Sink your teeth into dramatic process

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This article was published 06/03/2024 (754 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hungry for a curious tale of human connection? Cali Sproule and Sophie Guillas of What If Theatre have a fresh production on the menu and they hope audiences will eat it up during its first staged reading on Sunday.

Set in a fictional national park in Manitoba, How They’ll Tell It takes place 30 years after a spate of cannibalistic incidents drove most of the community’s residents away. Decades after the last bite, a young woman named Ivy takes a summer job selling the abandoned cabins, while Celia, a true-crime YouTuber, turns her lens on a peculiar case of all-encompassing communal grief.

Written by Guillas, 25, and directed by Sproule, 26, the reading is being presented by the Village Conservatory for Music Theatre as part of its Festival of New Works, on from March 6 through 10 at the Crescent Arts Centre, a not-for-profit organization based in the Crescent Fort Rouge United Church.

The staged reading, which is pay-what-you-can, starts at 2 p.m., with What If garnering an impressive array of local actors to flesh out its cast. Bailey Chin (Prairie Theatre Exchange’s Feast) will be joined by Ivan Hemwood and Josh Pinette; Sarah Constible (Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s The 39 Steps); Théâtre Cercle Molière artistic director Geneviève Pelletier; and Victoria Emilie Hill (Olivia in Shakespeare in the Ruins’ 2023 production of Twelfth Night).

Dauphin’s Guillas and Oak Bank’s Sproule met in 2016 at the University of Manitoba’s Black Hole Theatre Company. In the years since, Guillas has earned her master’s degree in English literature from Western University, writing her thesis, What’s Eating the Victorians, on “lady cannibalism” in the Victorian era. Sproule graduated with an MFA in directing from the University of Calgary.

The pair began working on How They’ll Tell It after Guillas wrote the story in the form of a novel. It wasn’t functioning how she wanted it, so with Sproule, Guillas asked, “What if” the medium changed to a stage production. Sunday’s reading will be the first chance for How They’ll Tell It to encounter the public.

“We’re a brand-spanking-new collective,” says Sproule, who served as Guillas’s dramaturg. “We don’t have a mandate or a mission at this point in time, but what we’re all about is exploring process and creation.”

Sproule says How They’ll Tell It “foregrounds and illuminates” the interrelations between cannibalism and queerness, while also exploring mental illness through a personal and communal lens.

The reading, as well as the play’s ongoing development, is being supported through grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and is being presented on the final day of the Festival of New Works.

Village Conservatory’s Festival of New Works

All the copy editors at home can put down their red pens: the Village Conservatory for Music Theatre (ViC) meant to say music theatre, not musical theatre.

Since its founding in 2018, the not-for-profit arts education organization has certainly served as a talent incubator for some of the city’s busiest and brightest musical theatre performers, including Julia Davis (Ariel in Rainbow Stage’s The Little Mermaid), Duncan Cox (Razvan in Walk&Talk’s Afterlight) and actor-choreographer-intimacy co-ordinator Samantha Hutchings.

But ViC associate producer Daphne Finlayson says part of the independent conservatory’s mission is to go beyond the standard ideas expected of typical Broadway musicals to help its students reinvent the form to suit their ideas.

“Our whole jam is finding new ways for music and theatre to intersect,” she says.

To help audience members understand what that means, the ViC hosts its annual Festival of New Works, a five-day showcase of all original works-in-progress from its students, who have been working on their respective projects since September.

This year, 12 burgeoning artists worked with Finlayson, artistic associate Jillian Willems, managing and music director Paul De Gurse, and artistic director Simon Miron to bring their projects to fruition.

The students audition and pay tuition in exchange for their slots, which come with professional development opportunities and workshops from local directors, choreographers, writers and performers.

Tonight, Wednesday, the festival kicks off with a cabaret at the Crescent Arts Centre.

Writer-filmmaker Ethan Stark will share an excerpt from Sinking Ship, a queer retelling of the legend of the boatman on the River Styx. Sara Kreindler also took a dip into mythology for Finding Persephone, a musical snippet featuring puppetry. Grace of the Projected Grotesque from Erin Meagan Schwartz and Brigitta Weiss threads the needle between chronic illness and fibre arts. Jade Janzen and Devin Lowry will share an excerpt from Offside, exploring the ongoing saga of Pride tape on hockey sticks around the world.

Drag artist C.L.A.M. — Clay Mykietowich — will take the stage, as will Rochelle Kives and Joyce Jugo, who appeared together in last year’s Rainbow Stage production of Rent, for a cabaret performance.

From Thursday to Sunday, March 7 to 10, the arts centre will play host to Untethered, featuring new works from conservatory students each night at 7:30 p.m.

Following Saturday night’s Untethered, the claws will come out, as Willems and De Gurse debate the artistic merits of the notorious 2019 film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats for a live recording of their Monkeys and Playbills podcast.

A few noteworthy productions from upstart companies should excite local theatre fans.

The hilarious folks at JHG Creative — the Harry S. Rintoul winner at the 2023 fringe festival for World’s Fair 1876: The Centennial Exposition — are debuting a selection from The Mail Room, which sees a group of mailroom workers have their professional lives thrown into disarray when their company opts to use an AI-operated sorting system.

After a September run of the vampire romance Afterlight, Walk&Talk will share an excerpt from its upcoming End of the Line, a show that has been in development since 2019. The company has built a reputation for witty, quick-paced musical comedy, but this show, set before, during and after a global flood, could see it going deeper.

Tickets for the festival’s events are pay-what-you-can up to $20, with a free option available to improve accessibility. The Village Conservatory for Music Theatre is also a registered charity, and donations can be made online at villageconservatory.com.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com