Franco Boni Receives 2013 George Luscombe Award

The George Luscombe Award was inaugurated in 1999. Revolutionary theatre founder and artistic director George Luscombe founded Toronto Workshop Productions in 1959, marking the beginnings of Toronto's alternative theatre movement. He was Artistic Director for 27 years at TWP.

This year's recipient is Franco Boni, General and Artistic Director of The Theatre Centre in Toronto. Boni has led the organization since 2003, and is about to see the fruition of a lasting achievement: a permanent Live Arts Hub in the former Carnegie Library in the heart of the West Queen West community. Opening in 2013, it will be the new home for The Theatre Centre. Not only will this new performance venue be a vital space for Toronto's theatre community, it represents the fact that Boni has been instrumental in shaping the future of one of Toronto's fastest changing neighborhoods.

Franco Boni is an artistic thinker and visionary who pushes the boundaries of form and thought in the realm of theatre creation. In his capacity as Director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre's groundbreaking Youth Outreach Program in the late 1990s, Artistic Director of the Rhubarb Festival (1997-1999), the SummerWorks Festival (2000-2004) and The Theatre Centre (2003-present), he has provided programming and development opportunities to countless artists, and inspired them to achieve excellence. He is also the inaugural recipient of the Ken McDougall Award for emerging directors, and was awarded the Rita Davies Cultural Leadership Award, recognizing his outstanding leadership in the development of arts and culture in the City of Toronto.

Franco Boni has been one of the most consistently devoted, rigorous, and innovative mentors in the community. He has mentored artist/producers like Cathy Gordon, Laura Nanni, Michael Wheeler, Ravi Jain and, most recently, Zoe Sweet. Through the Theatre Centre's residency program which he devised, Boni has supported the early work of such artists as Jennifer Tarver, Ame Henderson, Evan Weber, Frank Cox-O'Connell, Evalyn Parry, Erin Brandenburg, Phil McKee and the bluemouth inc. collective. The boundary-pushing work that he has seeded and mentored would very likely not have found a home elsewhere. The Theatre Centre's residency program has become one of Canada's most successful development initiatives and has been used as a prototype by other companies across the country.

Franco Boni is also one of our most tireless advocates, having sat on numerous arts funding sub-committees, juries and boards. He has played an instrumental role in the creation of new theatrical space in our city, first with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre's move to its current Alexander Street location, and presently with the creation of a new home for the Theatre Centre.

He is equally as committed to the larger community as he is to the theatre community, and understands that the relationship between the two is critical. That commitment to community sits at the core of his work. Since its formation in 2005, Boni has been part of Active 18, a community group in the West Queen West area of Toronto, instrumental in retaining the cultural foundation of the neighbourhood.

Previous winners of The George Luscombe Award are Yvette Nolan, Leah Cherniak & Martha Ross, Iris Turcott, Andy McKim, ahdri zhina mandiela, Layne Coleman, Alison Sealy-Smith, Winston Morgan, Maja Ardal, Urjo Kareda, Ken Gass, Jenny Phipps and Ruth Howard.

The George Luscombe Award is administered by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts. Committee members are: Chair - Maja Ardal, Steven Bush, Ravi Jain and Anusree Roy. The George Luscombe Award comes with original artwork by Theo Dimson, a copy of the recently launched bookConversations with George Luscombe: Steven Bush in conversation with the Canadian Theatre visionary and, beginning this year, the recipient also receives a cash prize of $1,000 through the generous sponsorship of an anonymous donor.

The Dora Mavor Moore Awards are administered by the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA). In addition to the Doras, other programs and services provided by TAPA include: T.O. TIX - Toronto's Official One Stop Ticket Shop at Yonge-Dundas Square and online at www.totix.ca; Toronto's Official Theatre Guide; hipTIX, offering $5 tickets to students between the ages of 15 and 29; citySPECIAL; the Commercial Theatre Development Fund; and the Travel Retreat Initiatives Program - TRIP. For more information visit, www.tapa.ca and www.totix.ca.