Channeling vacation and domestic vengeance

With winter around the corner, Winnipeg Jewish Theatre is revisiting a sprawling summer resort town this weekend with three staged readings of The Right Road to Pontypool.

Manitoba Opera mounts Puccini’s Tosca for the first time since 2010

Tosca returns to the Centennial Concert Hall this weekend for the first time in more than a decade.

What’s up: Kathleen Shellrude, BPM X, Strumbellas, Day in Paradise, Wintersing

My Favourite MonsterBy Kathleen ShellrudeThe Edge Gallery & Ceramic Studio, 611 Main StUntil Nov. 28; Tuesday to Saturday, noon to 5 p.m;, Sunday and Monday by appointment onlyFreeCeramicist and mixed-media artist Kathleen Shellrude’s bevy of hand built-creatures, each with its own distinctive personality and appearance, are a sight to behold when grouped together.

Every one of Shellrude’s clay companions holds a small truth about her; each character began as a fragment of a story, shaped from memory, emotion and imagination.

“A monster can be both frightening and funny, broken and joyful, clumsy and wise. In the studio, they remind me that healing isn’t about becoming polished or perfect. It’s about letting all the awkward, glittering, impossible parts co-exist,” the artist says.

Shellrude started work on her monsters a year ago and in the last 12 months has created 162 creatures for the show. Monster sizes range from between 2.5 centimetres to 45 cm, with the majority around 20 to 23 cm tall.

Homemade Cooking School: Baking tips and how to make scones

The most important rule of baking?

“Patience with yourself,” says Richard Warren, a pastry chef and baking instructor at Red River College Polytech.

Artist with Parkinson’s prolific output celebrated with upcoming exhibitions

Andre Hall-Grusska is the Riverview Health Centre’s unofficial artist-in-residence.

Since his arrival there a little more than two years ago, the 63-year-old has used his second-floor bedroom as a studio and the long-term care facility as a sprawling gallery for the stencilled drawings born from his active imagination.

More than 60 original pieces at Riverview bear his signature — Hall-Grusska’s work is in the boardrooms, the waiting rooms and even CEO Kathleen Klaasen’s office.

“I see myself some day filling this whole hospital with my art,” he says after taking a few visitors for a walking tour.

Local author Harriet Zaidman‘s young-adult novel set amid abortion debates of 1983 Winnipeg

Set in Winnipeg in 1983, What Friends Are For follows 15-year-old Leesa Cramer as she becomes entangled in the emotionally charged debate over abortion, sparked by her mother’s activism and the opening of a new clinic in town.

What begins as a loyal daughter’s participation in protests soon evolves into a personal crucible of belief, identity and empathy.

In an email interview, local author Harriet Zaidman says the novel (Heritage House Publishing, 242 pages, $16.95) was born out of her concern over the 2022 repeal of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that the Constitution protected the right to have an abortion.

“People have forgotten what women endured before abortion was decriminalized,” she says. “In several states, women are now being criminalized for miscarriages and denied medical care for doomed pregnancies. It feels like we’re stepping backward in time.”

U of M chemist earns award for work on new drug candidate for treating Lou Gehrig’s disease

A University of Manitoba PhD candidate with a dramatic life story has been awarded the Mitacs Innovation Award for co-inventing an aspiring new drug candidate for treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, announced Monday.

“I thought, like, it’s a spam call. Then someone told me that, ‘You have been selected for the (award),’ so I was numb for 10 to 20 seconds,” says medicinal chemist Nitesh Sanghai, currently pursuing a doctorate at the U of M’s college of pharmacy under the supervision of Prof. Geoffrey K. Tranmer.

Sanghai doesn’t talk about “rags to riches” but instead “grass to grace” in describing his trajectory. The 43-year-old from Jharia, a small town in the Jharkhand district of India, says he was the first person in his family to pass India’s Grade 10 board examination, a gateway to further secondary and post-secondary education.

“I thought of breaking the cycle and pursuing studies with passion and privilege, which my family never had,” he says.

Identity, family, connection explored in cloning drama 'A Number' at RMTC Warehouse

In just one hour, with no intermission, A Number forces its base pairs — and the actors portraying them — into the eeriest corners of remorse, repressed grief and internal angst, lending hard-earned realism to a conceptual drama that never feels as far-fetched as it should.

Newfoundland artist’s fictional hockey league takes on toxic masculinity, homophobia in the sport

The St. John’s Sissies. The Nain Nancys. The Come By Chance Flamers. These are just some of the teams in the Queer Newfoundland Hockey League, the fictional conference at the heart of a multimedia solo exhibition of the same name by Canadian artist Lucas Morneau, which comes to Gallery 1C03 at the University of Winnipeg today.

High score: Winnipeg Video Game Orchestra goes from joysticks to drumsticks

There is, evidently, a lot of crossover between band nerds and video game enthusiasts.

The Winnipeg Video Game Orchestra has levelled up at an impressive pace, attracting about 70 like-minded players since forming earlier this spring.

The ensemble is set to perform its first major concert at Jubilee Place on Friday featuring background music from Sonic the Hedgehog, Kirby, The Legend of Zelda and other well-known games.

“We grew very, very quickly,” says director Dann Bjornson, who isn’t entirely surprised by the overwhelming local interest.

Late bibliophile’s brother donates his book collection one free library at a time

Every day since late September, Tim Brandt has been biking to little free libraries across the city to create a literary memorial to his late brother.

Les Brandt died unexpectedly in July at the age of 75. An accomplished visual artist and avid reader, Les left behind a collection of approximately 2,000 books on everything from mountaineering to birding to atheism to fine art.

Instead of donating the cache in one fell swoop, Tim decided to give each of his brother’s books a meaningful sendoff.

“I wanted to make sure he was remembered. It is a bit like scattering his ashes — spreading his reads to the winds, hoping others enjoy them,” says the fellow bibliophile and former owner of Heaven Art and Book Café.

Local artists Fernandes, Maduka attracting wider attention

Young Winnipeg painters are having an exciting moment.

For the past six weeks or so, Dee Barsy’s signature aqua blues have washed over the 300,000 people who daily visit Toronto’s Union Station, which is decorated with a dozen of her bird-themed murals, buoying Toronto Blue Jays fans during the World Series.

Last month, artist, curator and writer Chukwudubem Ukaigwe was shortlisted to represent the Prairies region for the Sobey Art Award 2025 — Canada’s largest prize for visual artists, which will be handed out on Saturday.

Ukaigwe is perhaps best recognized for his paintings, often colourful to the point of psychedelic while refined in their details and lifelikeness, blending elements of realism, pop art and surrealism.

Acclaimed local chef Dustin Pajak returns with Snack Häus to build ‘fun, tongue-in-cheek eatery’

At Snack Häus, chef Dustin Pajak is dreaming big but starting small — small plates, small kitchen, small staff.

Pajak opened the casual-dining spot, his first solo venture, inside Low Life Barrel House in early October. With a deceptively simple menu involving “pickles, pickles, pickles” and “disco nuts,” Snack Häus is a fitting homecoming for the award-winning local chef, who spent the last few years honing his craft in high-calibre Toronto restaurants.

“You can be great in your bubble, but I wanted to test myself,” says the former head chef of Close Company, which was named one of Canada’s 100 best restaurants under his leadership.

The 2022 accolade came at a weird time. The tiny Stafford Street restaurant (now home to Petit Socco) was quietly winding down and Pajak, who ran the 100-square-foot kitchen and dining room for five years, had already departed for the Big Smoke.

New essay collection shows Manitoba’s political history is anything but boring

Is Manitoba’s political history a snore?