The Conseil des arts de Montréal (CAM) and Théâtre ESPACE GO, in collaboration with the members of the Award Development Committee*, are pleased to announce the names of the three finalists for the sixth edition of the Jovette-Marchessault Award, dedicated this year to women playwrights: Rébecca Déraspe, Annick Lefebvre and Marie-Christine Lê-Huu. The award recognizes and showcases the contributions of women artists to the Montréal theatre scene and comes with a $20,000 cash prize presented to the winner by the Conseil. The name of the Jovette-Marchessault Award’s sixth edition winner will be announced at a cocktail on Monday, April 28, 2025, in the Théâtre ESPACE GO café-bar.
THE THREE FINALISTS
Rébecca Déraspe
Deftly juggling contrast and tension, Rébecca Déraspe’s writing is instantly captivating. At once complex and uncluttered, her dramaturgical constructions and characters leave a lasting impression and have a transformative influence on our society. The visceral urgency she feels to “fix the world” is keenly felt in her works. As scores for the actors, her plays appeal to a wide range of audiences, eliciting deeply felt reactions.
“In the silence of the falling night, my mother would always read. Every evening, I’d take refuge by her side, curl up against her and monitor the rhythm of her breaths. I would try to hear, through her silence, the eloquence of the words spread out before her eyes. Then, in the middle of this secret activity, I would fall asleep against her. With the hindsight afforded by adulthood, I believe I would have wanted to enter her mind so we could experience, together, the grand emotions inspired by the words of her favourite authors. Perhaps my love of playwriting stems from that childlike yearning for sharing, for communing through works of fiction. I don’t know. But the day I realized that not all plays were written by dead people, I knew how I would spend the rest of my life.”
– Rébecca Déraspe
Photo © Marc-Étienne Mongrain
Learn more about Rébecca Déraspe
Annick Lefebvre
Described by many as the Wagner of the theatre world, Annick Lefebvre’s voice comes through loud and clear in her bold, engaged writing. With unrivalled passion, she manages to transpose strong emotions like rage and anger to the stage in a way that is as striking as it is extraordinary. Unmistakably her own, her resolutely provocative writing touches audiences deeply, transcending generations and communities.
“Audiences feel my words deep down in their guts; those words may be radically angry or radically tender, but I refuse to let them be anything but radical. Nevertheless, I believe that an artist’s imagination and their ability to sublimate reality are poor allies when it comes to bearing witness to the realities of those who are currently treading on one another’s hearts, rekindling their traumas, and freeing and rehabilitating their words so that restorative justice can be done and real, safe spaces can be socially created and maintained. I still waver between the certainty that I have to give up all my platforms and keep quiet forever, and the certainty that the form of theatre I’m developing—a frontally delivered interior monologue—can, if I rigorously document the words spoken by my characters, have a broader impact. It’s from the grey areas between these two opposing certainties, from the visceral tearing apart, that my writing springs forth.”
– Annick Lefebvre
Photo © Julie Artacho
Learn more about Annick Lefebvre
Marie-Christine Lê-Huu
A quiet force in the world of playwriting, Marie-Christine Lê-Huu is known for her touching, poetic writing that harbours a fundamental quest for humanism. Her work is imbued with sensitivity, humility and light. Featuring an adroit blend of humour and drama, her work magnifies stories and amplifies voices. The author’s desire to share her gifts with others is palpable, particularly through her multifaceted outreach to young audiences and in the world of puppetry.
“I’m most interested in things that are fragile, that are “out there” and in need of belonging. I like to look at the world from the sidelines, through the echoes of weaker voices. For a long time, I believed my writing was more humanist than political. But now I see more and more clearly that in the world today, making those who are being erased visible again is a political act. Calling for solidarity is a political act. Awakening compassion is a political act. In the face of extremely harmful and violent ideas that seek to push everything else aside, there is an extremely powerful form of recourse available to us: flooding the public space with stories that serve as counterweights, that foster altruism and solidarity and invite us to build community. We owe it to ourselves to express “hope” in every possible way, without naivety and backed by a determination commensurate with the perils we are facing.”
– Marie-Christine Lê-Huu
Photo © Maryse Boyce
Learn more about Marie-Christine Lê-Huu
The Conseil des arts de Montréal is responsible for establishing the jury, selecting applicants and awarding the cash prize, while ESPACE GO handles award logistics and promotion. The jury is made up of professional artists. Applicants are judged on the quality and originality of their artistic process, as well as the impact of their artistic achievements on the theatre world.
BACKGROUND
In 2018, one of the priorities set by the Conseil des arts de Montréal in its 2018-2020 Strategic Plan was to achieve a better gender balance, and more specifically male-female parity within the artistic milieu. With that goal in mind, the Conseil provided financial support for ESPACE GO’s Chantier féministe, a spring 2019 event addressing the place of women in theatre. During the event, the theatre community affirmed the importance of creating awards that highlight the remarkable work of women creators to raise the profile of women in theatre. Nathalie Maillé, Executive Director of the Conseil des arts de Montréal, took the opportunity to express her interest in receiving proposals for the award’s creation.
Several partners (CAM, ESPACE GO, Imago Théâtre, Théâtre de l’Affamée and artists associated with the Femmes pour l’équité en théâtre movement) came together to make the new award possible. They were unanimous in wanting the award to bear the name of an inspiring figure, Jovette Marchessault (1938–2012), a Montréal novelist, poet, playwright, painter and sculptor. Starting with the second edition, three newcomers—artists Nahka Bertrand, Margarita Herrera-Dominguez and Lior Maharjan—joined the original members of the Award Development Committee.
A different call for nominations is held each year for a different artistic role—director, designer or playwright—rotating over a three-year cycle. The last edition (2024) was won by designer Linda Brunelle. In previous editions, directors Catherine Vidal (2019) and Alexia Bürger (2022), designer Nancy Tobin (2020) and playwright Marie Leofeli Romero (2021) each won the grand prize. Finalists Catherine Bourgeois, Fanny Britt, Mélanie Demers, Rébecca Déraspe, Sophie El Assad, Elen Ewing, Marie-Eve Huot, Sonoyo Nishikawa, Pol Pelletier and Claude Rodrigue have each received a plane ticket to Paris, courtesy of Air Transat, an ESPACE GO partner.
This Conseil des arts de Montréal award was named after Jovette Marchessault in tribute to a great “tuner of souls” whose work is permeated by her desire to bring women’s culture out of the shadows, reshape history and forge a collective memory that allows women to be role models for us all.
*Members of the Jovette-Marchessault Award Development Committee: Nahka Bertrand, Micheline Chevrier, Margarita Herrera-Dominguez, Lior Maharjan and Marie-Ève Milot.