Recipient of the 2024 Ray Ferris Innovation and Sustainability Grant
Common Boots Theatre and Bad New Days
The Ray Ferris Innovation and Sustainability Grant is an annual grant awarded to a Toronto-based producing company selected by the committee based on a detailed production/project proposal, recognizing advances in theatrical design and the promotion of sustainability in live theatre.
The Ontario Arts Foundation (OAF) and the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA) are delighted to announce that Common Boots Theatre and Bad New Days are this year’s recipients of the annual $25,000 Ray Ferris Innovation and Sustainability Grant for their production of Last Landscape.
About Last Landscape
Last Landscape is an experiment in large-scale puppetry for 7 performers and 1 musician, with sustainability at the core of both its form and content. It explores the relationship to the natural panorama that surrounds us, meditating on themes of extinction and interspecies care, and evoking a sense of nostalgia in the face of environmental collapse. The production will receive its world premiere at Buddies In Bad Times Theatre in January 2025, as part of their 2024/25 Season.
Common Boots Theatre and Bad New Days
Common Boots Theatre creates original and collaborative theatre for traditional and non-traditional theatrical spaces. They tell diverse and inclusive stories through comedy, physicality, and play. Their goal is to make theatre accessible for artists and audiences, starting with the rehearsal and creation process through to closing night.
Since 2014, Bad New Days has established a unique presence in Canadian theatre creating visually bold and physically innovative theatrical works that explore the complexity of the human condition through a volatile blend of lightness and gravity, drawing from the theatrical traditions of the past and re-imagining them in a contemporary aesthetic context.