Carol Shields’ airport vignettes set to take off again

The first play by one of Manitoba’s finest writers is scheduled for a return flight to local stages this weekend, with the Shoestring Players bringing Carol Shields’ Departures and Arrivals to the Forrest Nickerson Theatre.

Opening the book on how Winnipeg libraries get new material

Last week, local fans of the hit television show Heated Rivalry received a thrilling notification: “Your hold at Winnipeg Public Library is ready to borrow!”

The gay hockey romance has become a major CanCon export, turning Haligionian author Rachel Reid, who penned the books upon which the show is based, into a New York Times bestseller and wreaking havoc on library wait-lists everywhere.

Things started heating up at the Winnipeg Public Library last month.

“That’s when it really took off. There was some increase in December, but not enough to warrant additional copies,” says Aileen Clear, one of three collections librarians responsible for keeping the city’s 20 library branches stocked with new and popular material.

Five things to check out during Winnipeg’s annual winter party Festival du Voyageur

Take 5: In a regular series, the Free Press explores five great things

Festival du Voyageur is celebrating 57 years of paying homage to the history of francophones, Métis and First Nations in Manitoba.

Headquartered at Whittier Park in St. Boniface, with other events at a host of indoor sites, the festival opens Friday and runs to Feb. 20, featuring a wealth of activities, music and art inspired by the voyageur era of the early 1800s.

Below are five ways to find your joie de vivre during the festival; tickets are available at heho.ca, where you can also download a handy app.

Public-access talk show parody offers comedic look at masculinity

There’s not much glitz or glamour in the world of public access television, and that’s part of what makes the medium enticing to Winnipeg artist Gislina Patterson, who’s spent hundreds of hours watching YouTube clips of low-budget, off-the-wall programming that wasn’t beholden to Nielsen ratings or network interference.

“What’s really exciting about those shows is that they’re this really pure, free form of expression,” says Patterson, who with Dasha Plett runs We Quit Theatre, a collaborative performance collective that wilfully and skilfully defies expectation.

“It’s people making something that they really like, that they really, really want to make. They have professional equipment, but there’s no expectation of what the material they create will be. And there are really beautiful things that emerge out of that.”

Plett and Patterson’s latest beautiful thing is Men Explain Things to Us … And We Like It!, a project that is exactly as it sounds, but so much more.

Fame a fickle flame for comedian who moves from screen to stage with ease

Fame can be funny. One day, the internet mistakenly pairs you with a Brazilian supermodel you’ve never met. Another day, a waitress at the Calgary airport asks for a photo, then tells you — innocently enough — that you looked “much fatter on TV.” Ryan Belleville laughs at both.

Non-botanical bouquets offer twist on Valentine’s Day florals

Flowers? For Valentine’s Day? Groundbreaking.

As beautiful as they may be, gifting a ubiquitous bunch of cellophane-wrapped blooms on Valentine’s Day is hardly original.

There are far more imaginative ways to make an impression on your love, true or otherwise, than plucking an out-of-season bouquet from a bucket of water.

Say no to imported bunches, suspended in bloom in refrigerated containers, travelling thousands of kilometres from far-flung locations, only to be consigned to the bin a week later, their faded petals a grim reminder that everything you love will eventually die.

Murdoch Mysteries, a mainstay of Canadian television, turned into live symphonic experience

Less than a week after the Winnipeg New Music Festival’s finale, another romp through Canadian orchestral sounds greets Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s audiences tonight. This time, in a poppier key, with Murdoch Mysteries in Concert.

Slush fun: Couple’s chill skills conjure up unique fruity, freeze-dried flavours

Borrowing the title of a popular doo-wop song from the 1950s, Love Potion No. 9 is a 1992 romantic comedy about a biochemist played by Tate Donovan (Damages, The O.C.) who receives an elixir from a sorceress (late Academy Award-winner Anne Bancroft) that renders recipients irresistible to members of the opposite sex.

So what if the light-hearted flick, which also stars Sandra Bullock as the chemist’s love interest, has a lowly 25 per cent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes? When Lenard and Sharlene MacCoy, the married couple behind Alchemy on Ice, a venture specializing in supernatural-sounding slush mixes such as Cherry Enchantment and Sangria Sorcery, were tossing around names for a new concoction, they ultimately settled on Mango Philter No. 9, a play on Love Potion No. 9.

Now, it’s not as if the MacCoys purport that their fruit-based blends — meant to use in conjuring up frozen cocktails or mocktails when merged with alcohol, juice or sparkling water — hold any special powers. That being said, there are people who, as if under a spell, have been known to make a beeline to their booth whenever they appear at pop-up markets throughout the province.

“They’ll rush over and be like, do we have anything they haven’t tried yet?” Lenard says, seated next to Sharlene in a Southdale coffee shop not far from the Island Lakes home they share with their two grown children, ages 25 and 24. “Or they’ll stop people walking by — complete strangers — and tell them they have to buy our stuff.”

In 'Holland,' playwright uses dramaturgical skills to detail frustration with bureaucracy

When she started working on the script that became Holland nearly a decade ago, Trish Cooper’s pen was guided by a simmering rage against the bureaucratic machine.

