Sherrie Johnson Honoured with the 2019 Leonard McHardy and John Harvey Award

May 28, 2019

The Leonard McHardy and John Harvey Award for Leadership in Administration (LMJH Award) was inaugurated in 2008 and recognizes the important work of theatre, dance and opera administrators. Recipients of the LMJH Award have demonstrated a minimum of 10 years of commitment to the performing arts, in addition to having made an impact on the industry in Toronto. The award is named after Leonard McHardy and John Harvey, the celebrated former owners of Toronto’s Theatrebooks, which they co-founded in 1975. Until its closure in July of 2014, it stood as one of the longest surviving independent bookstores in the country.

The Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA) announced today that this year’s recipient is the extraordinarily talented arts producer Sherrie Johnson. Ms Johnson was recently appointed Executive Director at Crow’s Theatre after serving as Executive Producer at Canadian Stage for six years. An accomplished curator, artistic director, producer, executive director and administrator for almost three decades, Ms Johnson has supported and empowered artists and community members to make innovative and imperative work that truly makes adifference and propels the performing arts forward in Toronto and beyond.

While at Canadian Stage, Sherrie Johnson led a leadership transition in the 2017-18 season, serving as the company’s Interim Managing Director and Artistic Director. Other highlights of Ms Johnson’s artistic career include serving as Senior Curator at the highly esteemed PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in Vancouver; programming and producing the Six Stages Festival in Toronto, Prague, Berlin, and Glasgow; and co-founding the iconic indie company da da kamera with Daniel MacIvor. As producer and general manager of da da kamera for 14 years, she established an international touring network for MacIvor’s acclaimed one-man shows and also launched a film and television division for the company, which produced award-winning short and feature films for Daniel MacIvor, as well as Jeremy Podeswa and Wiebke von Carolsfeld.

Ms Johnson was the inaugural recipient of the John Hobday Award for outstanding achievement in arts management from the Canada Council for the Arts. In addition to her curatorial and producing work, she has dedicated her time to building and leading professional development workshops and seminars around the world that have played a significant role in building international partnerships, co-productions, residency and touring opportunities for Canadian artists from coast to coast. This includes leading the Magnetic North Theatre Festival industry series as Touring Liaison and Curator, building Spin Off for Six Stages Festival, and offering leading touring workshops at APAM (Australia), Push Festival (Vancouver), PAANZ (New Zealand), IPAM (Indonesia), Caravan (UK) and Under the Radar (New York).

Previous winners of the LMJH Award are Sue Balint, Mitchell Marcus, Nancy Webster, Sue Edworthy, Meredith Potter, Paul Templin, Leslie Lester, Ghislain Caron, Natasha Parsons, Naomi Campbell and Jim Lefrancois. The LMJH Award is administered by TAPA. Candidates for the LMJH Award are nominated by TAPA members and then reviewed by the LMJH Selection Committee: Sandy Tulloch (Chair), Ghislain Caron, Derrick Chua and John Harvey. The award winner receives a plaque and a cheque for $1,000 through the generous sponsorship of the late Elizabeth Comper.