TORONTO — When Ravi Jain learned he had won the 2025 Siminovitch Prize, he already knew what he wanted to do with the $100,000 award.

He wanted to give it away.

The co-artistic director of Why Not Theatre had been shortlisted for the prestigious Canadian theatre prize four times over a decade before winning last December. Rather than put the money toward his own work or the Toronto company he founded, Jain wanted to support other artists.

That idea became the Why Not International Travel Award, a one-time initiative distributing $250,000 to 30 independent theatre artists across Canada.

“I knew that if I won, I wanted to use the money to support artists and get it to artists,” Jain said. “There’s only so few awards and so many people who deserve them.”

Winning the Siminovitch Prize was life-changing, Jain said, not just because of the money but because it made him feel his work had been seen and valued. He wanted other artists to experience the same feeling.

The award gives 30 artists — including four artistic duos — $10,000 each for travel, artistic exchange, professional development and renewal, with no restrictions on how they spend it. Recipients range from emerging artists to established actors, designers, stage managers, producers and musicians.

The initiative began with Jain’s $100,000 prize and a $25,000 protege award given to Why Not co-artistic director Miriam Fernandes. An anonymous donor contributed another $100,000, with the Lindy Green Family Foundation and a core of longtime Why Not supporters helping make up the balance.

Jain and Fernandes hope the initiative also draws attention to what they see as a growing crisis for independent artists in Canada.

Fernandes said arts organizations are increasingly turning to safer, more commercial programming as they struggle financially, leaving fewer opportunities for artists outside the mainstream.

“We’re watching people’s seasons get more and more commercial,” she said. “We’re seeing fewer and fewer risks being taken.”

Jain said artists need support before they become established. When he was first shortlisted for the Siminovitch at 35, he was considering leaving the industry because he felt he lacked space to develop his voice. A decade later, he’s noticed winning the prize has changed how people treat him and the opportunities coming his way.

“We’ve got to invest in people before they’re the thing,” said Jain, now 46, whose body of work includes “Prince Hamlet,” a bilingual ASL/English reimagining of Shakespeare and the two-part “Mahabharata,” a stage interpretation of a 4,000-year-old Sanskrit epic.

“That’s the time when they need energy and fire and burn out bad ideas to get to the good.”

For Fernandes, the value of unrestricted support is personal. After graduating from theatre school, she became frustrated by the limited and often “tokenized” roles available to her and decided to study in Paris. When her grants fell through, Jain and then-Why Not managing director Owais Lightwala helped cover her tuition.

“It completely changed my life to be able to go and travel and study like that,” Fernandes said. “And it was because somebody believed in me.”

That experience helped inspire the travel component of the new award. Fernandes said travel is often among the first things independent artists cut from their budgets, despite the creative value of encountering different cultures and artistic communities.

“So much of our work actually is absorbing the world and then finding a way to filter it,” she said.

Why Not also is providing two scholarships for Canadian theatre directors to train in the United Kingdom with acclaimed director Katie Mitchell at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, as well as sponsoring two Indigenous artists to attend the YIRRAMBOI festival in Melbourne, Australia.

The first Royal Central scholarship has already gone to Vancouver artist Arthi Chandra. The remaining spots will be announced later.

Jain said recipients were chosen from a long list of artists they believed weren’t getting the shine they deserved — and who made an impact on them.

Among them is Deaf artist and advocate Dawn Jani Birley, whose work Fernandes said challenged Why Not’s thinking about Deaf and hearing collaborations when she appeared as Horatio in the company’s 2017 adaptation of “Hamlet.”

Other recipients include blind artist Alex Bulmer, longtime Why Not collaborators Lightwala and Kelly Read, and stage managers Neha Ross and Tamara Protic.

Jain said Canadian cultural policy often focuses on institutions, audiences and financial numbers while overlooking the artists doing much of the work behind them.

“In this time where the prime minister is saying ‘Canada strong,’ it’s these people who need to be strong if we’re going to last the distance,” he said.

“If we empower different people to dream right now, we might find a more exciting future.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 14, 2026.

Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press