A lighting designer has won Canada’s largest theatre award.

Montreal-based Robert Thomson was named the winner of the 2012 Elinore & Lou Siminovitch Prize.

Thomson is currently working on a production of Red at Montreal’s Segal Centre. He will take home $75,000. As part of the prize, he chooses a protege to earn the other $25,000. He chose two young colleagues: Jason Hand, who worked with him at the Stratford Festival this past season ….. and Raha Javanfar, who created the projection design for Opera Atelier’s Der Freischutz.

Thomson is the last winner of the Siminovitch prize, which was created to end after twelve years. It was dedicated to Canadian scientist Lou Siminovitch and his late playwright wife, Elinore.