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Winnipeg Free Press
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Loner earns badge for life lessons at camp
Manitoba Theatre for Young People's season closer of Billie and the Moon packs a raft of potent existential life lessons into a pint-sized backpack, as its title character, a young loner, ultimately discovers her true authentic self under the glow of moonlight. Penned by former Winnipegger Wren Brian (now based in Scotland), the world première features brisk direction by Ray Strachan (assisted by Dora Carroll), with an evocative set, props and lighting created by Dean Cowieson. MJ Dandeneau's atmospheric soundscape — including lapping waves, chirpy crickets and birdcalls punctuated by jazzy interludes — further keeps this 65-minute show popping with kid-friendly energy. Quiet introvert Billie (Kris Cahatol) arrives at Camp Happy Fun Times like a fish out of water, instantly overwhelmed by a relentless stream of activities, including tug-of-war, archery and rowing (for which the actors slip across the stage in a nifty banana-yellow canoe). Leif Norman photo From left: Toby Hughes, Megan Fry, Kris Catahol and Rhea Rodych-Rasidescu are not always happy campers in Billie and the Moon. Buddied up with gung-ho, gregarious and at times all-around mean girl Sam (Megan Fry, who also plays Parent), and egged on by camp counsellors Rickie (Toby Hughes; tripling as fellow camper Parker and the Moon), and Andy (Rhea Rodych-Rasidescu, also camper Jules), Billie seeks refuge in the woods, where the Moon offers her friendship and cosmic commiseration. Brian's compassionate, well-crafted script unfolds through a series of vignettes — Billie's despair rising like a summer thermometer with every belted-out verse of 99 Bottles of Pop on the Wall — that will surely strike a chord with many Billies in the audience, making this young people's theatre at its best. There's plenty of audience participation, but it never feels gratuitous and is paced effectively throughout. One of the show's most magical ooh-and-ah moments come when pinpricks of light are shone over the audience during the moon scenes, with tots and grown-ups wriggling their fingers to create twinkling stars for a deliciously immersive theatrical experience. The four versatile cast members seamlessly morph through multiple roles, their physical mannerisms and vocal inflections leaping across generations. The way Hughes and Rodych-Rasidescu's flip between their respective camper and counsellor personas is particularly noteworthy, as they flesh out their characters aided by lightning-quick costume changes. Leif Norman Out of sorts at Camp Happy Fun Times, Billie (Kris Cahatol, right) Billie seeks refuge in the woods, where the Moon (Toby Hughes) offers friendship and cosmic commiseration. A wonderful Cahatol delivers a pitch-perfect protagonist, full of aching vulnerability as she grapples with age-old questions regarding the need for solitude and 'being alone,' versus just plain loneliness. Hughes' Moon, perched atop the upstage risers against a starry night sky, is equally compelling, garbed in costume designer Brenda McLean's wizard-like cape and mask with his amplified voice making him even more otherworldly. He lends a crater, er, an ear to Billie, offering understanding and down-to-earth advice when Billie admits, 'I'm just sick of pretending I'm having fun when I'm really not.' However, this all-too-relatable Moon is not merely pie-in-the-sky; he grumpily bemoans that Earth doesn't listen to him, or that earthlings are too tired or busy to be looking up at him these days (there's truth to that). During Billie's darkest hour, Moon's wise counsel brings a tear to the eye, his boundless friendship able to warm hearts despite his being gazillions of kilometres away. There are a few minor flaws: the script glosses too quickly over Billie's being a child of D-I-V-O-R-C-E (lots of younger audience members will want to hear more about that), but it makes the insightful point that for some parents, choosing to part ways is able to quell the white waters of family dysfunction). Another scene is astute: Rickie's well-intended insistence on armchair psychoanalyzing Billie, informing her that the 'noise of the camp is like her chaos at home,' dishonours her natural proclivities for solitude, while further fanning the campfires of her distress. It's also tough to hear the loud 'n' proud Sam at times; her rapid-fire delivery, often overly shrill, improved by the end. Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. Sign up for The Warm-Up Also, it's never a good sign when audience members puzzle with each other whether the show is over. The final image of Billie, zipping around the stage on her tree-trunk spaceship intending to visit her lunar friend, feels underdeveloped. The abrupt blackout even suggested her spaceship had crashed, semi-traumatizing a few kids sitting around this writer during Saturday's matinee performance. There are many ways around this, including possibly spotlighting the Moon, showing the two friends finally reunited in the cosmos, or even making the entire play a dreamy flight of fancy. Despite all this, however, the play ends on a grace note, as Billie ultimately forgives Sam for her bullying ways, the latter learning she needs to listen to others. After Moon assures Billie, 'We're both on Team Loner,' there is greater understanding and acceptance, as the young girl fulfils the camp's 'Rule No. 6,' to 'have fun and try new things. Her unconditional love for her unique, non-negotiable self proves the best camp activity of all.
