Monday, April 29, 2013
CALLING ALL EXPLORERS TO MTYP
MTYP’S 2013-2014 SEASON:
CALLING ALL EXPLORERS!
From high in the sky to the mysterious ocean depths, MTYP is calling all explorers for a season of high adventure and discovery!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Winnipeg, MB, April 29th, 2013.
Manitoba Theatre for Young People is inviting audiences to experience the height of adventure, the winds of change, and a chance to visit the mysterious depths of the world with our exciting new 2013-2014 season.
From a spirited re-telling of the classic fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk to Nightlight, a favourite amongst Manitoba educators and parents, MTYP delivers an action packed season featuring world-class guest companies from Québec, British Columbia, and Australia. Plus, two hard hitting MTYP home productions explore some very real issues for kids: nighttime, bullying, eating disorders, and parental expectations.
SEASON AT A GLANCE: 2013-2014
Jack and the Beanstalk
“Jack and the Giant Beanstalk is a worthwhile hour that’s sure to instruct the youngest of theatergoers.” Now Magazine
Dying to be Thin
“This production was valid and handled effectively – no attempt was made to glamorize or shield the audience from the realities of bulimia. This play should be performed every year.” Earl Grey School
Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer
“An endearing Australian solo show...akin to a theatrical “Wall-E.” New York Times
I On The Sky
“Boldly challenges young audiences to blend their own imaginations with those of the performers to enrich their theatrical experience, instead of simply sitting back and becoming passive young theatrical consumers.” Toronto Sun
Nightlight
“Night Light underscores the continuing need for Night Light to illuminate a painful reality of Canadian youth.” Kevin Prokosh, Winnipeg Free Press
MTYP’S 2013-2014 SEASON
Jack and the Beanstalk
October 2013
British Columbia
Ages 3 - 7
This new spin on the much-loved story finds Jack, a farmer’s son, surrounded by land that just won’t grow anything. “The dirt’s dead” says his father, who sells off everything they own, little by little, to buy food so they can eat. When Jack finally has to sell his toys for food, he trades them instead for magic beans, which takes him on an amazing journey of excitement and peril. Jack climbs the giant stalk from which the magic beans grow and reaches a green and fertile land in the sky. There, Jack discovers the source of the trouble with his farmland and learns how to make it fertile again.
Dying to Be Thin
October - November 2013
Manitoba
Ages 12 - 18
Amanda could be any one in your class. She is a regular teenager, and she hangs around with a good group of friends. Recently, Amanda’s grades have started to slip. She’s also started to miss school a lot. What’s going on with Amanda only happens behind a closed, locked door, so it may be hard to figure out. This extraordinary play manages to be funny as well as profoundly powerful and moving.
Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer
January 2014
Australia
Ages 7 - 18
The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer is a multi award-winning one-man micro-epic puppet show that melds technology and multimedia into a touching story of enduring love and the end of the world.
The seas have risen, billions have died and those who are left live on farms atop skyscrapers, atop mountains. The scientists have tried everything. Floating islands sank, space probes found nothing, and the giant sponges, visible from the moon, are now rotting icons of failure. Now science and humanity are turning to the oceans themselves. A last ditch effort to save the human race requires journeying down through the mysterious depths of the deep blue sea to find a new place for us to live.
I On The Sky
March 2014
Québec
Ages 10 - 18
A bench in the wind, where a woman blown in by a storm finds refuge. Like all exiled people who are forced to flee and leave everything behind, she hopes for a better life. As a stranger, she finds herself gazing at the sky, which becomes her only reference point. The exiled woman sits on a bench in the middle of a park, recalls her past and tries to talk to people walking by in the hope of retracing of what she has lost. Her eyes meet those of a young runaway girl. I on the sky has no spoken lines. It leads audiences into a world of movement, imagery and music, where poetry sways reality.
Nightlight
March - April 2014
Manitoba
Ages 5 - 12
An all-time favourite with Manitoba educators and parents, NIGHT LIGHT
looks at a variety of children’s fears and anxieties: nighttime, bullies, parental expectations, and school performance – all very real issues for kids, and ones they need to think about and talk about openly in order to overcome them. Goodge is a nasty one-eyed bedtime monster that lives in six-year-old Tara’s bureau. But only she (and the audience) can see him. Meanwhile, her older brother Victor is afraid of an increasingly difficult bully on the playground. Playwright John Lazarus uses ingenuity and laughter to help kids cope with their everyday fears.
Our Early Bird Campaign will begin on Monday, April 29th, 2013. To Subscribe or for more information about tickets, please call our Boxoffice at (204) 942-8898 or visit us online at www.mtyp.ca.
