On the write track

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/08/2015 (3883 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two years ago, seven female playwrights premièred new plays in a single season on Winnipeg stages.

That unprecedented season was a clear indication of the local playwrighting scene’s overall good health. Two of the plays from that 2013-14 season have been picked up for production by other Canadian theatres — Trish Cooper’s Social Studies is getting its third production in January at the Firehall Arts Centre in Vancouver. And Alix Sobler’s The Secret Annex goes up Nov. 21 at the Segal Centre in Montreal.

New plays are the lifeblood of theatre and Winnipeg’s scene is once again showing it’s hale and hearty. The local pipeline between the page and the stage is flowing with scripts in various phases of completion.

There are three new works on the playbills of Winnipeg theatres this season: Marriage: A Demolition in Two Acts by Rick Chafe at Prairie Theatre Exchange, Steven Ratzlaff’s Reservations for Theatre Projects Manitoba and a new adaptation by Rhéal Cenerini of Ibsen’s L’Ennemi du peuple (Enemy of the People) for Cercle Molière.

For many companies and dramatists, at this time of year — a month after the end of the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival and about a month before the regular theatre season launches — attention turns to developing the plays that will grace Winnipeg stages, not in 2015-16, but many seasons beyond.

Debbie Patterson (Head; Sargent & Victor & Me) has been working on a new verbatim piece about death called How It Ends, which will go before its first audience, made up of her friends and colleagues, on Friday, Aug. 28.

“I’m exploring the theme of end-of-life choices,” says Patterson. “I’ve lost a few people in recent years and it made me consider how we die. Asking those questions leads me to consider how the knowledge of our death changes our priorities and makes our choices different.”

On Sept. 3, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre will hold an in-house reading of Angus Kohm’s Fort Whoop-Up, a historical comedy that’s a fitting way to celebrate the country’s 150th birthday in 2017. It follows a young man’s reluctant recruitment into the newly formed North West Mounted Police and his participation in a march from Emerson to Fort Whoop-Up in what is now southern Alberta to suppress the American whiskey trade threatening Canada’s sovereignty and the well-being of local First Nations people.

The first new play of the year that’s open to the public is The Dance-Off of Conscious Uncoupling by aboriginal playwright Frances Koncan, part of FemFest 2015. Last fall, audiences voted the work the one they most wanted to see at this year’s FemFest.

This irreverent comedy about growing up and letting go, inspired by Gwyneth Paltrow’s divorce from Chris Martin, is set at a high school prom where a power couple breaks up.

It is the only full production at FemFest, which runs from Sept. 12 to 19, but Sarasvati’s development of new plays continues with readings of Irony: A Tragic Comedy about Life by Portage la Prairie’s Terrie Todd and Stigma by Cairn Moore.

The Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre has a larger number of works, nurtured with seed money, that it is painstakingly teasing out in readings and workshops. Half of these projects will be seen on its stage in the near future.

Besides Fort Whoop-Up, RMTC has been grooming a Jake MacDonald script tentatively called The Cottage, an untitled piece from local actor Ross McMillan and Maureen Hunter’s Sarah Ballenden, about a prominent Métis woman charged with adultery in the 1850s Red River Colony.

Miriam Toews fans will be interested to hear that RMTC is in on the ground floor with an Edmonton troupe on a Chris Craddock adaptation of her 2011 novel Irma Voth. It was Edmonton’s Craddock who brilliantly dramatized the author’s Summer of My Amazing Luck in 2006 at the RMTC Warehouse.

Prairie Theatre Exchange’s Playwright’s Unit has numerous plays in progress, including James Durham’s Nothing About Love, Joseph Aragon’s How the Heavens Go and The Flats by Ginny Collins, who also has Revenge and Co. in the mix.

The revived Winnipeg Jewish Theatre is spotlighting original work in March with So, Nu, A Festival of New Plays. Recently installed artistic director Ari Weinberg doesn’t have any commissions on the books, as the organization is still regaining its financial feet after the upheaval that resulted when former artistic director Michael Nathanson left suddenly under suspicious circumstances. He was later arrested and charged with theft and fraud, accused of embezzling $85,000.

The festival, centred around a full production of Cairn Moore’s Shiksa — the show WJT cancelled after it closed its doors in 2014 — and three readings will be personally valuable to Weinberg.

“It’s about using the festival as an opportunity to really highlight local talent and for me to get to know the local talent and for WJT to say we’re back,” says Weinberg.

MTYP is emerging from its own financial problems and doesn’t currently have the money to invest in new works, although second-year artistic director Pablo Felices-Luna intends to make it a priority. It is still supporting #Perfect by Andraea Sartison (I Dream of Diesel) and Monique Marker.

“You do new work because sometimes you need to address some local specific questions, and you do it if you are looking to raise your profile on a national level,” says Felices-Luna. “If you want to have a larger national profile, you need to be looking for those original creations.

“That’s why I’m not surprised to hear so much new work is happening.”

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca