Toronto –March 10, 2026– The Gina Wilkinson Prize Committee is pleased to announce Debbie Patterson as the recipient of the 15th annual Gina Wilkinson Prize. Gina’s Prize recognizes theatre artists from underrepresented genders including cis women, trans women, and non-binary peoples with demonstrated bodies of work, who are recognized by their communities for their practice, leadership and dedication to their craft.
2026 Recipient
Debbie Patterson
Homebase: Winnipeg Manitoba in Treaty One Territory
Debbie Patterson is a Winnipeg-based actor, playwright, director, dramaturge and mother. She is a proud advocate for disability justice through her work as founding and current Artistic Director of Sick + Twisted Theatre. She is a founder of Shakespeare in the Ruins, served as Artistic Associate at Prairie Theatre Exchange, Writer-in-Residence at University of Winnipeg and was a member of the 2023 Acting Company at the Stratford Festival. She is passionate about supporting other disabled theatre makers and bringing the lived experience of disability into mainstream theatre spaces. She is on the board of Playwrights Guild of Canada, the National Creation Fund Advisory Committee, and on Professional Advisory Committees at Sheridan University and at TMU. She is a recipient of the King Charles III’s Coronation Medal, the United Nations Platform for Action Committees Activist of the Year Award and the City of Winnipeg’s Making a Mark Award. She lives a wheelchair-enabled life in Winnipeg (Treaty 1) and in a cabin on the shore of Lake Winnipeg (Treaty 2) with her longtime partner Arne MacPherson.
Artist’s Statement:
I’m so grateful to be recognized in this way and am humbled to join the powerhouse women who have shared this honour in the past and who are nominated alongside me now. I want to express gratitude to the members of the prize committee for the ongoing work you do to keep Gina’s legacy alive by spotlighting the groundbreaking work of women in our community. I also want to extend a huge thank you to my nominator, the relentlessly positive Mandy MacLean. As Mandy’s mentor, I can affirm that a mentee/mentor relationship is a place where teaching travels in both directions.
I never had the pleasure of working with Gina, but admired her from afar for many years, inspired by her sass and drive, her sophistication and generosity. I’m grateful to her and to all the women who have had my back, kicked my ass and lifted me up; challenging me to dig deeper, reach higher and never stop growing. There’s no such thing as individual achievement. We all succeed or fail based on the strength of our connections to each other.
Finalists
d’bi.young anitafrika
Homebase: Scarborough
Dr. d’bi.young anitafrika is an internationally celebrated dub poet, biomythicist, theatre-maker, and decolonial pedagogue whose work spans performance, scholarship, and arts leadership across four continents. Laureate of the 2025 Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize, they have shaped contemporary theatre and performance training globally through their pioneering methodology, the Anitafrika Dub Praxis. Dr. anitafrika has authored twelve plays, released seven dub poetry albums, published four poetry collections, and headlined festivals and theatre seasons worldwide. Their contributions have been recognised with numerous honours, including three Dora Awards, the Canadian Poet of Honour Award, a Siminovitch Playwrights Prize Finalist, and a Global Leader in Theatre and Performance distinction from Arts Council England. Their PhD theorises Black womyn’s theatre-making and addresses critical research gaps in Canadian performance scholarship.
WHAT GINA’S PRIZE MEANS TO ME
in honour of gina wilkinson and womyn storytellers of these unceded territories
womxn storyteller
I enc(h)ant your name
so it resonates through ourstory
there will be no erasure here
you and the change you carve out with your words, your hands, your heart
will be sung through the freedom whispers and shouts
of your kin for seven generations and beyond
audre lorde reminds us that we were never meant to survive
yet here we are creating a new world
beyond surviving, we are surthriving
from the ashes of the old
as the heavy-footed trample and bomb y/our children
neither you nor your kin will be silenced
no amount of bombs and bullets and supremacy
will erase you
tell your stories womxn
tell stories of freedom into the veins of uncharted blood
tell stories of emancipation into the caverns of colonised minds
tell stories of liberation where hate-mongering occupies the territories of the indigenous
womxn storyteller
you will not be forgotten
or washed out of your beinghood
your indignation
and your revolution
tell your stories so that we may live
with our lives
Carmen Aguirre
Homebase: Vancouver, on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples.
Carmen Aguirre is a multiple award-winning theatre artist, actor, and author. She is an Electric Company Theatre Core Artist and has written and co-written over twenty-five plays and two international bestselling memoirs. The 2025 premiere of her play Fire Never Dies: The Tina Modotti Project, which she also directed, had a sold-out run and outstanding audience and theatre reviews. The Consent Club, an adaptation of Moliere’s The Learned Ladies and a brutal satire on the gentrification of the Me Too movement, will premiere in Vancouver in 2028. Carmen is currently directing the premiere of Kenneth T. Williams’ Deserters at the University of Alberta and will be directing exciting projects across Canada in the upcoming season. She is a graduate of Studio 58. Carmenaguirre.ca
What being a finalist for Gina’s Prize means to me:
Gina’s commitment to collaboration and safeguarding story by confronting the limitations of fear confirms and inspires my own approach to the work. As a theatre practitioner who rides the balance between service to others and my own artistic vision, who believes that if you’re not afraid you’re not digging deep enough and that the truest art is a form of listening, and who endeavours to bring integrity to all I do in this industry, I am humbled and honoured to be in the company of these respected colleagues. I knew Gina. She was a mentor to me in the way she moved through the world. Being a finalist for The Gina Wilkinson Prize means grace and dignity to me. Because in the end, that’s all we have.
Judy Wensel
Homebase: Treaty 4 / Regina, Saskatchewan
Judy Wensel is a director, creator, performer, and teaching artist based in Treaty 4, working across professional, community, and educational contexts. A regular collaborator at Globe Theatre, she has contributed to over 30 projects as director, actor, dramaturg, and creator. She guest directs in the University of Regina’s devised theatre program and has also worked in residence with disability-led arts org, Listen to Dis’ and also That’s Possible, an integrated theatre program at Riffel High School in Regina. Her recent creation-based work explores the climate crisis through collaborative, interdisciplinary and intergenerational projects, including The Last Children (2022) created with David Gagnon Walker and The Council for All Children (2025) with Shaunna Dunn. She is a frequent collaborator of Strange Victory Performance (Toronto/Edmonton), FadaDance (Regina), Sum Theatre (Saskatoon) and Curtain Razors Theatre (Regina), where she has been an Artistic Associate since 2015. Judy is a graduate of the directing program at National Theatre School of Canada.
What being a finalist for Gina’s Prize means to me:
I am deeply grateful to be recognized among the Gina’s Prize community of trailblazing artists. I am filled with awe and inspired beyond measure.
I share this honour with the artists and collaborators who tend to the same artistic soil I do here in Treaty 4. A reminder that staying rooted does not mean staying small, that our work is not peripheral or isolated, but part of a wider, living dialogue about what a life in art can be.
I never met Gina, but as my nominator Jennifer Brewin shared, “Gina understood that food, children, and the fullness of life are not distractions from artmaking but essential to it.” This is the ethos I strive to carry forward: creating spaces where people feel nourished and welcomed, free to bring their whole selves… the mess, the mischief, and the wild, vital parts that make us all fully human.
Nominations and Selection Committee
The 33 nominations from across the country spoke to an incredibly diverse, dynamic and passionate group of artistic leaders who are serving their communities. They are inspiring, original and dedicated to creating positive spaces centered around care and innovative practice.
About the Prize
Gina’s Prize pays tribute to Gina Wilkinson, who passed away in 2010, and whose dedication, vision and indomitable spirit imbued her work and her life.
Gina’s interdisciplinary artistry as a dancer, visual artist, actor, playwright and director established her as a daring, strong, inventive leader and collaborator in the Canadian theatre. She believed in the necessity of fun in the rehearsal hall, on and off stage, and in all aspects of one’s life. In the spirit of Gina’s appetite for life, the prize money is a gift to be used in any way the recipient chooses. The award recipient receives a $15,000 prize, and $5,000 is awarded to each of the finalists.
The Gina Wilkinson Prize Committee (Micheline Chevrier, Krista Jackson, Lindsay Lachance, Kimberley Rampersad, Tom Rooney, Tanisha Taitt, and Mieko Ouchi) extends its heartfelt thanks to all of our supporters. Through their incredible generosity, the spirit of Gina lives on.
To contribute a gift to Gina’s Prize: https://oafdn.ca/make-a-donation/.
Gina’s Prize honours artists who work across Turtle Island on both treaty and unceded territories. Through this prize, we look to acknowledge and amplify their relationship to the land they live on and the communities they serve.
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For more information about the award:
Micheline Chevrier & Kimberley Rampersad, Committee Co-Leaders
ginasprize@gmail.com
www.ginasprize.ca
For more information about the Ontario Arts Foundation:
Bruce Bennett, Executive Director
Ontario Arts Foundation
416-969-7413 | bbennett@oafdn.ca