Keshia Palm Awarded 2025 Gina Wilkinson Prize
Toronto, ON, March 10, 2025 — The Gina Wilkinson Prize Committee is pleased to announce that Keshia Palm is the recipient of the 14th annual Gina Wilkinson Prize. Gina’s Prize recognizes theatre artists from underrepresented genders which includes cis women, trans women, and non-binary people with a demonstrated body of work, who are recognized by their communities for their practice, leadership and dedication to their craft.
Award Recipient
Keshia Palm
Hometown: Tkaron:to / Treaty 13 / Toronto, where there are trees standing in the water
Keshia Palm (they/them) is a director, dramaturge, creator, performer, producer, and mentor. As a storyteller, Keshia’s work centres postcolonial and queerfeminist perspectives sprinkled with theatre magic and seeks to spark connection and conversation through shared live experiences. They hope to create art and spaces that bring and hold us together in all our Multitudes.
Keshia is the 2025 Tarragon Theatre Urjo Kareda Resident Artist. They previously served as artistic producer for Paprika Theatre Festival (2021-2024), online content producer for ArtistProducerResource.com (2018-2021), resident dramaturge for Puente Theatre (2022), and interim program director of Write from the Hip (2023-2024). They have developed and performed new work with artists and companies big and small, from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland. Recent acting credits: Anya in The Cherry Orchard (Modern Times Stage Company), and understudy/assistant director of The Year of the Cello (Theatre Passe Muraille + Music Picnic). Dramaturgy: NewfoundLanded by Santiago Guzmán and Nabila Qureshi (TODOS Productions), WHITE MUSCLE DADDY by Raf Antonio (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre + Pencil Kit Productions). Direction: Radium Girls (York University), SEPH (RISERx Why Not Theatre + Toronto Metropolitan University). Co-creator of Shadow Girls (Rhubarb Festival 2017, Pencil Kit Productions + Blank Canvas at Gladstone Hotel 2018). @keshiapalm // @theatrepotluck // keshiapalm.com
Artist Statement
“I am honoured and genuinely touched to be recognized along with recipients and finalists of Gina’s Prize past and present, and to be included among Canada’s fiercest, boundary-pushing, and truly kind artists who embody Gina’s legacy in their work. To be in the company of artists who have broken down barriers, who have inspired me personally and professionally, whom I admire greatly, is astonishing. How cool to be recognized for those very traits that I so deeply admire in my mentors, my elders, and in Gina: bold artistry, magic, fearless living. I will continue to expand my practice without compromise, and to dream of abundant futures for artists and for all — ones that involve family, travel, rest, financial freedom and security, sovereignty and dignity. This is where great art grows.
Thank you to my nominators, the Paprika Board of Directors, and especially Michelle Yagi and Naz Afsahi, for believing in me early and always. Thank you, Nina Lee Aquino, Marjorie Chan, David Yee, Andrea Donaldson, Tanisha Taitt, Jivesh Parasram, Mel Hague, Mercedes Bátiz- Benét, Peter McGuire — for saying the right thing or connecting me to the right opportunity to keep me moving forward, finding my way, forging my own path.”