Latest news with #TheatreProjectsManitoba
Winnipeg Free Press
28-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
The Goose soars to prestigious Fringe award
For The Goose, Ellen Peterson is the winner of this year's Harry S. Rintoul Award, an honour given annually to the best new original Manitoban work at the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival. The award, named for the late local playwright and founder of Theatre Projects Manitoba, has been handed out by the fringe since 2002. Alongside works by playwrights Adia Branconnier, Thomas McLeod, Heather Madill and Joseph Aragon, Peterson's name appeared twice on the shortlist, with the renowned theatre creator also earning a nod for Daredevils, starring Cora Matheson and Michael Strickland as high-wire artists making every move count above the Niagara Gorge. RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS FILES Ellen Peterson earned the Harry S. Rintoul Award for her Fringe play The Goose, a well-crafted retelling of a Japanese folktale. A prairie-set retelling of a Japanese folktale called The Crane Wife, The Goose starred Delf Gravert as a gentle farmer who frees a trapped goose before marrying the bird after she re-emerges in human form (Gwendolyn Collins). Maggie Nagle completed the cast as a hardbitten mother-in-law who begins weaving in seclusion to support the household. Featuring a score from the playwright's brother Lloyd, The Goose enjoyed a weeklong stay at the Gargoyle Theatre on Ellice Avenue. In her five-star Free Press review of the show, Alison Mayes praised Peterson's handling of the well-travelled material, stating that the score, effects and superb performances 'coalesce into a breathtaking whole.' Thomas McLeod, for his madcap MPI frenzy Third Party, starring Dane Bjornson and Alanna McPherson, earned the honorable mention. Heather Madill and Joseph Aragon were also recognized for their Danish astronomy musical Tycho Freakin' Brahe, as was Adia Branconnier, who wrote and starred in I Hope You Know with their father, Mike. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. Established by the Manitoba Association of Playwrights, the Manitoba Arts Council-funded award includes a $750 prize for the winner and a $250 prize for the honourable mention. 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
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Explosive and techy tales set to open local theatre seasons
On the heels of particularly strong 2024 production years, the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre and Theatre Projects Manitoba have each announced the shows slated for their 2025-26 seasons. Under the artistic direction of Suzie Martin, Theatre Projects Manitoba (TPM) continues the company's tradition of homegrown storytelling, kicking off its season with an innovative and potentially explosive, multi-tiered production of O.G.I. (The Only Good Indian). Each incarnation 'recruits a new artist to step into the radical headspace of a suicide bomber,' the description reads. 'In turn, each performer straps themselves into a suicide vest — and struggles to rationalize to the audience such an 'irrational decision.'' Written and performed by Debbie Patterson, Hazel Venzon, Eric Plamondon, Jivesh Parasram and Tom Arthur Davis, the original production burbles with intrigue and potential for thought-provoking drama. Set to run inside Prairie Theatre Exchange's Colin Jackson Studio Theatre from Sept. 18 to 27, O.G.I. promises to be a pressurized experiment in storytelling for its performers and audiences alike. Developed by the ever-mobile One Trunk Theatre at various stops along TPM's annual live art trade route, The Martian and the Mound was concocted with citizens and artists throughout southern Manitoba, with premières planned in Neubergthal (Oct. 17-19), Morden (Oct. 31-Nov. 2) and at the Gas Station Arts Centre (Nov. 14-17). Performed by Morden's Candlewick Players, the show, written by Andraea Sartison (Ponderosa Pine), follows Dr. Phoenix Albright, an archaeologist from the red planet investigating a mysterious, magnetic 'pull' beneath a Manitoba mound. Following stagings of David Yee's among men and Armin Wiebe's The Recipe, TPM will partner with the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre for the third consecutive year. Local playwright Trish Cooper's Holland, directed by Martin, tells the story of married couple Carrie and Paul, who aim to meet their disabled child's best interests while contending with an antagonistic social worker. Holland (Feb. 4-21 at the Tom Hendry Warehouse) is Cooper's second original script to be staged by the RMTC in a two-year span following 2024's The Comeback. At Winnipeg Jewish Theatre, artistic and managing director Dan Petrenko has constructed a season built around two 10-day productions and a pair of limited engagements. The company's 38th regular season begins at the Berney Theatre with the Dev Hynes-scored JOB The Play, a techy therapy comedy written by American playwright Max Wolf Friedlich (Sept. 11-21), followed by a reading of playwright-in-residence Alex Poch-Goldin's The Right Road to Pontypool. A creation centred on early 20th-century entrepreneur Moishe Yukle Bernstein's efforts to carve out space for Jewish summertime recreation in a small Ontario town where mostly Protestants resided (Nov. 22-23). The season closes with RIDE, a real-life musical about a 19th-century Bostonian — a Latvian Jewish immigrant named Annie Cohen Kopchovsky — who, under the name Annie Londonderry, became the first woman to ride her bicycle around the world (April 16-26). A bonus production of a 'top secret surprise musical' has also been programmed for two nights (May 22-23) at an undisclosed venue. 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.
