The Goose soars to prestigious Fringe award

By: Ben Waldman Posted: 3:42 PM CDT Monday, Jul. 28, 2025 Last Modified: 10:37 AM CDT Tuesday, Jul. 29, 2025 | Updates

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For The Goose, Ellen Peterson is the winner of this year’s Harry S. Rintoul Award, an honour given annually to the best new original Manitoban work at the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival.

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For The Goose, Ellen Peterson is the winner of this year’s Harry S. Rintoul Award, an honour given annually to the best new original Manitoban work at the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival.

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For The Goose, Ellen Peterson is the winner of this year’s Harry S. Rintoul Award, an honour given annually to the best new original Manitoban work at the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival.

The award, named for the late local playwright and founder of Theatre Projects Manitoba, has been handed out by the festival since 2002.

Alongside works by playwrights Adia Branconnier, Thomas McLeod, Heather Madill and Joseph Aragon, Peterson’s name appeared twice on the shortlist, with the renowned theatre creator also earning a nod for Daredevils, starring Cora Matheson and Michael Strickland as high-wire artists making every move count above the Niagara Gorge.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS FILES
Ellen Peterson earned the Harry S. Rintoul Award for her Fringe play The Goose, a well-crafted retelling of a Japanese folktale. — RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS FILES

Ellen Peterson earned the Harry S. Rintoul Award for her Fringe play The Goose, a well-crafted retelling of a Japanese folktale.

A prairie-set retelling of a Japanese folktale called The Crane Wife, The Goose starred Delf Gravert as a gentle farmer who frees a trapped goose before marrying the bird after she re-emerges in human form (Gwendolyn Collins). Maggie Nagle completed the cast as Gravert’s hardbitten mother-in-law.

Featuring a score from the playwright’s brother Lloyd, The Goose enjoyed a weeklong stay at the Gargoyle Theatre on Ellice Avenue.

In her five-star Free Press review of the show, Alison Mayes praised Peterson’s handling of the well-travelled material, stating that the score, effects and superb performances “coalesce into a breathtaking whole.”

Thomas McLeod, for his madcap MPI frenzy Third Party, starring Dane Bjornson and Alanna McPherson, earned the honorable mention.

Heather Madill and Joseph Aragon were also recognized for their Danish astronomy musical Tycho Freakin’ Brahe, as was Adia Branconnier, who wrote and starred in I Hope You Know with their father, Mike.

Established by the Manitoba Association of Playwrights, the Manitoba Arts Council-funded award includes a $750 prize for the winner and a $250 prize for the honourable mention.

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca

Ben Waldman
Reporter

Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University’s (now Toronto Metropolitan University’s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben.

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Free Press review

THE GOOSE
Tin Fish
The Gargoyle Theatre (Venue 25), to Sunday
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Transposing a Japanese folk tale, The Crane Wife, to a drought-ridden prairie farm in the Dirty ’30s, this three-person drama weaves a transcendent spell.

Winnipeg writer-director Ellen Peterson beautifully renders a haunting story that resonates with mythological power (sounding some echoes of Swan Lake). The evocative acoustic score by Lloyd Peterson, exquisite visual and sound effects and superb performances coalesce into a breathtaking whole.

After a gentle farmer (Delf Gravert) finds a trapped goose and sets it free, he meets and marries a strange, naive young woman, unaware that she’s the bird in human form. The new bride tries valiantly to please her hardbitten mother-in-law (Maggie Nagel) and begins weaving in seclusion to support the household.

The hour-long tale metaphorically suggests the struggle of a foreign-born wife to adapt to a new culture. Gwendolyn Collins is simply stunning — and very funny when she tries to suppress her honk — as the endearingly skittish goose-woman who asks so little and sacrifices so much.

— Alison Mayes

Ben Waldman
Reporter