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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Playwright a 'winner' just for making GG list
Michael Nathanson is sure he won't win the 2009 Governor General's Award for drama this morning but that hasn't stopped him from feeling like a winner since he was shortlisted last month.
Nathanson's drama Talk is one of the five nominees for the annual Canadian theatre prize and he has come around to the idea that being a finalist is winning.
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"It's the cliché you hear in award season but it is true," says the WJT artistic producer.
The surprise recognition is particularly sweet for Nathanson, who was touted as a can't-miss talent when he graduated from the University of Winnipeg in the late '80s. Everyone expected great things from Nathanson, especially Nathanson. Did he dream of winning a GG?
"No, I think my stated goal was to win a Tony Award by the time I was 30," he says, chuckling now at his youthful audacity. "I didn't lack for verbosity or ego. I wanted people to recognize me as a great writer before I walked into a room."
In the early '90s, Nathanson headed for Los Angeles to be discovered and was ignored. He found work in his sister's insurance company in Dallas before moving on to New York and Toronto in advertising sales. His return to Winnipeg was quiet until he popped up at WJT in 2007 as general manager. That fall, Talk opened, bringing to an end 16 years in playwriting wilderness.
"I sent it to every Jewish theatre across North America including WJT and it was soundly rejected everywhere," he says. "One theatre in Minnesota praised the script and said once the conflict in the Middle East is settled they'd be happy to produce it."
The GG nomination could give Nathanson something to talk about. Nine theatres in Canada are currently reading Talk, the story of two men whose friendship is threatened due to their clashing views about the Middle East conflict.
"I'm grateful that things have worked out the way they've had," he says. "I couldn't have handled any quote success any earlier than I am right now. I would be happy to get a bunch of productions out this. The 20-year-old version of me is different from the 43-year-old."
One of his fellow finalists is Toronto's Hannah Moscovitch, whose play East of Berlin opens Thursday at MTC Warehouse. She, too, is adamant she has no chance of cashing the $25,000 winner's cheque.
"I won't win, I just won't, I guarantee it," she says. "It's not my turn. When you're young you don't want to win that tennis match against your father and watch him sweating and beaten. You don't want to do that."
The three remaining nominees are Joan MacLeod for Another Home Invasion, Kevin Loring for Where the Blood Mixes and Beverley Cooper for Innocence Lost: A Play about Steven Truscott.
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The Black Hole Theatre kicks off its new season tonight with a revival of one of its most significant premieres, Departures and Arrivals by the late Carol Shields.
The student theatre debuted the airport comedy 25 years ago when Shields taught creative writing at the University of Manitoba. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist had previously penned Anniversary with Dave Williamson but it was Departures and Arrivals which was staged first on Nov. 16, 1984.
"I think she had the idea of a university student production in mind," says U of M professor Chris Johnson, who directed the first run of Departures and Arrivals. "It works so well in the university setting. We are doing it with nine students but we originally did it with 30. It's very expandable and flexible. It's a great teaching play because a small cast gets to play all kinds of different characters."
Departures and Arrivals, which this time will be directed by Megan Andres, consists of a series of vignettes taking place in the lounge of a busy airport. Basically it is a sophisticated bit of people watching in which the audience is also privy to the conversations and interior monologues of passersby.
"We hope that Carol Shields fans will come to see it," says Johnson. "The writing is beautiful. While working on some of the scenes I was reminded again what a good writer she was."
Departures and Arrivals runs from Nov. 17-21, 24-28 at 8 p.m. except at 7 p.m. on the 17th and 24th. Tickets are $11, $9 for students and seniors. The Black Hole Theatre is located on the lower level of University College on Dysart Road of the Fort Garry campus.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 17, 2009 D3
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