Winnipeg Free Press
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Talking to the moon
To find tranquility in an overstimulating world, Wren Brian often uses theatre as a temporary escape into self-reflection. She's been doing it professionally since 2009, but personally speaking? The admittedly introverted playwright has drifted off into daydreams for as long as she could string together a sentence or a friendship bracelet. 'I went off and played by myself. I'd pretend I was an animal and sometimes that was with other kids, but then it would shift to going off to do it by myself at home. I told myself stories a lot. I would mutter to myself and walk, which sounds really insane,' she says. Leif Norman photo Kris Cahatol (left) as Billie and Toby Hughes as Counsellor Rickie in Billie and the Moon 'I was very embarrassed about it, actually. It's weird to be saying it out loud now, but that's what kids do: we do kid things and we imagine.' Brian never stopped: in her newest work, Billie and the Moon, opening today at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People, the titular character is just beginning to consider their place in the universe. Billie (played by Kris Cahatol) is a first-time summer camper, paired by the buddy system with a campsite veteran (Megan Fry) to provide assistance navigating the microcosmic lakeside community. Written without a specific gender identity in mind, Billie the kid is challenged by everyday concerns, such as anxiety, frustration and the fear of missing out, a struggle so commonplace that its acronym, FOMO, has an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. Raised in Whitehorse, Yukon, trained at the University of Winnipeg and now based in Scotland, Brian thoroughly understands Billie's out-of-place predicament. 'That all fed into Billie's experience,' says Brian, 34, a winner in 2017 of the Harry S. Rintoul Prize at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival. Billie needed a bit of summertime solace in nature, but instead entered a noisy environment with its own set of rules and expectations. Seeking companionship and understanding, Billie looks to the sky, where the funny man in the moon (Toby Hughes) does more than stare back: he talks. Brian began writing the story for Billie in 2017 as a member of the Sandbox, MTYP's playwright's unit, under the direction of Andraea Sartison and Rick Chafe. 'Dora Carroll and I — Dora's now the assistant director — were paired together and we improvised a scene of a child looking at the moon, speaking to the moon, and the moon answering,' recalls Brian. A three-page treatment followed and then, during a cacophonous presentation at the Carol Shields Festival, came the idea to set the story at a summer camp. 'Why did Billie want to go to the moon? Maybe they were seeking that quiet night,' says Brian. Supplied Playwright Wren Brian says she needs solitude in order to reflect. During her third year in the Sandbox, Brian dug into Billie full-time rather than generating more ideas for children's shows. Brian herself never attended summer camp, but was an ardent Girl Guide. Drawing on that experience, she built out Billie's camp world, which includes the responsible Counsellor Andy (Rhea Rodych-Rasidescu) and the chaos agent Counsellor Rickie (Hughes). But the similarities between Billie and the glowing satellite are the play's central celestial connection. The moon, Brian says, is required by nature to come out and play every night, but does it always want to? Monthly What you need to know now about gardening in Winnipeg. An email with advice, ideas and tips to keep your outdoor and indoor plants growing. It was easy to project Billie's inner life onto the lunar surface, but perhaps more rewarding to consider the other side of the reflection. 'It's the moon's nature to be alone,' says Brian, who says she often needs regenerative periods of solitude to be less prickly and more present. 'Taking moments of quiet solitude help me to be a better functioning person.' Outside, alone, away from the stresses of the world is often where imagination flourishes. Ben WaldmanReporter Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben. Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Winnipeg Free Press
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Stage debut
