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Winnipeg Free Press
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
The monster lives
Four theatre grads from Calgary in an ogre-green Volkswagen Bus oozed into Winnipeg, intending to improvise a fairy tale in Old Market Square. It was 12 years BC — Before Cube. 'There was no Cube. It was a circle stage in the middle of a field there,' recalls Ryan Gladstone, who first visited the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival with Monster Theatre in July 2000. Supplied Monster Theatre drove to Winnipeg 25 years ago in a borrowed VW Bus. Supplied Monster Theatre drove to Winnipeg 25 years ago in a borrowed VW Bus. Monster didn't know what would come of Fairy Tale: A Choose Your Own Adventure Play. Dressed as goblins, sea creatures and big, bad wolves, journeying through mystical forests and vast deserts, Gladstone, Katherine Sanders, Jen Kelly and Charlotte Mitchell performed daily to sparse but enthusiastic crowds, earning so little from the 'pass the hat' system that they sustained themselves on chickpea curry from street vendors and two-dollar highballs from the King's Head Pub. The company left town satisfied, but disappointed to not score a review in the newspaper. But the day after the festival ended, as they gassed up the VW, they noticed a photo of Mitchell hamming it up on the front page of the Free Press, leaving 'children in stitches.' With that bit of validation, the bus headed west, but along the way, a rope came loose, sending their props flying: somewhere between Winnipeg and Saskatoon, a blue foam head the size of a refrigerator must have given a farmer quite the fright. 'We like to imagine that someone found it,' Gladstone says. Twenty-five years after its first breaths, Monster is still alive and well, with Gladstone and company bringing four productions to this year's fringe: the bar-down comedy Hockey Night at the Puck and Pickle; the drunken insurance-investigator tale of No Tweed Too Tight; Til Death: The Six Wives of Henry VIII, starring Tara Travis; and Riot, which features Gladstone and his brother Jeff as thespian nemeses in the story of two duelling productions of Macbeth taking place across the street from one another. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS It's alive: Monster Theatre company members (from left) Tara Travis, Jeff Gladstone, Ryan Gladstone and Jonathon Paterson are bringing four shows to this year's fringe. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS It's alive: Monster Theatre company members (from left) Tara Travis, Jeff Gladstone, Ryan Gladstone and Jonathon Paterson are bringing four shows to this year's fringe. Some of the company's other previous shows in Winnipeg included last year's Erika the Red; Jesus Christ: The Lost Years (2006, 2018); The Canada Show (2001, 2006, 2017); and Juliet: A Revenge Comedy (2019, 2022), which earlier this year enjoyed an off-Broadway run at the Soho Playhouse. Formed after its founders graduated from the University of Calgary's BFA acting program, Monster's name was inspired by their teacher, Keith Johnstone, who explained the difference between monsters and demons while discussing Shakespeare's Iago. 'Demons are smooth and attractive on the outside, but have a cruel and twisted heart. But monsters are the opposite: strange and bizarre on the outside, but they always have a good heart,' Johnstone said. That became a guiding principle for the company, which found its niche in alternate mythologies and revisionist musicals about historical, literary and nationalistic symbols after a brief foray into the tamer world of kids fringe in the early 2000s. 'We sang a song called The Maginot Line, about the Nazis moving into France and stuff. No swears or anything,' Gladstone told the Free Press in 2009. 'Then we sang a version of It's a Small World in a minor key, like a creepy thing. We started going on about how the Disney Corporation has lawyers everywhere and they're watching your kids.' SUPPLIED Juliet: A Revenge Comedy was last here in 2022 Juliet: A Revenge Comedy was last here in 2022 Monster was more at home in the pub, as evidenced by the lasting appeal of Puck and Pickle. Every four years, the company rewrites the topical material to keep the show's 230 short scenes — all taking place during a televised hockey game — fresh. In 2013, ahead of the Sochi Olympics, Monster did Canada v. Russia; in 2017, the home team took on the U.S. 'We were going to do Sweden this year, but we decided, 'No, it's still America,'' says Gladstone, who stars alongside Jon Patterson. (Look out for references to Sam Bennett's rough-housing, an orange-haired president and Connor McDavid's buzzer-beating Four Nations Cup clincher). Gladstone, 48, who also teaches at Vancouver Film School, credits the Winnipeg fringe as a launching pad and testing ground for brand new and more experienced companies, with audiences who push creators to repeatedly up their game when they make a return visit. 'When you talk about living the dream, I think it's the ability to think of an idea for a show, to make it a reality and to bring it to audiences,' he says. 'I found an old journal from 2001 with a list of shows I'd love to do some day.' There are still some ideas without a checkmark beside them — monsters yet to be unleashed. A theatre troupe whose members came up together through the Manitoba Theatre for Young People is running it back where it all started for this year's fringe. After last year's cloning comedy House of Gold earned a spot on the short list for the Harry S. Rintoul Award for best new Manitoba play, Brighter Dark Theatre will stage its latest twisty offering at MTYP's mainstage (Venue 21), where just over a decade ago they bonded during young-company productions of Legally Blonde and The Pirates of Penzance. Starring Thomas McLeod, Dane Bjornson and Alanna MacPherson, with their former teacher Teresa Thomson directing, Third Party is 'MTYP all the way down,' says McLeod, who wrote the script. But the story isn't exactly child's play. Inspired in part from a real-life vehicular collision experienced by the playwright, Third Party stars Bjornson as 'a himbo, alpha-male finance guy' who crashes the car belonging to his wily girl-boss partner (MacPherson, MTYP's Blue Beads and Blueberries), triggering a phone call with hard-boiled insurance adjuster Marty Fink (McLeod), who makes it his mission to poke holes in an already leaky relationship. 'He approaches his job like a Poirot, Columbo or Benoit Blanc,' says McLeod, who works by day as a legal writer and has a degree in English literature. Third Party is 'really influenced by Winnipeg's reputation for being car-dependent,' McLeod says. Brighter Dark's isn't the only production with a noirish hue: new local company Mad Tom Theatre's The Show Must Go On (Venue 3) follows a high school theatre group whose production of Macbeth is bedevilled by an incompetent detective and a cunning saboteur. From Australia, Racing Sloth Productions is stopping in with 2 Magic Rubies, 1 Private Eye: A Dirk Darrow Investigation, with magician Tim Motley (last year's Barry Potter) bringing his psychic detective back to the fringe with a tale based on a story by Dashiell Hammett. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. 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.
Newsweek
14-07-2025
- Automotive
- Newsweek
'Aspirational and Desirable' Van Life Pushed to New, Extreme Limits
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. For generations, adults have taken their kids camping. Those kids turned into adults who camp with friends, and eventually their own children. Along the way, some of them want to take escapism and adventure a bit further. Storyteller Overland is ready for them. The luxury recreation vehicle (RV) company sells models that build on the roots of overlanding in motorized vehicles, which stretches back to the early 1900s and runs through the much beloved era where vintage Westfalia vans and the Volkswagen Bus became common at campsites and California's coast. Storyteller reaches a more well-heeled, but no less adventurous audience. Seven years ago, the Storyteller team came together to remove barriers of entry for those who wanted an overlanding vehicle. "Before we came along, van life was very aspirational and desirable, but it was also pretty complicated, because you had to buy your own van and find a custom manufacturer, or get YouTube certified, or whatever, and figure out how to do it on the weekends," Jeffrey Hunter, Storyteller Overland's CEO, told Newsweek. Storyteller Overland's vehicle lineup. Storyteller Overland's vehicle lineup. Storyteller Overland "We just wanted to help people, solve for the complexity and [allow them to] start enjoying the life and lifestyle. In our mind, Storyteller was always a way of life, and we figured if we helped people have confidence in the level of rigs we were building for them, and do that at the world's greatest level, then we could help them live that life like sooner rather than like with all the hurdles in the house." That meant putting together a startup team that could see the vision. "In 2018 we just started with napkin sketches and daydreams, and a really rad team that had done a lot of these kinds of things before. We focused all that energy into being one core team with one vision in mind, and within four months, we had two fully functioning production-intent prototypes. We had multiple provisional patents that were filed and then ultimately granted domestically and internationally. By the end of 2019, we were in full production," Hunter said. Then, like so many businesses globally, Storyteller felt the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike other companies, like restaurants and movie theaters, Storyteller wasn't negatively impacted by the shutdowns. In fact, heading out on a self-sufficient expedition with your family was one of the few completely safe ways to experience life outside the house for many. Hunter explained: "It liberated a lot of people to be able to choose to adopt this way of life. Because, when you're legally forbidden to come into the office and you're federally mandated to social distance and all this kind of stuff, it just got a lot of people thinking: 'If I could truly work remotely, and we can do the distance learning with our kids and all that...' [RVs] became not just a symbol for that level of freedom, but it became like a real tool and a mode of making that happen." The company worked to quickly scale up to meet demand and build out a dealer network. From the original seven employees, Storyteller grew to close to 250 workers. From one or two vehicles on the road at the start of the pandemic, the company now has over 2,700. "Now, we've got a lot of these out on the road. We have the infrastructure to support the [ownership] experience. Building that infrastructure during that season, kind of in that Wild West era, it gave us a solid footing to continue to expand on new ways to