Frontmezzjunkies reports: TAPA announces 2025 Dora Mavor Moore Award Recipients
Productions with Multiple Award Wins Include: Mahabharata, Last Landscape, Mukashi, Mukashi (Once Upon a Time), People, Places and Things, everything i wanted to tell you (but couldn’t, so here it is now), Big Time Miss, La Reine-garçon, and Aportia Chryptych: A Black Opera for Portia White
Outstanding Individual Performance Awards went to Miriam Fernandes,
Alexandra Laferrière, Louise Lambert, Kirsten MacKinnon, Malachi McCaskill, and Sully Malaeb Proulx.
Toronto, ON (June 30, 2025) – The Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA) announced the recipients of the 45th Anniversary Dora Mavor Moore Awards presented by the Romano D’Andrea Foundation. The Awards were presented on Monday, June 30, at a very festive evening ceremony at Meridian Hall hosted by actor Peter Fernandes.
“For forty-five years, the Dora Awards have celebrated the world-class excellence that our performing arts sector in Toronto can offer. This has been a banner year for the Awards, honouring an unstoppable amount of talent in our city across divisions of Theatre, Opera, and Dance.
My heart soars specifically for the artists who received their first nominations or first awards this year; twenty-six individual artists and companies received their first ever Doras, some of whom took home multiple in their divisions. I hope these awards and nominations prove as monumental to these artists and companies as they have to the countless artists who have been celebrated since the first Awards in 1980, and that we continue to see their names in lights across our city, our province, and on national and international stages.” Victor Pokinko, Producer, Dora Awards
The Jon Kaplan Audience Choice Award, sponsored by Now Toronto and voted on by the public, went to Shifting Ground Collective‘s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which also won Dora Awards for Outstanding Production and Creative Direction in the Musical Theatre division.
This year’s Silver Ticket Award, presented annually by TAPA to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the stage in the Toronto area, went to actor/director/playwright and Founding Artistic Director of Aluna Theatre, Beatriz Pizano.
For more about this year’s recipients, please visit tapa.ca.
The Dora Awards, Canada’s largest and oldest awards program, celebrates the incredible talent within Toronto’s professional theatre, dance, and opera communities.
This year, there were 225 nominations across 43 gender-inclusive award categories within seven divisions, reflecting the remarkable artistry of the 2024-2025 season. This year’s nominations encompassed 81 shows from 59 registered companies.
Below are the recipients for this year’s awards in the general, independent, musical theatre, theatre for young audiences, opera, dance, and touring divisions. A complete list can also be found on the TAPA website.
General Theatre Division
Outstanding Production
Mahabharata: Karma (Part 1), The Life We Inherit (Why Not Theatre presented by Canadian Stage)
Outstanding New Play
Mahabharata: Karma (Part 1), The Life We Inherit by Miriam Fernandes and Ravi Jain (Why Not Theatre presented by Canadian Stage)
Outstanding Direction
Ravi Jain, Mahabharata: Karma (Part 1), The Life We Inherit (Why Not Theatre presented by Canadian Stage)
Outstanding Performance by an Individual
Miriam Fernandes in Mahabharata: Karma (Part 1), The Life We Inherit (Why Not Theatre presented by Canadian Stage)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble
FLEX: Jewell Bowry, Jasmine Case, Asha James, Trinity Lloyd, Shauna Thompson, Sophia Walker (Crow’s Theatre and Obsidian Theatre Company)
Outstanding Scenic/Projection Design
Nick Blais (Scenic) and Laura Warren(Projection) for seven methods of killing kylie jenner (Obsidian Theatre in association with Crow’s Theatre)
Outstanding Costume Design
Ronnie Burkett for Wonderful Joe (TO Live)
Outstanding Lighting Design
Raha Javanfar for FLEX (Crow’s Theatre and Obsidian Theatre Company)
Outstanding Sound Design/Composition
John Gzowski and Suba Sankaran for Mahabharata: Karma (Part 1), The Life We Inherit (Why Not Theatre presented by Canadian Stage)
Independent Theatre Division
Outstanding Production
People, Places and Things (Coal Mine Theatre)
Outstanding New Play
The Tempest: A Witch in Algiers by Makram Ayache (Shakespeare in the Ruff)
Outstanding Direction
Diana Bentley and Alyssa Martin, People, Places and Things (Coal Mine Theatre)
Outstanding Performance by an Individual
Louise Lambert in People, Places and Things (Coal Mine Theatre)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble
People, Places and Things: Oliver Dennis, Nickeshia Garrick, Farhang Ghajar, Matthew Gouveia, Sam Grist, Sarah Murphy-Dyson, Kwaku Okyere, Fiona Reid, Kaleb Tekeste (Coal Mine Theatre)
Outstanding Scenic/Projection Design
