Six days, five theatre artists, one production

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This article was published 15/03/2024 (881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

To pull off her latest magic trick, Ellen Peterson is hiring a wizard.

Peterson, a Winnipeg playwright known for her sense of humour and whimsy, isn’t joking around: the “production wizard” will oversee a team of five artists who will develop and produce one original theatrical performance over a six-day “pilot week” in May.

It’s all part of the Free Theatre, an idea Peterson came up with last year to boost financial accessibility for audiences and to create space for artists to experiment, learn the ropes and create, without restriction, a new piece of theatre. On the sixth day, the impromptu company will present what they’ve come up with, free of cost, to audiences at the Gargoyle Theatre on Ellice Avenue.

“We’re doing it fast, we’re doing it cheap and it’s going to be beautiful,” says Peterson, whose work includes a Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre adaptation of Sense and Sensibility (2018), The Brink at Prairie Theatre Exchange (2013) and None of This Is Happening for Theatre Projects Manitoba (2022).

Peterson says she often has grandiose ideas, but has lacked the administrative follow-through to bring them to life.

“But this idea just wouldn’t let me go. The more I thought about it, the more strongly I felt this was a thing we could do to add to the scene and increase the ability for theatre to reach more and different people,” she says.

The artists will be paid at the industry standard rate for their week of work while developing a show during that compressed time period on a shoestring production budget of $500.

Most works, Peterson says, take at least two years to go from page to stage, so this concept would allow the team’s ideas to feel more current, should that be their intent.

“This isn’t to say it has to be a politically engaged work, or be ripped from the headlines, so to speak, but it could be,” she says.

As a visual and theatre artist, Peterson understands the value of such a wide-open opportunity.

“We only get to be really good artists by working, and in theatre, it’s not like being a painter, where you can improve at home. Theatre requires that you get jobs and that you work with others in some way, whether you get paid or not.”

Those working opportunities are few and far between, she says, one of the elements that makes the Free Theatre concept so exciting, along with its lack of financial barrier.

Other institutions in Winnipeg have offered pay-what-you-can productions, including the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival for children’s shows and all of Théâtre Cercle Molière’s productions.

“Theatres are talking about wanting to get younger audiences, and I think that is really important, but all we’re hearing is that generations aren’t going to be able to buy a house,” Peterson says. “The kind of steady income with enough left over to get season’s tickets to a theatre — I don’t think people who are gigging are sure they can swing that.”

The idea for the Free Theatre occurred to her last year after the 61-year-old suffered a stroke as a result of a case of COVID. A few medical tests led to the implantation of a pacemaker, which boosted her heart rate and, seemingly, her creativity.

“All of a sudden, I had all of this energy I’d been without. It also gave me this sense of urgency. I needed to put some of my ideas into the world before I ran out of time,” she says.

After that ordeal, Peterson workshopped a play by Scott Douglas with the Manitoba Association of Playwrights over a weeklong stretch, capped by an intimate reading.

“It was just one of those magical, sublime weeks. We all had such a good time, and I thought, ‘Why can’t it be like this all the time? Why does it have to be more than this?’” she says.

So Peterson got to work. First, she secured some advice and funding from the Winnipeg Arts Council. Then, she contacted Suzie Martin of Theatre Projects Manitoba to inquire about this particular Manitoban theatre project, which Peterson thought might be too similar to TPM’s Live Arts Trade Route program in rural Manitoba.

“Suzie said, ‘In fact, it would fit nicely as an urban component,’” Peterson recalls.

Andrew Davidson, the steward of the Gargoyle, agreed to host the pilot week.

With those pieces in place, Peterson put together the application for artists and warlocks alike, setting in motion an idea that’s wild even by the standards of the playwright herself, whose past projects include a virtual Bug Circus.

Like that little big-top adventure, the Free Theatre is dedicated not only to low cost of entry but to low ecological footprints.

“We’ll borrow, we’ll recycle, we’ll find a couch if we need one. Theatre is very ephemeral, so I wanted to lean into that. And if we need to, we’ll fix it with lights,” Peterson says.

With a flexible application deadline of Friday, March 15, Peterson had already received by Monday more than a dozen applications, proving to her that the idea had merit.

“These are good, bright, creative people,” she says. “I have a feeling that we’re going to have a tough choice to make.”

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com