Soul food: MTC

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/03/2009 (6395 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a wonderful life and the Manitoba Theatre Centre hopes to remind recession-weary Winnipeggers of that fact with its 2009-10 playbill.

"MTC has prepared itself to be of great service to economically distressed Manitobans who deserve great entertainment," says artistic director Steven Schipper. "We haven’t shrunk the size or scope of our productions in these constraining times. We are here to help."

The theatrical tonic comes in the form of a decidedly lighter lineup that is built around The Drowsy Chaperone, Canada’s longest running Broadway musical, and the uplifting It’s a Wonderful Life: A Radio Play, the stage version of Frank Capra’s Christmas movie staple about a man who lost all hope in the face of economic hardship.

The Drowsy Chaperone, a comic lampoon of pre-Oklahoma musicals, is Canada’s most celebrated and successful musical export other than, maybe, Anne of Green Gables. Its rags-to-riches development began as a 40-minute wedding gift to a pair of Toronto performers in 1998. A rewritten version a year later was a sellout hit at the Toronto Fringe Festival and was in turn was snapped up for runs in Los Angeles, on Broadway, where it won five 2007 Tony Awards, and in London.

What is enticing about It’s a Wonderful Life is that the audience gets a familiar story about the redemptive power of hope told as a radio play by actors performing the dozens of characters as well as the sound effects. Seeing a vintage movie presented as a radio show on stage could be a Christmas cracker for MTC.

The single serious offering among next season’s mainstage six-pack is Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children, the greatest anti-war play. But it is more than offset with a trio of crowd-pleasers like the season-opener Strong Poison, which features the famous sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey in the 1931 Dorothy L. Sayers murder mystery. Film fans will be very familiar with the season’s popular parting pair Educating Rita and Steel Magnolias.

Speaking of the Warehouse, the attention-getter for Winnipeggers will be 5 O’Clock Bells, a one-man show about the hometown jazz guitar legend Lenny Breau, who was found murdered in a Los Angeles hotel pool in 1984. His is a compelling story of excellence and excess that more Manitobans should know.

Canadian theatrical "it" girl Hannah Moscovitch will make her MTC debut in East of Berlin. The sought-after Toronto playwright made her local bow with a double-bill of one-acts hosted by WJT last October but returns with the story of Rudi, who discovers his father was a Nazi war criminal.

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca

 

The play’s the thing

Strong Poison (Oct. 22-Nov. 14)

It’s a Wonderful Life: A Radio Play (Nov. 26-Dec. 19)

The Drowsy Chaperone (Jan.7-30)

Mother Courage and her Children (Feb. 11-March 6)

Educating Rita (March 18-April 10)

Steel Magnolias (April 22-May 15)

 

MTC Warehouse

5 O’Clock Bells (Oct. 8-24)

East of Berlin (Nov. 19-Dec. 5)

Top Girls (Jan. 21-Feb. 6)

Looking Back – West (Feb. 18-March 6)

 

Regional tour

Tempting Providence (Jan. 30-March 6)

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