innovate, new audiences to reach and new products [to develop] that inspire and equip the community to go farther and live free, explore endlessly and tell better stories," the CEO said. Three Storyteller Overland vehicles at the beach. Three Storyteller Overland vehicles at the beach. Storyteller Overland As it was putting more vehicles on the road, Storyteller began to consider what the full ownership experience would be like. "Our vehicles don't live conveniently in a 50-mile radius of the dealer network," Hunter said, explaining that purchasing from Storyteller means that, "You're not just buying from that dealer, you're buying into the entire Storyteller way of life that is meant to serve you through all phases of ownership and adventure and exploration." He said that it was "critical" to build out a service network and service infrastructure that expands past the dealer network, utilizing service providers and shops that meet Storyteller standards. "The infrastructure for all of that: the sales, the service, the branding, the community, all of that's grown pretty organically but scaled fairly dramatically," he reminisced. On offer for 2025 are three vans: Crew Mode 170, Mode XO (Full Bathroom) and Mode OG (Halo Shower). All vans are based on Mercedes-Benz Sprinters. Also available are Storyteller GXV Next and GXV Hilt trucks, based on the Ram 5500, and GXV Epic, built on a Kenworth 4x4 chassis. Pricing varies greatly by model, starting at over $187,000 and going up north of $799,000 before taxes and dealer fees. Unlike at a traditional car dealership, there is no haggling over price. Storyteller's prime customer base at the beginning was in the Pacific Northwest, Southern California and Big Sky Country in the U.S. "We've been really impressed by not just how geographically diverse the market has become, but also just in terms of lifestyle and demographics. So many people are adopting this more adventurous way of life," Hunter said. Storyteller GXV Epic driven through barren land. Storyteller GXV Epic driven through barren land. Storyteller Overland In 2022, the company announced that it acquired Global Expedition Vehicles. The acquisition allowed Storyteller to expand its offerings into larger trucks like its GXV line. Hunter said that the acquisition gave Storyteller more exposure, beyond North America. He gave an example of the company's expanded audience: "A global audience of people who will ship our vehicles and then spend two years traveling through West or Central or North Africa, or going all the way from Alaska down through the tip of South America."
Boston Globe
14-07-2025
- Automotive
- Boston Globe
Driver killed Sunday in Concord, N.H. crash
Emergency responders freed Avery from the wreckage and brought him to a nearby hospital, authorities said. Investigators determined that Avery, who was driving an orange 1979 Volkswagen Bus, crashed into the back of a 2023 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van as traffic slowed around them. The driver of the Mercedes-Benz was taken to the hospital for a precautionary evaluation. The southbound side of the highway was closed for approximately three hours. Advertisement Truman Dickerson can be reached at
Motor 1
02-06-2025
- Automotive
- Motor 1
VW Vows to Restore Classic Bus That Survived California Wildfires
The Palisades Fire that tore through southern California in January burned nearly 37 square miles of land and took 24 days to contain. It destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, while sparing others. Out of the chaos, a photo emerged showing a white-over-blue Volkswagen Bus that had somehow survived. The T2 didn't escape the fire unscathed, but now VW of America is working to restore the bus back to its former glory. The automaker announced today, on International Volkswagen Bus Day , that the restoration process has already started at its Oxnard Engineering Campus, about 35 miles northwest of the fire. That's where the automaker houses and maintains its historic vehicle collection. Photo by: Volkswagen The Associated Press photograph that circulated online capturing the blue Bus against a burned and charred backdrop showed off the VW's good side, which its owner, Megan Krystle Weinraub, had named 'Azul,' Spanish for blue. Weinraub told the AP at the time that she 'freaked out' and 'screamed' when she first saw the photo that showed the bus had survived. The passenger side received most of the damage. Its paint is peeling, the windshield is cracked, and there are burn marks on the door. Even the front signal light melted. But the Bus is now on the road to recovery. According to Volkswagen , the bus requires 'extensive mechanical fixes and bodywork to be fully operable,' and it should have the project completed by the end of the year. VW will share additional details about the restoration as it progresses, where we'll likely learn the full extent of the damage. Photo by: Volkswagen Hopefully it's not too bad. Judging from the photos, the classic people-mover is certainly worth saving. Read More Volkswagen News: Volkswagen Says European Buyers Want Buttons, Not Screens Buy Now: VW Promises to Keep Pre-Tariff Prices Through June Get the best news, reviews, columns, and more delivered straight to your inbox, daily. back Sign up For more information, read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use . Source: Volkswagen Share this Story Facebook X LinkedIn Flipboard Reddit WhatsApp E-Mail Got a tip for us? Email: tips@ Join the conversation ( )
