Boca del Lupo's Sherry J. Yoon and Jay Dodge make 2026 Siminovitch Prize shortlist
B.C. contenders for Canada’s largest theatre prize join finalists from Montreal and Calgary
Jay Dodge and Sherry J. Yoon.
Photog. Photo by Karri North
TWO LONGTIME VANCOUVER theatre innovators have been named finalists for the 2026 Siminovitch Prize—Canada’s largest theatre prize.
Sherry J. Yoon and Jay Dodge, now based in Gibsons and collaborative artistic directors of Vancouver’s Boca del Lupo, have made it to the short list as the only B.C. representatives.
Working across theatre, design, technology, and visual storytelling, the partners in work and life have made their names creating immersive experiences that place audiences in unexpected environments, from forests and shipping containers to interactive installations and VR.
Boca del Lupo has created more than 60 new works since its inception in 1996. They include the world-travelling Red Phone project that allows audience members to talk to each other anonymously in a phone booth; Reconciling, an experiment in VR by playwright Yvette Nolan that takes the viewer on a trip to relationship “therapy” inspired by Indigenous struggle; and Photog, a bold mix of documentary, fiction, movement, text, and imagery that centres on a war photographer taking stock of his own private battlefield. One of its most recent productions was Me and The Forest at the Vancouver International Children’s Festival, a collaboration with South Korea’s ArtstageSAN that found a giant talking tree puppet interacting with members of the audience.
Joining them on the shortlist of exceptional mid-career theatre artists is Montreal’s Catherine Bourgeois, Montreal’s Olivier Kemeid, and Calgary’s The Old Trouts Puppet Workshop—the last one well-known in Vancouver for shows such as its wild, imaginary Jabberwocky, which played The Cultch in 2018, and a fantastical, puppet-enhanced Hansel and Gretel created with Vancouver Opera in 2016.
The juried prize goes to exceptional Canadian theatre artists whose work has made a remarkable contribution to theatre, with a $100,000 award going to an artist or ensemble, celebrating work that is groundbreaking, transformative, and influential. The Siminovitch is meant as a substantial investment in an artist’s future, not simply an honour for past work. For this year’s award, the Siminovitch Theatre Foundation welcomed nominations of directors, playwrights, and designers, as well as multidisciplinary theatre creators.
The other remaining finalists receive awards of $10,000 each with a protégé chosen by the winning laureate receiving $25,000—plus three additional emerging artists selected by the finalists each receive $5,000.
The 2026 Siminovitch Prize Laureate will be announced on November 30, following the premiere of short documentary portraits of each shortlisted artist. 
Boca del Lupo’s Red Phone in Buenos Aires.
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