MTYP prepares to honour its past

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/03/2018 (2221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Tuesday afternoon, designated World Day of Theatre for Children, Manitoba Theatre for Young People’s artistic director Pablo Felices-Luna announced a new theatre season that falls under the thematic umbrella of “arrivals and departures.”

How appropriate then that the first show of the 2018-19 season sees the return of MTYP’s founding artistic director Leslee Silverman to direct a production of the signature MTYP production Comet in Moominland (Oct. 12-29). In 2013, Silverman was fired from the AD job she held for 30 years.

“It excites me, the opportunity to welcome back our founding artistic director,” Felices-Luna says. “It just sound like the perfect season to have this come together and this was the perfect piece to welcome her back with. She’s thrilled.”

Silverman was instrumental in putting the original Comet together and “to be able to bring it to a new generation of theatregoers that haven’t experienced it, it’s really exciting,” says Felices-Luna of the show, which is recommended for kids aged five to eight.

Aimed for kids aged 13 and older, the second show Still/Falling (Nov. 2-4) is an examination of teen depression and anxiety. A production with Vancouver’s Green Thumb Theatre, in association with MTYP, “it’s very topical with our increased awareness of mental health,” Felices-Luna says.

“They’ve been touring it all over the place and they’ve had great response to it.”

This year’s Christmas season show is The House at Pooh Corner (Nov. 30-Dec. 30), another signature piece for MTYP, Felices-Luna says.

“Christopher Robin is going to school and this is his last day in the nursery and we get to go to the Hundred Acre Wood with Christopher and these beloved characters.”

Torn Through Time (Jan. 25-Feb. 3, 2019) is a world première of an MTYP production that’s been in the works for a few years, Felices-Luna says.

“In my three-plus years as artistic director, I’ve been talking about the importance of doing original work and this is completely original,” he says of the story in which a girl doing a homework assignment inadvertently summons three heroic Canadian women from history into the present… as their 10-year-old selves.

“Instead of a single playwright, we have three playwrights on this,” Felices-Luna says, referring to writers Frances Koncan, Cherissa Richards and Carrie Costello, who will each write for their chosen heroines.

What If Romeo and Juliet (Feb. 15-24, 2019) is a touring production from Montreal’s DynamO company presenting an alternate reality of the Shakespeare tragedy, wherein the hate between the fighting Montagues and Capulets had a shot at a non-tragic resolution. “They are exploring why the tragedy happens and asking, ‘Why does it have to happen that way?’”

There’s more bear adventure in The Polar Bears Go Up (March 15-24, 2019), a touring show from the U.K. company Unicorn Theatre.

“We wanted something for the very young,” Felices-Luna says of the show, which is geared to ages three to eight.

“It’s not tied to language,” he says. “It’s playful, it’s sweet and it makes the young child in me want to hang out with the polar bears all the time.”

The season concludes with a visual bang with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (April 5-14, 2019), the Jules Verne science-fiction classic adapted by Rick Miller for audiences aged eight to 13.

“They do some really interesting and provocative things with video projection,” Felices-Luna says.

Subscriptions for MTYP’s new season are now on sale at 204-942-8898 or online at mtyp.ca.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing