Stage debut

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This article was published 26/04/2025 (465 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Theatre for Young People’s freshly announced 2025-26 season will begin with the curtain rising on the company’s second stage, the Richardson Studio Theatre.

Formerly a rehearsal and secondary programming space, the erstwhile Richardson Hall has been undergoing an extensive renovation this past year as part of the company’s $9-million capital campaign. The mainstage on Forks Road will house five productions next season, with the studio theatre hosting the opening and closing runs.

Artistic director Pablo Felices-Luna says the new space, with a lower seating capacity than the mainstage, opens a fresh frontier for smaller-scale productions to flourish and develop. Having known about the planned renovations for more than two years, he says he considered its inaugural performance, a snowed-in comedy called Gather, with gentleness and welcoming in mind.

Written by Toronto’s Julia Lederer and Julie Ritchey, Gather (Oct. 3-26) was produced during the pandemic in Ritchey’s native Chicago, centring on a group of community members stuck inside as their world is enveloped by a deep freeze. A chef loses their sense of smell, a librarian their vocabulary and a letter carrier their sense of purpose. Sound familiar?

Next (Nov. 1-9), is dance artist Santee Smith’s The Mush Hole, produced by Toronto’s Kaha:wi Dance Theatre; a returning show that was MTYP’s final production before the pandemic shutdown in March 2020. Created at and inspired by the Mohawk Residential School, which was operated in Ontario by the Anglican Church until 1970, The Mush Hole owes its title to a nickname children and community members gave the institution.

The third show in the slate is The Lightning Thief, a musical adaptation of Rick Riordan’s YA juggernaut series about Percy Jackson. “I have a soon-to-be 11-year-old who reads the books, and I had to be so disciplined to keep this a secret,” Felices-Luna says. “We’re telling her this weekend and she’s going to lose her mind.” The storm is expected from Dec. 5 to 28.

Next up (Jan. 30-Feb. 8) is the season’s first locally developed production, the delightfully offbeat comedy Tad and Birdy, written by Winnipeg’s Anika Dowsett. Created in MTYP’s Sandbox playwright’s unit, Dowsett’s script follows a “bird-voiced” tree-frog tadpole who’s put in a jar and relocated to a boy’s bedroom. Tad’s roommate? A lovebird who knows everything but the key to happiness.

“Anika has done a beautiful job keeping the childlike simplicity alive,” says Felices-Luna, who is hoping Dowsett’s play might parrot the success of this past season’s run of Frog and Toad.

Are direct flights possible between Winnipeg and Seoul? If aeronautically advisable, Felices-Luna would advocate for one, because for the third time since taking the helm of MTYP, the artistic director is bringing the endlessly innovative South Korean company Brush back to the city.

Last seen in 2023-24 with Poli Pop, Brush returns with Doodle Pop (Feb. 27 -March 8), the show that first wowed Winnipeg audiences in 2022.

“I watched a kid having so much fun, bouncing, that when they sat back down, the kid missed the seat,” says Felices-Luna. He doesn’t blame the young viewer. “The show is so exciting that it’s hard to sit still.”

From Montreal’s Bouge de là dance company comes Glitch (April 10-19), which follows four intrepid explorers following their curiosities into a deserted theatre basement, where they’re guided by an animate laser beam that becomes the show’s fifth character.

Then, to close the season, wild and lifelike puppets shake hands in Shizuka Kai’s Otosan, a semi-autobiographical journey into her relationship with her father, a wildlife videographer. Eager to understand her father’s work, the character Shizu climbs into his suitcase as he ventures north.

The puppets, says Felices-Luna, make you “feel as if you’re breathing with them.” Produced by Vancouver’s Little Onion Puppet Company and co-created by Kai, Jess Amy Shead and Randi Edmundson, Otosan runs April 24-May 17, 2026, in the Richardson Studio Theatre.

The final production of MTYP’s current season, the world première of Wren Brian’s Billie and the Moon, runs May 2-11. Directed by Ray Strachan, the summer-camp production stars Kris Cahatol, Megan Fry, Rhea Rodych-Rasidescu and Toby Hughes.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com