Manitoba Theatre for Young People's freshly announced 2025-26 season will begin with the curtain rising on the company's second stage, the Richardson Studio Theatre. Formerly a rehearsal and secondary programming space, the erstwhile Richardson Hall has been undergoing an extensive renovation this past year as part of the company's $9-million capital campaign. The mainstage on Forks Road will house five productions next season, with the studio theatre hosting the opening and closing runs. Artistic director Pablo Felices-Luna says the new space, with a lower seating capacity than the mainstage, opens a fresh frontier for smaller-scale productions to flourish and develop. Having known about the planned renovations for more than two years, he says he considered its inaugural performance, a snowed-in comedy called Gather, with gentleness and welcoming in mind. CHELSEY STUYT PHOTO Otosan is a semi-autobiographical production featuring wild and lifelike puppets. Written by Toronto's Julia Lederer and Julie Ritchey, Gather (Oct. 3-26) was produced during the pandemic in Ritchey's native Chicago, centring on a group of community members stuck inside as their world is enveloped by a deep freeze. A chef loses their sense of smell, a librarian their vocabulary and a letter carrier their sense of purpose. Sound familiar? Next (Nov. 1-9), is dance artist Santee Smith's The Mush Hole, produced by Toronto's Kaha:wi Dance Theatre; a returning show that was MTYP's final production before the pandemic shutdown in March 2020. Created at and inspired by the Mohawk Residential School, which was operated in Ontario by the Anglican Church until 1970, The Mush Hole owes its title to a nickname children and community members gave the institution. The third show in the slate is The Lightning Thief, a musical adaptation of Rick Riordan's YA juggernaut series about Percy Jackson. 'I have a soon-to-be 11-year-old who reads the books, and I had to be so disciplined to keep this a secret,' Felices-Luna says. 'We're telling her this weekend and she's going to lose her mind.' The storm is expected from Dec. 5 to 28. Next up (Jan. 30-Feb. 8) is the season's first locally developed production, the delightfully offbeat comedy Tad and Birdy, written by Winnipeg's Anika Dowsett. Created in MTYP's Sandbox playwright's unit, Dowsett's script follows a 'bird-voiced' tree-frog tadpole who's put in a jar and relocated to a boy's bedroom. Tad's roommate? A lovebird who knows everything but the key to happiness. 'Anika has done a beautiful job keeping the childlike simplicity alive,' says Felices-Luna, who is hoping Dowsett's play might parrot the success of this past season's run of Frog and Toad. SUPPLIED South Korean company Brush is back at MTYP this season with fan favourite Doodle Pop. Are direct flights possible between Winnipeg and Seoul? If aeronautically advisable, Felices-Luna would advocate for one, because for the third time since taking the helm of MTYP, the artistic director is bringing the endlessly innovative South Korean company Brush back to the city. Last seen in 2023-24 with Poli Pop, Brush returns with Doodle Pop (Feb. 27 -March 8), the show that first wowed Winnipeg audiences in 2022. 'I watched a kid having so much fun, bouncing, that when they sat back down, the kid missed the seat,' says Felices-Luna. He doesn't blame the young viewer. 'The show is so exciting that it's hard to sit still.' During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. From Montreal's Bouge de là dance company comes Glitch (April 10-19), which follows four intrepid explorers following their curiosities into a deserted theatre basement, where they're guided by an animate laser beam that becomes the show's fifth character. Then, to close the season, wild and lifelike puppets shake hands in Shizuka Kai's Otosan, a semi-autobiographical journey into her relationship with her father, a wildlife videographer. Eager to understand her father's work, the character Shizu climbs into his suitcase as he ventures north. SUPPLIED Doodle Pop will get kids bouncing out of their seats. The puppets, says Felices-Luna, make you 'feel as if you're breathing with them.' Produced by Vancouver's Little Onion Puppet Company and co-created by Kai, Jess Amy Shead and Randi Edmundson, Otosan runs April 24-May 17, 2026, in the Richardson Studio Theatre. The final production of MTYP's current season, the world première of Wren Brian's Billie and the Moon, runs May 2-11. Directed by Ray Strachan, the summer-camp production stars Kris Cahatol, Megan Fry, Rhea Rodych-Rasidescu and Toby Hughes. SUPPLIED The Mush Hole, inspired by Ontario's Mohawk Residential School, returns to MTYP in November. DAVID WONG PHOTO Montreal's Bouge de là dance company presents Glitch this season. Ben WaldmanReporter Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben. Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
CBC
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Manitoba teens bring 'deadites' to life in musical
It's a groovy time until your friends turn into demons and want you to join them. Young performers at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People are embracing the campiness of a cult classic with their production of Evil Dead the Musical.
