Shine a light

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This article was published 08/12/2020 (1773 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Had the COVID-19 pandemic not rudely interrupted life as we know it, we might have been enjoying a production of The Sound of Music on the mainstage of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre this month.

But of course, that was not meant to be, as first the early shows of the RMTC season, then the entire season, suffered cancellation in response to the pandemic. That left RMTC artistic director Kelly Thornton with yet another mountain to climb after her plan of producing a series of mini-plays — Tiny Plays, Big Ideas — at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights also got postponed when the province went to code red in mid-November.

“I’m the queen of pivoting at this point,” Thornton says in a phone interview.

But her latest swivel has landed her helming a seasonal show on the mainstage that everyone can enjoy from the safety of their homes, at no charge.

All Is Bright, running under an hour, will commence streaming for free Dec. 19 and run until Dec. 31. (Theatregoers will nevertheless have to reserve tickets at royalmtc.ca.)

The beginnings of the show were first conceived in August, when Thornton started thinking about how to give audiences a seasonal treat in the absence of the usual holiday fare.

“I wrestled with a variety of different ideas and I landed on a holiday variety show,” she says. Before the active case numbers skyrocketed upward, Thornton had hoped the production might be live, with all protocols in place to protect both audiences and performers. When that proved untenable, the show shifted to a digital format. It was shot by local production company Frank Digital, using the entire RMTC building on Market Avenue as its soundstage.

The show features a cast of local performers including Lisa Bell, Tobias Hughes, Jennifer Lyon, Kevin McIntyre, Debbie Patterson, Alex Poch-Goldin, Daniel Roy, Robyn Slade, Stephanie Sy and Cory Wojcik. But the building itself is one of the stars, Thornton says.

“The building is actually celebrating its 50th anniversary,” Thornton says. Hence, the production ranges all over the building, including the painting shop, where Cory Wojcik’s Santa substitute makes himself at home in something like Santa’s workshop.

“We did a lot of the stuff on the stage, of course, but even on the stage, we try and pull back the curtain and show people how we make theatre magic, from a naked stage into a fully-realized winter wonderland.”

‘It turned out to be an exquisite piece,” Thornton says. “I really wanted it to be a love letter to our audience and to their love of theatre.”

 

“This is really our gift to Manitoba, beyond our audience base,” she says. “I hope it’s viewed widely across the country really. It’s a gift for the season.”

The title is a cue that the show is intended to shed a little light in this dark period of our history.

“The theme of light was a conscious choice, to talk about light because obviously Christmas and the lighting of the trees and the light is part of that, and also Hanukkah the lighting of the candles, and also solstice.

“The message that the light is returning,” Thornton says. “That’s a huge one for me because there have been days when it just feels like we’re trapped and we don’t we can’t see the future and we don’t know if we’re ever going to get out of this.

“And I think now, looking on that horizon, the light is returning.”

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing