Sheridan professor first three-time recipient of national music theatre award

For the third time in seven years, Sheridan music theatre professor Kevin Wong has been recognized with a Tom Hendry Award from the Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC).

Wong recently received the 2024 Dan School of Drama & Music Musical Award — presented to an outstanding musical that has not yet had a premiere production — for Soft Magical Tofu Boys, a story of three brothers with magical powers trying to navigate a modern suburban world.

A composer-lyricist, singer/musician and dramaturg who co-leads the Writing for Music Theatre stream within Sheridan's Bachelor of Music Theatre Performance degree, Wong is the first three-time recipient of a Tom Hendry Award for music theatre. His previous wins came in 2018 (Stage West Music Award for The Preposterous Predicament of Polly Peel) and 2022 (Dan School of Drama & Music Musical Award for In Real Life.)

"A common thread of my work is that I try to create something that in some way awakens someone's emotional life or helps them get in touch with some part of themselves that they may have forgotten about," says Wong, who has taught at Sheridan since 2017. "Soft Magical Tofu Boys speaks to the deepest part of my personal experience, humour and heart, so I felt confident about its ability to speak to a wide range of people. Any piece in development benefits greatly from this type of endorsement, especially when it comes from a jury of your peers."

While Wong's writing and composing is independent from his teaching, there have been Sheridan connections to each of his Tom Hendry Award-winning musicals. A 30-minute version of the Preposterous Predicament of Polly Peel was presented at Macdonald Heaslip Hall in 2022; In Real Life was developed through Sheridan's former Canadian Music Theatre Project incubator program (including a virtual production of the opening number during the COVID-19 pandemic); and several past and current Sheridan music theatre students have participated in readings of Soft Magical Tofu Boys.

Another of Wong’s musicals — Believers (co-written with Ali Joy Richardson), which tells the story of a queer teenage girl’s fight to love herself and her church at the same time — was developed through Theatre Sheridan’s First Draft initiative, a series of musicals that reimagine, reconstitute and reanimate the Western musical theatre canon with an emphasis on diverse storytelling.

"Even as a working artist who spends considerable time on his own projects and collaborations, Kevin always makes time and room in his life to engage with emerging artists and share his knowledge and talents with them," says Tania Senewiratne, Associate Dean, Visual and Performing Arts in Sheridan's Faculty of Animation, Arts & Design. "He is a truly valuable, generous, kind and important member of our community."

The Playwrights Guild of Canada is a national arts service organization focused on advancing the creative rights and interests of Canadian playwrights; promoting Canadian plays nationally and internationally; and fostering an active, evolving community of writers for the stage.

The Tom Hendry Awards — named after Tom Hendry, a founding member of the PGC who passed away in 2012 — annually recognize Canadian playwrights across a wide range of categories.

Learn how Sheridan's Bachelor of Music Theatre Performance program provides theoretical and practical training in music theatre's core disciplines of acting, singing and dancing.