For more information, contact Katie German, (204) 947-0394, ext. 234 kgerman@mtyp.ca
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Wednesday, April 17, 2013
MTYP's Earth Day Online Auction Will Be Live Tomorrow Morning!
Earth Day Online Auction: April 18 to 25, 2013
A fundraiser in support of the Manitoba Theatre for Young People
WINNIPEG - MTYP presents its fifth annual Earth Day Auction, a fundraiser for the Manitoba Theatre for Young People’s productions and programming.
The Manitoba Theatre for Young People reaches more than 135,000 children, teens, parents, educators and grandparents through our mainstage season, provincial tours, theatre school classes and drama workshops. The Earth Day Online Auction is a fundraiser to support our efforts to bring world-class theatre to Manitoba’s children and youth.
From April 18th to April 25th, MTYP will be plugged in, powered up, and ready to accept your bids! Join the hundreds of bidders from the comfort of your own home or office by logging in through MTYP’s website, www.mtyp.ca. Once they are connected, participants can view items or actively participate by registering a user name. Once the auction closes (closing times are posted for each item), the final bidder will be contacted by MTYP. Items will be available for pickup during the following week at 2 Forks Market Road.
Funds generated through the auction will be used to subsidize show tickets for Manitoba schools that are facing financial difficulties, as well as bursaries for similarly burdened youth who wish to enroll in MTYP theatre classes.
Last year’s auction saw over 400 registered users bidding on more than 220 prizes, and raised over $19,000!
For more information contact Joanne Watts at 204-954-1708 or email Jwatts@mtyp.ca
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Better seesee Zoozoo before it's gonegone
Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Posted: 03/22/2013 1:00 AM
It's bye-bye for Zoozoo.
Imago Theatre of Portland is making its Winnipeg debut this week on the show's North American farewell tour. The well-regarded mask and mime company intends to retire its signature production in June and move into a more dance-oriented direction.
Based on first impressions, that's a pity. Zoozoo is funfun.
In nine wordless vignettes at Manitoba Theatre for Young People, a menagerie of hippos, anteaters, frogs, polar bears, penguins, fireflies and uncertain species are introduced into familiar human situations. Two pajamas-wearing hippos try to get some sleep but instead act like a pair of blanket hogs. Five penguins, crowd favourites based on rousing response, take part in an hilarious game of musical chairs. An anteater in a restaurant attempts to get service from an oblivious anteater waiter.
Many of the creatures are curious and not acquainted with theatre's fourth wall -- the imaginary boundary between stage action and its audience. The kids seem to enjoy the performance on stage but go crazy when the animals wander into their midst during a school performance this week.
When five fluffy but curious polar bears bounded off the stage and began climbing over the mostly delighted youngsters, one uncertain Grade 2 or 3 boy ran for his life. Even after the bears proved they meant no harm and later made a second excursion into the audience, the youngster again shot out of his seat and took several steps in the direction of the exit.
MTYP's final offering of its tumultuous season is pure entertainment without a lesson meant to be learned, perfect for kids heading into spring break next week. Not all the five-to-eight minute pieces -- silent except for Katie Griesar's engaging score -- have a major comedic payoff but every one boasts visual pizzazz. The formally attired anteaters sport long snouts with tongues that unfurl like New Year's Eve blowout noisemakers. Again the young spectators jumped to their feet in delight when the anteaters headed towards them with their tongues extended.
The humour on display is subtle and easy for even the low end of the four-and-up target audience to understand and appreciate. Three frogs bob up and down in unison until one gets carried away with his freestyling, earning death stares from its unimpressed playmates. When one notices a passing fly, it doesn't snatch it out of the air with its tongue, but nonchalantly whacks it with a fly swatter. From the roar of approval, the children were amused.
There were several solo pieces that showcased the dexterity of performers Jonathan Godsey, Darren McCarthy, Keyon Gaskin, David King and Pratik Motwani. One featured an oversized paper bag that was being propelled all over the stage by something alive inside. Another involved larvabatics in which it was hard to determine which end of the wormlike form was up.
All these creatures are endangered species because Zoozoo is about to close forever. See them before they are made extinct.
Theatre review
Zoozoo
Manitoba Theatre for Young People
Opens Friday at 7 p.m., to March 31
Tickets: $15.50 at 204-942-8898
Three and a half stars
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 22, 2013 D3
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Potted Potter is a Hit in New York!
After a sold-out run in Toronto, which Toronto Star critic Richard Ouzounian called "The single funniest thing I've seen in ages!", Potted Potter: The Unauthorized Harry Experience: A Parody by Dan and Jeff has hit the stage in New York to rave reviews! The New York times reviewed it not once, but twice. First by theatre critic Daniel M. Gold, and later by a team of Middle-school Potter experts. Read on for abridged versions of the reviews.
Don't forget, the only way to get tickets to this HIT show right now is by subscribing. Don't delay, our early bird subscription period ends June 30, and so does your chance to get our lowest price on tickets all year!
June 4, 2012
By Daniel M. Gold
'Potted Potter,' a Parody, at the Little Shubert Theater
 L-R: Jefferson Lewis and Daniel Clarkson. Photo: Geraint Lewis.
With all the Harry Potter books and movies done, and no new material to pore over, where can a devoted Muggle get a fix?
...you could make your way to the Little Shubert Theater, where the gloriously goofy "Potted Potter" is being staged. Billed as "the unauthorized Harry experience," this parody makes the perfect claim for the Twitter age: all seven books - roughly 4,000 pages - in 70 minutes.
In the best two-man comedy tradition, Jeff, the shorter one, is the straight man, the expert on all things Harry; Dan, the taller one, is the one who's faking it, confusing the series with "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Chronicles of Narnia."
Using bad wigs and Silly String on a set so cheap it might have been furnished by Craigslist, Mr. Clarkson and Mr. Turner do indeed tell an abbreviated, ridiculous version of the Boy Who Lived. Mr. Turner plays Harry, though when he wears those signature glasses, he looks more like that pinball wizard, Elton John. Mr. Clarkson, channeling a caffeinated Robin Williams, plays everyone else, including, among others, Ron and Hermione; Draco Malfoy; Snape; the Weasleys; Sirius Black; Mad-Eye Moody; Dumbledore; and, of course, He Who Must Not Be Named.
Dobby, the house elf, makes an appearance, as does Nagini, Voldemort's snake; Death Eaters and - crucial to Mr. Clarkson, at least - the dragon from Book 4. A highlight is the game Quidditch played with audience participation. And a very golden Snitch.
(...)
The flavor is Monty Python meets vaudeville, ragged and thrown together in a spirit similar to fan-created homages like Potter Puppet Pals and "A Very Potter Musical." You don't need to know all the plot twists and nuances of Hogwarts to enjoy the in-jokes, though clearly most of the delighted crowd does.
Besides, if you miss something, another laugh will be along shortly. Clearly Mr. Clarkson and Mr. Turner attended Professor Flitwick's charms class, because the duo casts the perfect spell over the audience: Reductio ad absurdum.
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June 20, 2012
By Patricia Cohen
Middle-school students review Potted Potter
Hogwarts Alumni Find Magic in 'Potter' Spoof
 Jennifer Loo, 13, trying on Harry Potter-style frames while sitting with other students at "Potted Potter."
Photo: Brian Harkin for The New York Times The panel of five experts that gathered at the Little Shubert Theater on Saturday was formidable.
These Manhattan middle schoolers were so steeped in the lore of Harry Potter, they could easily earn "outstandings" on their O.W.L.'s (Ordinary Wizarding Level examinations).
(...)
They were at the Little Shubert, on 42nd Street in Manhattan, to watch "Potted Potter" and judge how well Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner, the two British stars of this 70-minute mad dash through all the Harry Potter books, did in retelling the tale. ("Potted Potter" runs through Aug. 12.)
Did Mr. Clarkson and Mr. Turner manage accurately to recreate J. K. Rowling's extraordinarily detailed saga?
Absolutely not, the panel unanimously agreed.
Did these experts love it anyway?
Absolutely.
"They did not go into the deep poetic parts of the book," Ms. Varenik said. "But I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much if they had."
She noticed that when Mr. Turner appeared to be reading from the book, it was actually upside down.
As Annaliese Rozos, 13, a seventh grader at Tompkins, said, "You really didn't have to know about the books at all." Of the 300 or so characters mentioned in the books, the actors did manage to portray Harry (using round glasses and flashing his name, rather than a lightning shaft), Ron Weasley (with a red mop of a wig), Hermione, Dumbledore, Snape, Mad-Eye Moody, Sirius Black, Hagrid, Lupin the werewolf (wearing an elephant hat), Voldemort (outfitted with red devil horns). Nagini is a stuffed green snake; hand puppets are used for the elf Dobby and the Hungarian Horntail dragon that Harry battles in "The Goblet of Fire"; even Judi Dench makes an appearance, represented by a ratty black beard. (Go figure.)
Of the 300 or so characters mentioned in the books, the actors did manage to portray Harry (using round glasses and flashing his name, rather than a lightning shaft), Ron Weasley (with a red mop of a wig), Hermione, Dumbledore, Snape, Mad-Eye Moody, Sirius Black, Hagrid, Lupin the werewolf (wearing an elephant hat), Voldemort (outfitted with red devil horns). Nagini is a stuffed green snake; hand puppets are used for the elf Dobby and the Hungarian Horntail dragon that Harry battles in "The Goblet of Fire"; even Judi Dench makes an appearance, represented by a ratty black beard. (Go figure.)
