recipient. For 2023, the recipient will be a graduating student from Theatre and Drama Studies at Sheridan College and the University of Toronto at Mississauga.
- The recipient of this award is nominated by the faculty of the school selected for the current year’s award cycle.
Who to nominate?
Jon Kaplan made it central to his work as a theatre writer to seek out and support artists whose work showed merit and commitment, regardless of the size of theatre or profile of the work, and he frequently went out of his way to offer encouragement to artists who were having a challenging time making their way. In addition, Jon saw as much student work as he was able because he loved to follow an artist’s career from the very start, and he knew that even a mention by him in NOW could give a young artist a much needed personal boost.
The Jon Kaplan Legacy Fund Awards are intended to acknowledge and support artists of merit and need, and we invite you to select one student from your current graduating class who fits these criteria to receive a cash gift from the Fund along with your acknowledgement of their work and potential.
Eligibility Criteria:
Open to a graduating student from a Canadian post-secondary theatre school; theatre schools are selected by the Jon Kaplan Fund Board on a rotating basis. Past honoured theatre school programs have included: Sheridan College, Ryerson University, and George Brown College.
Important Dates:
The Jon Kaplan Legacy Fund Awards will be open to receive submissions and nominations February 8, 2023. The Fund will accept submissions and nominations until March 31, 2023 in order to give us adequate time to process what we’ve received.
The fifth annual Jon Kaplan Legacy Fund Awards will be presented at a reception on May 17, 2023.
Submission Guidelines:
- The recipient of this award must be nominated by the faculty of the school selected for this year’s award;
- Faculty are encouraged to select one student from the current graduating class who shows both merit and commitment to the art.
- This award acknowledges both the recipient’s body of work as a student, as well as their potential for the future;
- To suggest a worthy theatre school or program for future consider, please email your recommendation to info [at] jonkaplanfund.com.