Feds raise curtain on new grant for MTYP

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This article was published 10/01/2025 (443 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The parliamentary secretary to the federal heritage minister visited the Manitoba Theatre for Young People Thursday to announce a $500,000 grant on his department’s behalf.

Visiting Winnipeg in Pascale St-Onge’s stead, Vancouver-Granville MP Taleeb Noormohamed got a first-hand look at MTYP’s facility, which is currently undergoing the most significant renovation since it opened at The Forks in 1999 as it nears the $9-million goal of its capital campaign.

The cash injection from the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund comes 11 months after the federal government committed $1.3 million toward the theatre’s sustainability upgrades.

Noormohamed, who also visited the Manitoba Métis Federation Thursday, said that while arts funding is often an early casualty in budgetary trimming, that shouldn’t be the case.

“I spoke at a conference this summer and I said as an industry, (the arts sector) needs to speak up and say that it is not acceptable for anyone from any political party to contemplate the idea that gutting the arts is a great way to save money because, point of fact, the long-term investment in the arts is very good for economic development, social development and cultural integration,” Noormohamed said during a sit-down with MTYP’s managing director Debra Zoerb and artistic director Pablo Felices-Luna.

Noormohamed, who tried on a beaver hand-puppet for size during a visit to the costume department, was led through the theatre by Zoerb, who highlighted some of the work already underway as part of the capital campaign, including an accessible, renovated quiet room, revitalized studio spaces, modernized restroom facilities and the ongoing conversion of the Richardson Hall into the Richardson Studio Theatre, envisioned as a secondary performance space.

Many of the changes aren’t cosmetic, said Zoerb, who joined MTYP in 2017; however, they were much-needed, given that the facility has only undergone minimal renovations since opening in 1999.

Noormohamed said he was impressed by the theatre, even by the small details Zoerb said only she was excited about, including a relocated intake vent in the Richardson Hall.

“It used to be down there,” Zoerb said, pointing. “And if there was a curtain covering the wall, it would suck the curtain inward. Now that won’t happen.”

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com