As the mom of a sledge-hockey star with spina bifida, Cooper had grown accustomed to navigating a never-ending series of hurdles to ensure her son’s access to what she calls “secret resources” that only seemed to reveal themselves when hidden passcodes were spoken, phone calls were made and intricate dances were performed.

After one particularly circuitous stretch of meetings with a social worker to discuss respite and child care, so immense was their frustration that Cooper and her husband, filmmaker Sam Vint, could have punched through walls. Cooper suggested that Vint make a documentary about the hoops that families of children with disabilities have to leap through.

“And he was like, ‘Or you should write a play,’” she says.

Time to start thinking about summer camp

With more than 20 weeks before school lets out, it might feel premature to be thinking about camp registration, especially when spring break hasn’t even started yet.

But those five days off school are a walk in the park compared with 10 weeks of unstructured free time.

Parents without the luxury of child care will be flicking through their family calendar, trying to figure out how to do it all as work/family/life balance becomes more challenging when children are home all day.

Thank goodness for the plethora of summer camps dotted all around the city, although it is quite the task to sift through them all to pick the right one for your family.

Children’s Museum forced to tighten financial belt, fundraise

The Children’s Museum is a home away from home for the Maes family.

“We come all the time,” says mom Rachel Maes, while watching four of her six kids explore the centre’s toddler zone on a cold Monday afternoon.

“We’re a Métis family, so we can come for free, which is amazing.”

The young family visits the colourful museum at The Forks several times a month during the depths of winter, but that may soon change.

Legumes a filling, cost-effective, tasty way to add protein to meals

Beans, beans, the musical fruit, the more you eat … the further you can stretch a dollar during this season of post-holiday frugality.

Canned or dried, legumes are a filling, cost-effective way to add protein and fibre to a meal. And if your New Year’s resolutions include cutting down on meat consumption, beans are a central ingredient in plant-based cooking.

Today’s Homemade column highlights hearty vegetarian recipes submitted by Free Press readers, including tangy chana (chole) masala with cool cucumber raita from Charulata Gupta, black bean chili from Cathy Collins and slow-cooker chickpea veggie stew from Enid Barnes.

We’re currently looking for Lunar New Year recipes for an upcoming edition of Homemade.

Celebrating 75 years, Charleswood Art Group offers artists camaraderie, inspiration, instruction

Winnipeg has a number of art clubs dotted around the city — and one of the oldest, the Charleswood Art Group celebrates its 75th anniversary this year.

With a membership fee, capped roster, juried admission and waiting list that can sometimes extend to two years, the group might be mistaken for a secretive, fiercely sought-after society.

The reality, however, is far more pragmatic than mysterious.

Formed in 1951 by seven like-minded friends who would meet in a “cold, green army hut” on the corner of Laxdal Road and Roblin Boulevard, these days the group gathers at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church on Buckingham Road to paint, discuss techniques and attend workshops.

Métis-Canadian soprano exploring portrayals of Indigenous women in opera stresses need for joy, humour

While historically opera has been divided into comedies and tragedies, buffa and seria, Camryn Dewar believes Canada’s recent operas have tended to be overly solemn when tackling certain difficult subjects.

The Métis-Canadian soprano is thinking, in particular, about the representation of Indigenous issues — a lightning rod for both government funding and critical scrutiny in Canadian culture.

“Lots of (operas) tackle the struggle and the loss, but not many of them feature Indigenous joy and humour,” she says. “And that’s something that’s really necessary because it helps with normalization, showing us as normal people.”

Dewar, a Fulbright Scholar with a newly minted master of music in vocal performance from Montclair State University, is on a Canadian tour showcasing Indigenous Female Representation in Opera, 1879–Present. Part lecture, part singing performance, the presentation had its first Winnipeg stop last week at the University of Manitoba and returns to the Canadian Mennonite University at 11:30 a.m., March 12, in the Laudamus Auditorium.

Shows by, about local legends highlight RMTC bill

After seeing a staged reading of fareWel at the first-ever Kiyanaan Indigenous Theatre Festival last winter, featuring members of the original 1996 cast, artistic director Kelly Thornton was eager to bring Ian Ross’s groundbreaking show to Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s stage for a revival.

And when Ross — the beloved local playwright, storyteller and mentor through the RMTC’s Pimootayowin Creators Circle — died suddenly in November at the age of 57, Thornton’s resolve grew even stronger to introduce a new generation of audiences to the production, which in 1997 made Ross the first Indigenous person to win a Governor General’s Award for English drama.

This fall, as she prepared the program for her sixth season at the company’s artistic helm, Thornton reached out to both Ross’s family and to Prairie Theatre Exchange — which staged the original production — to ask for their clearance and guidance to bring audiences back to the fictional Partridge Crop Reserve for the socially conscious dark comedy.

With their permission, RMTC, in partnership with the National Arts Centre Indigenous Theatre in Ottawa, has slated fareWel as the closing production of the 2026-2027 season on the John Hirsch Mainstage. Set to run from May 5 to 29, the production will be directed by Kevin Loring, the Ottawa theatre’s artistic director.