Adam Paolozza and Ken MacKenzie(Scenic), and Roxanne Ignatius (Scenic Marionettes); Graeme Black Robinson, Clelia Scala, and Puppetmongers Theatre (Additional Puppets) for Last Landscape (Bad New Days in partnership with Common Boots Theatre)
Outstanding Costume Design
Atsuko Kiyokawa for Mukashi, Mukashi (Once Upon a Time) (CORPUS)
Outstanding Lighting Design
Yann Becker, Mukashi, Mukashi (Once Upon a Time) (CORPUS)
Outstanding Sound Design/Composition
Cheldon Paterson (SlowPitchSound), Last Landscape (Bad New Days in partnership with Common Boots Theatre)
Musical Theatre Division
Outstanding Production
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Shifting Ground Collective)
Outstanding New Musical/New Opera
(shared by the Musical Theatre and Opera divisions)
Aportia Chryptych: A Black Opera for Portia White by Sean Mayes (Composer); HAUI (Librettist) (Canadian Opera Company, in association with the National Arts Centre’s National Creation Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, and Ontario Arts Council)
Outstanding Performance by an Individual
Malachi McCaskill in A Strange Loop (The Musical Stage Company, Soulpepper Theatre Company, Crow’s Theatre, and TO Live)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble
A Strange Loop: Sierra Holder, Amaka Umeh, Matt Nethersole, David Andrew Reid, Nathanael Judah, Marcus Nance, Charlie Clark, David Lopez (The Musical Stage Company, Soulpepper Theatre Company, Crow’s Theatre, and TO Live)
Outstanding Creative Direction
Jennifer Walls (Director), Nicholas Rocque(Choreographer), and Michael Ippolito(Musical Director), for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Shifting Ground Collective)
Outstanding Achievement in Design
Ming Wong (Costume), The Wizard of Oz: The Toto-ly Awesome Family Musical (Canadian Stage in association with the Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres)
Opera Division
Outstanding Production
La Reine-garçon (A Canadian Opera Company co-production with Opéra de Montréal)
Outstanding Performance by an Individual
Kirsten MacKinnon in La Reine-garçon (A Canadian Opera Company co-production with Opéra de Montréal)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble
Aportia Chryptych: A Black Opera for Portia White: Neema Bickersteth, Adrienne Danrich, SATE (Canadian Opera Company, in association with the National Arts Centre’s National Creation Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, and Ontario Arts Council)
Outstanding Creative Direction
Angela Konrad (Director) and Johannes Debus (Musical Director) for La Reine-garçon (A Canadian Opera Company co-production with Opéra de Montréal)
Outstanding Achievement in Design
Catherine Meyburgh (Projection), Wozzeck (Canadian Opera Company co-production with The Salzburg Festival, The Metropolitan Opera, and Opera Australia)
Theatre for Young Audiences Division
Outstanding Production
Alligator Pie (Soulpepper Theatre Company)
Outstanding New Play
Patty Picker by Evan Bawtinheimer (One Four One Collective in association with The Assembly Theatre)
Outstanding Direction
Severn Thompson (Director) and James Smith (Music Supervisor), Alligator Pie (Soulpepper Theatre Company)
Outstanding Performance by an Individual
Alexandra Laferrière in Taking Care of Maman (Roseneath Theatre and Black Theatre Workshop)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble
Alligator Pie: Alicia Barban, Belinda Corpuz, Ben Kopp, Ruaridh MacDonald, and Haneul Yi (Soulpepper Theatre Company)
Outstanding Achievement in Design
Logan Raju Cracknell (Lighting), Alligator Pie (Soulpepper Theatre Company)
Dance Division
Outstanding Production
everything i wanted to tell you (but couldn’t, so here it is now) (Citadel + Compagnie)
Outstanding Original Choreography
Jessie Garon, everything i wanted to tell you (but couldn’t, so here it is now) (Citadel + Compagnie)
Outstanding Performance by an Individual
Sully Malaeb Proulx, everything i wanted to tell you (but couldn’t, so here it is now) (Citadel + Compagnie)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble
Big Time Miss: Drew Berry, Brayden Jamil Cairns, Sam Grist, Steph Harkness, Natasha Poon Woo (Rock Bottom Movement presented by Fall For Dance North)
Outstanding Original Sound Composition
Semiah and Jacob Vanderham for Big Time Miss (Rock Bottom Movement presented by Fall For Dance North)
Outstanding Achievement in Design
Noah Feaver (Lighting), Big Time Miss (Rock Bottom Movement presented by Fall For Dance North)
Outstanding Touring Production
Wilma (Porta Teatro presented by Aluna Theatre’s RUTAS International Performing Arts Festival)
Outstanding Innovative Experience
Game of Life (bluemouth inc. presented by The Theatre Centre)
The Dora Awards are peer-nominated by respected members of Toronto’s professional performing arts community. Jurors include performers, designers, directors, producers, administrators, arts educators and more, representing a spectrum of ages, gender identities, sexualities, experience, training, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and company affiliations.
