A true visionary

Leslee Silverman, the vivacious, contagious artistic director of Manitoba Theatre For Young People, is being honoured for her tireless work

By: Janine LeGal

Posted: 03/31/2011

For the past 30 years, Leslee Silverman has been transforming Manitoba Theatre for Young People (MTYP) into a cultural palace for children, a space for children and adults of all backgrounds to come together and be inspired through the magic of theatre.

Silverman, artistic director of MTYP, will  be honoured with the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement in Ottawa in May, alongside such other Canadian luminaries as veteran dancer Margie Gillis, composer Howard Shore and actor William Shatner.

Despite the limelight and numerous accolades, Silverman never sets herself apart from anyone else. In fact, her working style is one of constantly exploring creative collaborations.

Born in Winnipeg on Matheson Avenue, Silverman says there was homogeneity of culture growing up, with only Germans, Poles, Jews and Russians in her neighbourhood. "There was a certain shared set of story values, building a narrative of your life," explains Silverman, now in her 50s. "My grandmother made everything a story. We had time and stories. There was a fundamental love for freedom and story; my motto was ‘What if?’"

She studied at the Manitoba Theatre School, earned bachelor’s degrees from three Canadian universities and a master’s degree in Developmental Drama from Boulder, Colo.

Silverman spent a year working in downtown Vancouver, helping kids through theatre. "That’s where my work and politics welded together," she says.

Acclaimed author/playwright/screenwriter Dennis Foon met Silverman when he was artistic director of Green Thumb Theatre in British Columbia.

"She created a fantastic theatre school for us and I was immediately struck by her great intelligence and passion for young people," he says. "The respect I had for her has grown exponentially over the years.

She is a fierce advocate for theatre for young audiences — something she does both with words and deeds. She raised MTYP like a phoenix out of the ashes, and built it into one of the most important theatres on the continent. She did it with her limitless energy, creativity, and an uncanny ability to surround herself with talented people who she spurs on to do their best work.

"Leslee has an astonishing, blazing fast mind," Foon adds. "Her conversations encompass lightning fast turns — from a philosophical insight about Descartes, to an off-centre joke, to a political observation, to a practical staging matter, to a personal issue, and back to Descartes again. She never fails to leave me a little spinny — and utterly inspired."

The always-animated Silverman thrives doing what she loves to do.

"I’ve been here 30 years; it feels like a day," she says. "What shows is the sense of the artist, Winnipeggers, Canadians who are part of creating out of the invisible something important to say to someone else. We’ve performed all over the country. We are recognized the world over. We are the largest from here to Vancouver, the only one with a school, a teen season. The only Aboriginal arts training and mentorship program is here."

Silverman’s commitment to reflecting the experiences of First Nations peoples has been demonstrated through several productions. Over 500 Aboriginal youth participate in year-round classes, film camps, master classes, cabarets, fringe plays, and full mainstage productions. MTYP has a national profile with an impressive home at the Canwest Global Performing Arts Centre at The Forks in the heart of Winnipeg.
Silverman’s contagious and vivacious energy keeps her creating, dreaming and imagining possibilities.
Pauline Broderick is a long-time friend and colleague. "She’s a visionary — she has the tenacity and the foresight to know how to make it happen," Broderick says. "She’s a true artist, with her finger on the pulse. It’s a delight to work with someone who confronts the challenges of not knowing. She approaches everything with an open heart, and open mind. She is incredibly compassionate. She has ultimate respect for the artistic process, integrity and challenges. She understands art, the necessity that art is a vehicle, a way to create an empathic civilization for the embodied expression, the heart experience is crucial for the next generation.

"She’s an inspiring human being, when you are in her sphere. She is extraordinary. She is a North End girl, a kid from this part of the country, and she’s a national figure. If Winnipeg has artists to celebrate, she’s up there with the greats. She brings the best out of the people around her."

MTYP tours schools all over the province, and operates a year-round theatre school with an annual enrollment of more than 1,600 students. Silverman’s social activism has always been at the core of everything she stands for, showcasing productions about issues such as abuse, poverty, racism, and bullying. Silverman, who has directed over 80 productions for MTYP, regularly invites companies from around the world to perform on the mainstage.

"It so inspires us," she says. "Every day, I see the kids from three to 23 surrounded by adults in creative life, doing work of significant importance. We have to engage kids, exhilarate them. It is doable here, because in Winnipeg the arts and sciences are still one humanity. We have the right to make our own blueprint, nobody stops us here.

"What happens is this glorious, freakish, by-mistake thing. Something that started in a Winnipeg café ends up in Hong Kong. I’ve worked in Toronto, Vancouver and Colorado. We know each other here, we take the time to talk, to learn. I’ve been very blessed with artists who understand Canadian identity," explains Silverman, who’d planned on being a war correspondent in her younger years, drawn to the tense and exciting, always-up-in-the-air kind of existence.

Last December, the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Manitoba Association for Rights and Liberties presented the 2010 Human Rights Commitment award to MTYP for the achievement of promoting human rights and social transformation for almost 30 years.

Silverman is particularly proud of this recognition, as the promotion of social justice and empathy is very close to her heart.

Friend and fan Robbie Patterson says, "Leslee is a person of incredible integrity; she knows the audience and will never talk down to them. For her, children’s voice is important. She IS the MTYP. The plays —she chooses important subject matter; alcoholism, abuse, loneliness, even the lighter ones are always about empowering the child. It’s about child’s power and imagination. She’s a passionate, brilliant  hippie. She’s a genius, an intellectual. She has incredible energy. Her personal politics drive her theatre."

Says Silverman, "It feels like we’re always too busy to pay attention. While we are all busy working extraordinary long hours to ensure our kids have things, we have to give them empty spaces, the invisible. The arts allow them not to find a personality through iPhone or iPad but through being at this place at this time. We need empty space and interaction."

Silverman is looking forward to MTYP’s 30th anniversary. She’s excited about establishing a Rights of the Child component for the Canadian Museum of Human Rights. She’s got new plays coming up and there’s no doubt she’ll be working her magic in bringing many more wondrous stories to the stage, building bridges between people and creating space for dreams.