FemFest’s lineup packs workshops, familiar favourites

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This article was published 14/09/2019 (2225 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE weather is cooling down, pumpkin-flavoured products are becoming impossible to avoid and a new season of live theatre is about to begin.

Sarasvàti Productions is getting a head start on fall. FemFest 2019: All the World’s a Stage runs Sept. 14 to 21 and has a lineup of theatre workshops, readings and performances that will push you out of your comfort zone and keep you entertained.

Now entering its 17th year, FemFest is notable within Winnipeg’s theatre scene both for the kind of theatre it presents, as well as how the work is presented.

“In the spring of 2018, we held a community consultation to get direction after 15 years of the festival,” artistic director Hope McIntyre says. “Highlighted was a desire for greater accessibility, inclusion and keeping the festival as a space for stories that are often not told.”

While the company’s initiatives continue to evolve and have expanded to include American Sign Language interpretation and child-minding, the festival has brought back some familiar favourites, including the annual Bake-Off, where five playwrights are given three ingredients to include in a short scene written over the course of eight hours.

The scenes are then performed by actors in front of a live audience, who will vote for the scene that they feel has the most potential for development. The winner receives a monetary award and dramaturgical support to develop the play for a staged reading at next year’s festival.

The playwrights participating in the Bake-Off this year are Daphne Finlayson, Barb M. Janes, Erin Hammond, Lynne Martin and Brooklyn Alice Lee.

“It was really fun,” says Lee, 22, of the experience. “It was pretty nerve-racking, working in a room for eight hours for four other playwrights. I’m also pretty sure I was the youngest competitor, so that’s always intimidating.”

Lee has been involved with theatre for most of her life as an actor. Two years ago, she began to write plays. Her work, Growing Op, was presented at the 2019 Winnipeg Fringe Festival and received rave reviews. Despite the success, Lee hasn’t let it go to her head.

“I honestly don’t know what my goals are for the future… I’d like to finish all the plays I have half-written on my computer. That’s a good start, I think.”

Liz Whitbread is also hoping for a good start when she joins the company on Sept. 14 as its new assistant artistic director. “I’ve worked with and learned from Nightwood Theatre, the Paprika Festival and the folks at the Theatre Centre, among others,” says Whitbread, who is originally from Winnipeg, but has been working in Toronto for the past few years as an actor and arts administrator.

She has clear intentions for how she plans to contribute to Sarasvàti. “I hope to make Sarasvàti a household name,” she says. “They’ve been doing incredible work for 20 years and I hope to continue to strengthen the community bonds they’ve made while helping their work reach new audiences.”

Out From Under the Rug is a theatre collective that is also committed to reaching new audiences. It will be making its debut with Bastard, a reading of a work in progress.

“Our mandate is to create stories by, for, and about people of colour,” collective member Matthew Paris-Irvine says. “We wish to highlight the experiences of those whose voices so often go unheard.”

“We were inspired by BIPOC artists across the country who use their voices to empower others in their community and critique the systemic forces that have long oppressed them. We wanted to create a similar platform in our home, our communities.”

The collective is comprised of Paris-Irvine, Melissa Langdon, Omar Samuels and Sophie Smith-Dostmohamed. Smith-Dostmohamed will also be trying her hand at directing during the festival as assistant director of Like Mother, Like Daughter, directed by Rose Plotek.

“There are lots of community-building practices implemented, such as cooking and baking together, and there will be an emphasis on always maintaining a safe and healthy space conducive to trust,” Smith-Dostmohamed says. “I’m really excited to learn about all of the intricacies of different mother-daughter relationships.”

“I think the most important part of this project is that it sheds light on voices of newcomer and Indigenous women,” she adds. “Rose has done this show many times with different mothers and daughters and the rehearsal process is deconstructed and is not conventional by any means.”

Unconventional is a good word to describe 4inXchange, a performance piece by xLq that made a splash last year at SummerWorks in Toronto, winning NOW Magazine’s audience choice award. It makes its Manitoba debut at FemFest.

“It’s very intimate, very interactive. It’s like a game show. We have a very specific theatrical structure, but the audience creates most of the content of the piece,” Maddie Bautista says.

The company, consisting of Bautista and Jordan Campbell, was formed in the summer of 2015, while the two were in theatre school. For this show, they teamed up with Katherine Walker-Jones, a longtime friend and classmate.

“We wanted to take our very queer, bizarre performance style and translate it to something very small and intimate. And we wanted audiences to share and to exchange. And we wanted to release ourselves from the binds of capitalism and share that feeling with others.”

Sarasvàti’s commitment to accessibility is shared by xLq, offering a pay-what-you-choose system for its performances.

“Accessibility is very important to us, so we always like to make ticket prices flexible and free whenever we can. The pay-what-you-choose system becomes a very important device in this piece about money, but you’ll have to come see the show to find out how.”

Rounding out the festival is the Launchpad Project.

“We’re a group of local emerging artists creating new, original work,” member Jonathan Mourant says. “The group consists of nine women or non-binary individuals with unique theatrical and artistic backgrounds.”

The group will be presenting To Kill a Lizard, about a government project that restricts access to EpiPens.

“It touches on a number of timely subjects in a way that never feels heavy-handed or dark. It’s a strange, satirical experience and I wear a papier-mâché lizard head.”

“This is one of the only programs that makes a point of providing emerging artists with the tools and a platform to collaborate and perform,” Mourant notes. “Also, since it was specifically intended for women, trans and non-binary artists, it was a unique opportunity to work with other gender non-conforming artists, which has been invigorating.”

frances.koncan@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @franceskoncan