Recommender Grants for Theatre Creators

Applications are closed for this year’s Recommender Grants for Theatre Creators.

This third-party recommender program assists Ontario-based professional theatre creators, and informal collectives of creators, by funding them to create and/or further develop new work. While the funding comes from the Ontario Arts Council, applications are made to, and funding decisions are made by, the theatre companies enrolled in the program. The Musical Stage Company is proud to be enrolled as a Recommender.

Through this granting program, The Musical Stage Company will fund any type of musical theatre creation or development activity submitted by eligible applicants. You can request an amount between $1000-$3000 for your project.

Stay tuned for when applications open up again. Applications must be made through the Ontario Arts Council’s online application portal (NOVA). You must register for a NOVA account to apply.

Please refer to the Ontario Arts Council website for full program and application guidelines.

For any questions, please email Patricia Cerra, Artistic Development Associate, at patriciacerra@musicalstagecompany.com.

Recommender Grants for Theatre Creators

Applications are closed for this year’s Recommender Grants for Theatre Creators.

Stay tuned for when applications open up again. Applications must be made through the Ontario Arts Council’s online application portal (NOVA). You must register for a NOVA account to apply.

Please refer to the Ontario Arts Council website for full program and application guidelines.

For any questions, please email Patricia Cerra, Artistic Development Associate, at patriciacerra@musicalstagecompany.com.

Introducing our 2023/24 Recommender Grant Recipients:

Camille Intson & Jake Schindler – WALSH

Camille Intson is a Toronto based multidisciplinary artist and researcher whose practice spans writing, performance, music, new media, and emerging technology. Her award-winning body of work frequently explores themes of queer and femme intimacy and sexuality, intergenerational power relations, and critical whiteness, often pandering to new generation audiences. Recent projects include JANE (Tarragon/Greenhouse), Death to the Prometheans! (Studio180 IN DEVELOPMENT/RBC Emerging Playwright), troubadour (2022 Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award Winner, 2023 Canadian Folk Music Award Nominee), Click Bush Train Bug (Tarragon/TMU), and We All Got Lost (2021 Playwrights’ Guild of Canada Tom Hendry Award Winner). More at camilleintson.com or @thecamiliad.

Jake Schindler is a Toronto based composer, music director, and orchestrator. From large commercial theatre to Fringe shows, Jake works on projects that
are music-forward and use music to tell stories in new and interesting ways. Recently, he has worked on two Dora-nominated shows (Mirvish, Mixtape
Produc2ons), three TO Fringe Patron’s Pick musicals, is completing a cast recording of his show “Ursa, A Folk Musical”, was the 2023 Associate Keyboard Programmer at the Stratford and Shaw Festivals, and is a music director at The Second City (Toronto) and Comedy Bar Danforth. Check out more of his work: jakeschindler.com.

Riel Reddick-Stevens & Aaron Jan – Lay-Up

Riel Reddick-Stevens (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and performer based in Toronto. Alongside acting, Riel works as a composer, playwright and arts educator. She and collaborator Aaron Jan, were the inaugural recipients of Highland art theatre’s Rita Joe Playwriting award for their musical LAYUP. Riel is also the founder of Roots of Creation; a collective dedicated to providing Black Nova Scotian youth with accessible artistic training and experiences. Riel is interested in creating art that centers Black and Queer voices ; with themes of coming of age, joy and discovering self. As an educator and creator she has worked on bringing accessibility to theatre with companies including Neptune Theatre, Geordie Theatre, House & Body, Black theatre workshop, YPT and more!

Aaron Jan is a playwright, director and dramaturg. He has worked as a creator with Factory Theatre, Canadian Stage, Theatre Aquarius, fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre, Soulpepper, Boca Del Lupo, York University, Theatre Sheridan, Theatre Erindale, and most recently with Theatre Direct. Aaron is a member of the critically acclaimed Silk Bath Collective, whose production of WOKING PHOENIX will premiere in Theatre Passe Muraille’s 2023/2024 season in April. He is the 2019 winner of the Ken McDougall directing award, the 2021 co-winner of the Rita Joe Playwriting Award, a 2021 co-recipient of Musical Stage Company’s Aubrey and Marla Dan Fund for New Musicals, a 2021 Johanna Protege Recipient, and the 2022 winner of Tarragon Theatre’s Urjo Kareda Award for Emerging Artists.

Kate Hennig – The Salon

Kate’s playwriting includes The Last Wife, The Virgin Trial, and Mother’s Daughter all of which premiered at the Stratford Festival and went on to subsequent productions at Soulpepper Theatre in Toronto. The Virgin Trial won the Carol Bolt Award for Best New Play 2017, and was short-listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama in the same year. Kate translated and adapted Cyrano de Bergerac for the Shaw Festival in 2019, where it enjoyed a remount in 2021. Kate adapted Oscar Wilde’s stories for children, Wilde Tales for the Shaw Festival in 2017. Kate’s plays have had over 30 productions across Canada, in the U.S., and as far away as Sydney, Australia and Glasgow, Scotland. The Last Wife is currently being translated into French by Governor General’s Award winning translator, Maryse Warda.

Ellen Denny & Frances Koncan – THE GREAT(er) MAPLE SYRUP HEIST

Ellen Denny – Book / Music / Lyrics

Ellen Denny (she/her) is a Toronto-based playwright and performer. For Musical Stage, Ellen starred as Alice in LIFE AFTER (Dora nomination), and participated in the Noteworthy and Launchpad programs, where she was book writer for WHAT GOES UP (RePrint). Ellen’s play TAKE CARE debuted at Here for Now Theatre in 2022 and was featured in The New York Times. Her contemporary comedy PLEASUREVILLE premiered at Neptune Theatre in 2019, and was subsequently produced at The Guild Charlottetown. Ellen is co-creator of pandemic rom com FEBRUARY: A LOVE STORY with Emilio Vieira, which was featured on CBC q, played digitally with Magnus Theatre and the Stratford Festival, and live with Globus Theatre.

Frances Koncan – Dramaturg / Cultural Consultant

Frances Koncan (she/they) is an Anishinaabe and Slovene playwright currently living
in Vancouver, British Columbia, within the shared, unceded, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Originally from Couchiching First Nation, they grew up on Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba and attended the University of Manitoba (BA Psychology) and the City University of New York Brooklyn College (MFA Playwriting). They are currently Assistant Professor of Playwriting at the University of British Columbia. Select plays include: Women of the Fur Trade, Space Girl, and zahgidiwin/love.

Hailey Gillis, Raoul Bhaneja, Frank Cox-O’Connell – Ghosts of Corktown

Hailey Gillis is an award-winning actress who has performed across Canada, as well as off-Broadway. Hailey won a 2023 Dora Mavor Moore Award for her work in The Shape of Home, Songs in Search of Al Purdy and is also a New York Times ‘Critics Pick’ award winner. Recent theatre credits include: Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (Crow’s Theatre), The Shape of Home, Songs in Search of Al Purdy (County Stage Company/Crow’s Theatre); Ghost Quartet (Crow’s Theatre); Jane Eyre (Citadel Theatre); Onegin (National Arts Centre/ The Arts Club/ The Musical Stage Company); Hedda Gabbler (Necessary Angel/Canadian Stage); Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Wives of Windsor (Bard on the Beach); The Seagull, Rose, Steinbeck Through Song, The Dybbuk, Marat/Sade, Blood Wedding (Soulpepper Theatre); and Uncovered: The Music of Abba, Uncovered: The Music of Dolly Parton (The Musical Stage Company).

Raoul Bhaneja is a graduate of The National Theatre School and has worked for the last thirty years as an actor, musician, writer and producer with appearances across the country with his Hope and Hell Theatre Co. productions of Hamlet (solo), Disgraced and Life, Death and The Blues. He has appeared in over 130 different television and film projects and released eight recordings on his label Big Time Records. Photo by Benjo Arwas.