With help from the audience, Mr. Clarkson and Mr. Turner also re-enact a game of Quidditch in each show, with Mr. Turner, dressed like Bob the Builder in a barrel, playing the role of the golden snitch.
Yet the improvised - or at least seemingly improvised - digressions turned out to be the panel's favorite parts.
"I love the jokes that they snuck in," said Francesca Sabel, 13, a seventh grader at Hunter and aspiring actress. (Going from the ridiculous to the sublime, she was in the middle of a theatrical doubleheader, attending "As You Like It" at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park later that evening.)
(...)
Mr. Turner explained that the show began in 2005 as a five-minute sketch that he and Mr. Clarkson were hired to perform to entertain the long lines of fans waiting to buy the sixth book, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," on the eve of its release in Britain. Over the years they expanded their little comedy, performing it at the Edinburgh Theater Festival, in Toronto, London and elsewhere.
After the performance the actors imparted some valuable theatrical techniques. They explained that the smeared chocolate that appeared on Mr. Clarkson's face when the lights came on after a blackout was actually Nutella.
Ms. Loo noted that "they looked like they were having fun" while performing. And they were, despite the potential pitfalls - like breathing in too much Nutella.
"We've done it over a thousand times," Mr. Turner said of the show, "and we still love it.
Call 942-8898 today to subscribe! |
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
WILD THINGS are coming to MTYP!
MTYP opens our 2012-2013 season with Maurice Sendak's
"without Sendak, an enormous void would exist in contemporary American (and, for that matter, international) children's books. One can only try to imagine what the landscape of children's literature would be like without Sendak's fantasies and the characters and places visited in them."
John Cech Angels and Wild Things: The Archetypal Poetics of Maurice Sendak
Max exhausts his mother's patience. Even though he blames the dog for messing up the laundry and explains he needed the spoons for his drumming, he is sent to his room without his supper. To escape boredom and forget his hungry tummy, Max uses his imagination to travel to a land of fantastic foliage and animals. He sails to the place where the Wild Things live. His room is transformed into a magical forest full of Wild Things. Max braves the wilds and overcomes his fears of the imaginary beasts lurking in the shadows. After much dancing and cavorting, Max becomes the King of the Wild Things. His reign lasts until he smells his delicious supper and returns to his room.
In MTYP's production of Where The Wild Things Are the audience will join Max on his adventures and become wild things themselves! Don't miss this opportunity to be a part of this beloved story!
"Max, the hero of my book, discharges his anger against his mother, and returns to the real world sleepy, hungry, and at peace with himself. Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences. That is obvious. But what is just as obvious -and what is too often overlooked- is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, that fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, that they continually cope with frustration as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things. It is my involvement with this inescapable fact of childhood - the awful vulnerability of children and their struggle to make themselves King of all Wild Things-that gives my work whatever truth and passion it may have".
Maurice Sendak, excerpted from Caldecott Medal acceptance speech
About Maurice Sendak
From an autobiographical sketch written for More Junior Authors, 1963:
"Papa gave us two plums apiece and sent us out to play-and then you were born." That is the story of my birth, as told to me by my sister and brother. They remember the plums very clearly-but me hardly at all. They still rejoice in telling me what a little nuisance I was.
I remember tagging after an angry sister. I remember copying with all my might every picture my brother drew. Perhaps it was hard on them, but I feel that all the 'youngest of the world' will be on my side-it is so hard being the littlest. It's good too. Copying my brother's pictures was a way of fighting, I suppose-a way of showing I was as good as the "big people" all around me. It also (and this is the best) started me drawing at a very early age-loving pictures and books with a child's boundless passion."
One of the most important creators of contemporary children's books, Maurice Sendak has produced over a dozen books of his own as well as illustrating more than seventy stories by other authors.
Sendak was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1928--the same year as Walt Disney's famous mouse. Mickey Mouse was a childhood hero of young Maurice and he often drew pictures of Mickey, which he signed with his childhood name "Murray Sendak."
Maurice and his older brother Jack did storytelling and made their own books. After he graduated from high school, he and Jack created children's wooden toys. Maurice took them to the F. A. O. Schwarz toy store. Although the store did not take the toys for sale, Maurice was hired to do window displays.
Maurice began attending art school in New York. He spent a number of years illustrating textbooks and children's books by his brother and other authors. In May of 1963 he completed a typed version of Where the Wild Things Are, followed by a full set of pencil sketches for his editor, Ursula Nordstrom, at Harper and Row. The book was published in the fall of 1963 with no special fanfare....but it has become an international classic.
