Things to get wild and woolly at MTYP

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This article was published 02/05/2024 (880 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Maurice Sendak classic, a berry special fable and everyone’s favourite amicable amphibians will be visiting Manitoba Theatre for Young People’s stage next season, the company announced Tuesday.

As the company’s 2023-2024 season wraps up with its current run of The Pa’akai We Bring, MTYP unveiled its slate of six productions for next season, headlined by a staging of the beloved children’s book Where the Wild Things Are, the Métis celebration of Blue Beads & Blueberries and A Year with Frog and Toad, based on the enduring friendship stories by Arnold Lobel.

For artistic director Pablo Felices-Luna, those shows — along with the acrobatic, pedal-to-the-metal Life-Cycle, the summer night story of Billie and the Moon and another instalment of the popular Gruffalo series from the U.K.-based Tall Stories — represent the vast array of storytelling approaches available in the youth theatre world.

“(This season) is a balance of stories from here and from everywhere else,” says Felices-Luna, who joined MTYP as artistic director in 2014.

Where The Wild Things Are and Frog and Toad are popular stories that have been told on the MTYP stage before, running in 2012 and 2019 respectively.

“One of the beautiful things about theatre for young people is that our audiences do cycle through, so there are lots of kiddos today who wouldn’t have been ready for stories like these before,” says Felices-Luna, who with Sarah Topham will venture into the pond to co-direct Frog and Toad.

Frog and Toad in particular is having a resurgence among gen Z and millennials, he says.

“I think it’s because of this desire to reconnect to this simple life, with two friends sitting by the lake, eating sandwiches.”

Wild Things is a production by Presentation House Theatre in Vancouver.

Blue Beads & Blueberries is a semi-locally produced play, written by the Manitoba-raised Erin Macklem, currently a B.C. resident. The story, which will tour across the province, follows a young girl on a journey into nature and self-understanding, exploring the traditions of her Métis upbringing.

The production started as a 30-minute script produced for a Victoria company, but Felices-Luna said he felt it merited more space for deeper exploration.

“It’s a very beautiful play,” he says.

Another local production is the season-closer, the world première of Billie and the Moon, a sleepaway camp story written by Wren Brian that has its roots in MTYP’s creator’s unit program.

“Wren found an amazing story and we knew we had to pursue it. It’s great fun,” says Felices-Luna.

After The Gruffalo brought laughter to the MTYP stage during the 2023 season, the fictional — or is he real? — character returns for The Gruffalo’s Child, which tells the story of the original production from a new perspective, à la Wicked and The Wizard of Oz.

Life-Cycle is a particularly strange and wonderful show following a man’s connection with an old yellow bicycle, says Felices-Luna.

“I do love a show with acrobatics and magic, and this is a beautiful story with some really great surprises,” he says of the production, a co-production of DynamO Théâtre & Guillaume Doin from Montreal.

The season’s schedule and more info are available at the MTYP website. Single ticket sales begin on Aug. 13; early bird discounts for subscribers are available until June 28.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com