The Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, Independent Theatre is a Canadian theatre award, presented as part of the Dora Mavor Moore Awards to honour the year's best new play by a Canadian playwright which had its premiere in the Toronto theatre market in the previous year.
The award was first presented in 1988 as an award for small theatre productions. In 1993, a separate award for mid-sized theatre was introduced, with the definitions set at 200 seats or less for small theatres and 200 to 500 seats for midsize theatres. [1] The awards were presented alongside each other to different plays until 1997; in 1998, the awards were merged as a single award for independent theatre production.
| Year | Playwright | Title | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Stewart Lemoine | The Vile Governess and Other Psychodramas | [2] |
| Leah Cherniak, Robert Morgan, Martha Ross | The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine | [3] | |
| Robin Fulford | Steel Kiss | ||
| Michael Hollingsworth | Confederation and Riel | ||
| Diego Matamoros, Dean Gilmour, Michele Smith | The Green Bird | ||
| 1989 | John Mighton | Scientific Americans | [4] |
| Don Druick | Where Is Kabuki? | [5] | |
| Tomson Highway | The Sage, the Dancer and the Fool | ||
| Bruce McCulloch | Jazz Stenographers | ||
| Martha Ross | Paranoia |
| Year | Playwright | Title | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Sky Gilbert | The Whore's Revenge: A Victorian Melodrama | [6] |
| Daniel MacIvor, Ken McDougall, Edward Roy | White Trash Blue Eye | [7] | |
| Tony Nardi | A Modo Suo (A fable) | ||
| Martha Ross | Dr. Dapertutto | ||
| Raymond Storey | The Saints and the Apostles | ||
| 1991 | Normand Canac-Marquis, translated by Louison Danis | The Cézanne Syndrome | [8] |
| Daniel Brooks, Don McKellar, Tracy Wright | Red Tape | [9] | |
| Daniel MacIvor | Never Swim Alone | ||
| Harry Rintoul | Brave Hearts | ||
| Marcy Rogers | Nocturnal Emissions | ||
| 1992 | John Mighton | A Short History of Night | [10] |
| Thomas Coyle | The Tyrant of Pontus | [11] | |
| Daniel MacIvor | House | ||
| Edward Roy | Seeds | ||
| Jason Sherman | The League of Nathans | ||
| 1993 | Mid-Sized Theatre | ||
| Neil Munro | Bob's Kingdom | ||
| Normand Chaurette, translated by Linda Gaboriau | The Queens | [12] | |
| Sean Dixon | 1492 | ||
| Ann-Marie MacDonald, Nic Gotham | Nigredo Hotel | ||
| David Young | Glenn | ||
| Small Theatre | |||
| Michael Hollingsworth | The Great War | ||
| Michael Hollingsworth | The Life and Times of Mackenzie King | ||
| James O'Reilly | Ghetto | ||
| Edward Roy | A Secret Life | ||
| 1994 | Mid-Sized Theatre | ||
| George Bwanika Seremba | Come Good Rain | ||
| Simon Fortin | Le Pays dans la gorge | ||
| Robert Fothergill | Public Lies | ||
| Stewart Lemoine | Shockers Delight! | ||
| Jason Sherman | Three in the Back, Two in the Head | ||
| Small Theatre | |||
| Soheil Parsa, Peter Farbridge | The Death of the King | ||
| Daniel Brooks, Leah Cherniak, Diane Flacks, Richard Greenblatt, Leslie Lester, Allan Merovitz | The Theory of Relatives | ||
| Kelley Jo Burke | Charming and Rose: True Love | ||
| Ken Garnhum | Pants on Fire | ||
| Michael Hollingsworth | WWII | ||
| 1995 | Mid-Sized Theatre | ||
| Brad Fraser | Poor Super Man | ||
| Daniel Brooks, Don McKellar, Tracy Wright | 86 | ||
| Jean-Marc Dalpé | Eddy | ||
| Daniel Danis, translated by Linda Gaboriau | Stone and Ashes | ||
| Colleen Wagner | The Monument | ||
| Small Theatre | |||
| Sabina Fella | Lebensborn | ||
| Dave Carley | Into | ||
| Leah Cherniak | The Attic, the Pearls, and 3 Fine Girls | ||
| Edward Riche | Possible Maps | ||
| 1996 | Mid-Sized Theatre | ||
| Lee MacDougall | High Life | ||
| Bill Harrar | Inquest | ||
| Daniel MacIvor, Daniel Brooks | Here Lies Henry | ||
| John Mighton | The Little Years | ||
| Jason Sherman | The Retreat | ||
| Small Theatre | |||
| Drew Hayden Taylor | Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth | ||
| Audrey Butler | Medusa Rising | ||
| Michael Hollingsworth | The Cold War | ||
| Bryan James | Stockholm(e) | ||
| Guillermo Verdecchia, Marcus Youssef | A Line in the Sand | ||
| 1997 | Mid-Sized Theatre | ||
| Theresa Tova | Still the Night | ||
| Buddies in Bad Times | The Martha Stewart Projects | ||
| Carole Fréchette, translated by John Murrell | The Four Lives of Marie | ||
| Daniel MacIvor | The Soldier Dreams | ||
| Judith Thompson | Sled | ||
| Small Theatre | |||
| Djanet Sears | Harlem Duet | ||
| Robin Fulford | Gulag | ||
| Michael Hollingsworth | The Global Village Part II: Trudeau and the FLQ | ||
| Leonard Linklater, Patti Flather | Sixty Below | ||
| Jonathan Wilson | My Own Private Oshawa | ||
| 1998 | Michael Healey | Kicked | |
| Carol Bolt | Famous | ||
| Morris Ertman, Ron Reed | Tent Meeting | ||
| Sky Gilbert | Schubert Lied | ||
| M. J. Kang | Noran Bang: The Yellow Room | ||
| 1999 | Anton Piatigorsky | Easy Lenny Lazmon and the Great Western Ascension | |
| Chris Abraham | Lenz | ||
| Karen Hines | HELLO...HELLO | ||
| Darren O'Donnell | White Mice | ||
| M. NourbeSe Philip | Coups and Calypsos | ||
| Peter Reitzel | Spirits | ||
| Year | Playwright | Title | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Michael Redhill | Building Jerusalem | |
| Sky Gilbert | The Emotionalists | ||
| Dean Gilmour, Michele Smith | Chekhov's Shorts | ||
| Anton Piatigorsky | The Offering | ||
| Chaz Thorne | The Dogpatch | ||
| 2001 | Chris Earle | RADIO:30 | |
| Adam Nashman | The 3º Cabaret | ||
| Anton Piatigorsky | The Kabbalistic Psychoanalysis of Adam R. Tzaddik | ||
| Michael Spence | The Exit Room | ||
| David Widdicombe | Science Fiction | ||
| 2002 | Dean Gilmour, Michele Smith | Chekhov Longs...In the Ravine | |
| Hrant Alianak | The Walls of Africa | ||
| Ned Dickens | Icara | ||
| Sarah Phillips | Antigone | ||
| Jacob Richmond | The Qualities of Zero | ||
| Jennifer Tarver | History Play | ||
| 2003 | Mike McPhaden | Poochwater | [13] |
| Dave Carley | Orchidelirum | [14] | |
| Michael Kennard, John Turner | Mump and Smoot in Flux | ||
| Matthew MacFadzean | Richardthesecond | ||
| Richard Sanger | Two Words for Snow | ||
| Eric Woolfe | Grendelmaus | ||
| 2004 | Bluemouth Inc. | something about a river | |
| Darrell Dennis | Tales of an Urban Indian | ||
| Abbas Nalbandian, translated by Soheil Parsa and Peter Farbridge | Stories from the Rains of Love and Death | ||
| Beatriz Pizano | For Sale | ||
| Eric Woolfe | Dear Boss | ||
| 2005 | Tara Beagan | Thy Neighbour's Wife | [15] |
| Erika Batdorf | Poetic License | ||
| Andy Massingham | Rough House | ||
| Gord Rand | Pond Life | ||
| Rick Roberts | Kite | ||
| 2006 | Anosh Irani | Bombay Black | |
| Sue Balint, Daryl Cloran, Alena Dzebo, Holly Lewis, Christopher Morris, Tanja Smoje and Dylan Trowbridge | Return: The Sarajevo Project | ||
| Mark Brownell | Medici Slot Machine | ||
| Alex Poch-Goldin | Cringeworthy | ||
| Judith Thompson | Enoch Arden by Alfred, Lord Jabber and his Catatonic Songstress | ||
| 2007 | Bruce Alcock, Kate Alton, Rafael Barreto-Rivera, bpNichol, Paul Dutton, Steve MacCaffrey, Ross Manson | The Four Horsemen Project | |
| Erika Batdorf, Christine Horne, Matthew Romantini | Gorey Story | [16] | |
| Brandon Firla, Kurt Firla | SARSical | ||
| Catherine Hernandez | Singkil | ||
| Tony Nardi | Two Letters | ||
| 2008 | Anusree Roy | Pyaasa | |
| Brendan Gall | A Quiet Place | ||
| Michael Hollingsworth | Laurier | ||
| Beatriz Pizano | Madre | ||
| Michael Rubenfeld | My Fellow Creatures | ||
| 2009 | Anton Piatigorsky | Eternal Hydra | |
| Tara Beagan | Miss Julie: Sheh'mah | [17] | |
| Layne Coleman | Tijuana Cure | ||
| Brendan Gall, Mike McPhaden, Rick Roberts, Julie Tepperman | The Gladstone Variations | ||
| David Yee | lady in the red dress |
| Year | Playwright | Title | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Keith Barker | This Is How We Got Here | [21] |
| Jani Lauzon | Prophecy Fog | ||
| Robin Luckwaldt, Natalia Bushnik | The Bathtub Girls | ||
| Daniel MacIvor | Let's Run Away | ||
| David Yee | No Foreigners | ||
| 2021 | No ceremony held due to the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada on theatre production in 2020. | [22] | |
| 2022 | Bad New Days | Italian Mime Suicide | [23] |
| Akosua Amo-Adem, Qasim Khan, Cheyenne Scott | The Home Project | [24] | |
| Steven Elliott Jackson | Three Ordinary Men | ||
| Neha Poduval, Himanshu Sitlani | An IMM-Permanent Resident | ||
| Theatre Gargantua | A Tonic for Desperate Times | ||
| 2023 | Matthew MacKenzie, Mariya Khomutova | First Métis Man of Odesa | [25] |
| Curtis Campbell, Daniel Krolik | Gay for Pay with Blake and Clay | [26] | |
| Deanna H. Choi, Maddie Bautista, Erin Brubacher | Love You Wrong Time | ||
| Haley McGee | The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale | ||
| Hengameh E. Rice | Anahita's Republic | ||
The Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play is an annual award celebrating achievements in Toronto theatre.
The Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Direction of a Play/Musical is an annual award celebrating achievements in Toronto theatre.
The Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Principal Role - Musical is an annual award celebrating achievements in live Canadian theatre.
The Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female in a Principal Role - Musical is an annual award celebrating achievements in live Canadian theatre.
Ronald Pederson is a Canadian actor, comedian and theatre director who has worked extensively throughout Canada and in the United States. He has performed at most of Canada's major theatres including The Stratford Festival, The Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, The Citadel Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects, The Arts Club, The Vancouver Playhouse, The Young Centre, The Canadian Stage Company, The Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, Soulpepper and The SummerWorks Festival. Pederson is an alumni of Toronto’s The Second City and has also worked extensively in television and may be best known for his Canadian Comedy Award-nominated work and his three seasons on Fox Television's MADtv.
That Scatterbrain Booky is a 1981 novel by Bernice Thurman Hunter. It was the first in a trilogy.
Erik Hillar Liitoja was a Canadian playwright and theatre director. He was most noted for his 1993 play The Last Supper, which won the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award in 1994 and was adapted by Cynthia Roberts into the 1994 feature film The Last Supper.
Layne Coleman is a Canadian actor, playwright and theatre director, most noted as a former artistic director of Theatre Passe Muraille. Originally from North Battleford, Saskatchewan, he first became prominent as a cofounder and artistic director of the 25th Street Theatre in Saskatoon in the 1980s.
Leah Cherniak is a Canadian playwright, actor, and teacher. She is a co-founder of Theatre Columbus.
Patricia Collins is a British-Canadian actress, prominently associated with the Stratford Festival.
Thomas Antony Olajide, sometimes also credited as Thomas Olajide, is a Canadian actor from Vancouver, British Columbia. He is most noted for his performance in the 2021 film Learn to Swim, for which he received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Actor at the 10th Canadian Screen Awards in 2022, and as co-creator with Tawiah M'carthy and Stephen Jackman-Torkoff of Black Boys, a theatrical show about Black Canadian LGBTQ+ identities which was staged by Buddies in Bad Times in 2016. Olajide, M'carthy, and Jackman-Torkoff were collectively nominated for Outstanding Ensemble Performance at the Dora Mavor Moore Awards in 2017.
Anne Anglin is a Canadian actress and theatre director. She is most noted for her performance as Sharon in the 1986 television film Turning to Stone, for which she was a Genie Award nominee for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Program or Series at the 1st Gemini Awards, and her recurring role as Mrs. Cooney, the grandmother of J.T. Yorke, in Degrassi: The Next Generation.
Hardee T. Lineham is a Canadian actor. He is most noted for his performance in the 1996 film Shoemaker, for which he was a Genie Award nominee for Best Supporting Actor at the 18th Genie Awards in 1997.
Tanja Jacobs is a Belgian-born Canadian actress and theatre director. She originated the role of Constance Ledbelly in Anne-Marie MacDonald's Goodnight Desdemona.
Kanika Ambrose is a Canadian playwright from Toronto, Ontario. She is most noted for her play Our Place, which was the winner of the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, General Theatre in 2023.
The Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best Leading Performer (General Theatre) is an annual Canadian theatre award, presented as part of the Dora Mavor Moore Awards to honour the year's best performance in a leading role in a stage production in the Toronto theatre market.
Mike McPhaden is a Canadian actor, playwright and television writer and producer, most noted for his work on the television series Corner Gas Animated and Jann.
Sean Dixon is a Canadian playwright. He is most noted for his 2014 stage play A God in Need of Help, which was a Governor General's Award nominee for English-language drama at the 2014 Governor General's Awards.
Joseph Patrick Ziegler is a Canadian actor and theatre director, most noted as one of the founders of the Soulpepper theatre company.
Nancy Palk is a Canadian actress, most noted as one of the founding members of the Soulpepper theatre company.