Frank Cox-O’Connell is a theatre director and actor from Toronto. He has performed in over 50 theatre productions, including Hamlet and Hedda Gabler with Canadian Stage, Hand To God at Coal Mine Theatre and Spoon River at Soulpepper where he also writes and directs for the Soulpepper Concert Series. He directed and co-created The Shape of Home, a song-cycle based on the poetry of Al Purdy. His directing credits include Romeo & Juliet (Canadian Stage), Fool For Love (Soulpepper), Other Jesus (Public Recordings) and Ajax & Little Iliad, a double bill of plays created with his longtime collaborator Evan Webber that toured across Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan. His body of work was shortlisted for the 2020 John Hirsch Director’s Award, other awards include Dora Awards for performance and musical direction, My Entertainment Awards for direction and acting and a SummerWorks Spotlight Award for performance. Frank started as a drummer in the rock group Boys Who Say No. He studied directing at the Soulpepper Academy with his mentor Daniel Brooks, acting at The National Theatre School of Canada and music in the arts programs of the Toronto District School Board.

Ben Page – All the Cows Are Dead

Ben Page is a non-binary theatre artist and musician, born and raised on the land colonially known as Toronto. Their composition debut Leaving Eden (book and lyrics by Jenny Waxman) won best musical in the New York Musical Festival in 2019. In 2021, Ben workshopped a new musical with Germaine Konji called The Lobster Who Cried Person as part of Bad Hats’ New Bad Ideas. Ben strives to create work that centers the collective live experience inherent to theatre as an artform. Selected performance credits include: Caterpillar in Alice (Bad Hats), Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Drayton), Bear in Ursa: A Folk Musical (Tweed & Co), Doug in The Crack of Doom (Toronto Fringe).

Our Priorities

We are seeking new musical theatre work that uses music to illuminate the human condition and where the music is integral to the emotional journey of the storytelling. As a collaborative art form with complex and intricate craft required for each discipline involved, preference is given to musical theatre works written by teams who each specialize in a particular area (e.g. book, music, lyrics) rather than a single artist who attempts all three components.

Eligibility

You are eligible if you are:

Professional theatre artists who are residents of Ontario with a permanent physical address in Ontario.
Ad hoc groups/collectives composed of a majority of Ontario residents.
The applicants must have no outstanding reports to the OAC and that the maximum number of applications is not exceeded (5).

You must meet the eligibility criteria found in the Program Guidelines on the Ontario Arts Council website.

You are not eligible if you are:

An organization
Non-professional applicants
Employees or board members of the recommending theatre organization, or immediate family members of staff or board members

Grant Amounts

You may request an amount between $1,000-$3,000* for your project.

What our Recommender Grant funds:

Any type of musical theatre creation / development activity submitted by eligible applicants.

What this program does not fund:

Creation of non-theatre work (i.e. film, radio, TV, fiction, poetry, etc)
Workshop costs, except when the intention of the workshop is creation not workshops leading towards rehearsal or production.
Productions
Activities in French (see the Théâtre – projets francophones program)

The activities for which you are requesting funding:

Cannot start before our deadline
Cannot finish before you receive your grant results, up to six weeks after the deadline
Must be completed no more than two years after you receive the grant results

*Note: Grant amounts are typically under $3000 to best accommodate as many applicants as possible. If successful, you may receive less than your requested amount. You cannot apply to this program if you have an overdue final report in any OAC grant program.

Application Process

Applications are completed and submitted through the Ontario Arts Council’s online application program (NOVA). Interested applicants must register for a NOVA account to apply. The deadline to submit your application for The Musical Stage Company is Monday, December 18, 2023 at 1pm EST.

Please submit the following supporting materials in addition to the project description and Artistic Merit questions on NOVA:

C.V. (mandatory)
Script Sample (Max 10 pages)
Audio/Visual (Max 2 songs)

Please note that recommenders no longer notify applicants about grant results. All applicants will be notified by OAC through their Nova account.

If you receive a grant you must submit a final report in Nova upon completion of the project. See Terms and Conditions — receipt of OAC project grant funds for more information on reporting obligations.

For full application details and to register for a NOVA account please visit the Ontario Arts Council website here.