Theatre Projects Manitoba is excited to announce our 26/27 season!
As we pulled together our programming for 26-27, I’ve been thinking a lot about the “Projects” part of our name. What does it mean to lay claim to being a company devoted to Theatre Projects?
This next year is one possible answer to that question.
It reflects a shift in emphasis, leaning away from the idea of a season of plays at regular intervals and leaning into the reality of specific projects—projects that feel most urgent, exciting and important to us right now—projects that have specific needs that don’t fit nicely into a season model.
2026-2027 will look and feel different. We are taking a HUGE swing on one very exciting project coming to fruition after years of development, and we are laying firm foundations for several others that will come to full fruition in future years.
If I had to choose a loose theme that ties all these projects together it would be Ambitiously Human!
Every project we have on stage and in the bullpen this year has both creative ambition and a deeply human core—these are plays about self-discovery, shared grief, empowerment, healing, and the essential bonds of human connection in all kinds of forms. All these plays are also about the power of the stories we tell and how we tell them.
We are taking a stand for the radical nature of live theatre and what a play can be and do in our lives. And I know I don’t have to tell you—a play can be a pretty magical piece of creative technology.
So cool—we all love plays, but which plays do we get to love together in the coming year???
R&J: Closing Night
The flagship project of our 36th season is the world premiere of R&J: Closing Night, an immersive love letter to the theatre and the people who make it mean something!
A Co-Production with the Fox Den Collective. Created by the Fox Den Collective and written by Jessy Ardern. Directed by Suzie Martin with Associate Direction by Carmen Osahor at Prairie Theatre Exchange, September 8-20, 2026 (PWYC Previews Sept 8 & 9).
Featuring Winnipeggers: Alissa Watson, Arne MacPherson, Chael Donald, Gwen Collins, Jack Maier, Laurel Fife, Sam Benson, and from Edmonton: Alex Ariate, Andres Moreno, Annette Loiselle and David Ley.
Set by Jamie Plummer, Costumes by Joseph Abetria, Lighting by Rob Mravnik, Sound and composition by Ashley Au.
Poster design by Christine Leslie.
This show will be unlike anything ever seen in Winnipeg! One cast of 11 actors, running simultaneously in two different rooms. This daring theatrical event peels back the curtain the fictious Elizabeth Paige Theatre company where a band of beleaguered but devoted professionals battle their own demons and one meddlesome ghost as they try to get through their final performance.
Each night the audience is divided, with half watching Romeo and Juliet, and the other half cast as theatre interns who have been invited to shadow the goings on backstage. At intermission they trade sides and the clock winds back to the top of the show so everyone has the chance to witness the actors and stagehands coping with their encroaching personal lives and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to so that the show can go on.
The writing is typical Jessy Ardern brilliance—those of you who saw Prophecy last year will know: a perfect blend of humour and pathos with indelible characters, snappy dialogue, and enough structural integrity to support a building–in this case, the proverbial building is The Elizabeth Paige, a fictional theatre
Fans of Slings and Arrows, The Play That Goes Wrong, and promenade Shakespeare like SIR will find countless goodies to delight—including the chance to eavesdrop on stage management over headset! It’s an immersive theatrical experience, at a scale and complexity that has never been done in Winnipeg.
Join us at the Elizabeth Paige to celebrate everything we love and hate about making theatre here, now, together!
Work in Progress: A Festival of New Plays
After this giant undertaking, we’re spending the rest of our season in development and will cap it off with Work in Progress: A Festival of New Plays a showcase of new Manitoba works in development in partnership with Prairie Theatre Exchange and Manitoba Association of Playwrights.
While the finer points of the programming for this festival are still being tuned, we will be anchoring our offerings with two exciting pieces. Join us and be the first to see staged readings of projects we’ve got coming down the pipeline and look for them on our stages in the coming years!
The first is PEACHES by Elio Zarrillo—this project was born back in 2022 in the National Queer/Trans Playwrighting Unit and has been in development with TPM and MAP ever since. Last year it went to OutFest in Halifax for a workshop where it picked up the Jury’s Choice Award.
Framed as an experimental play within an expressionistic landscape PEACHES offers up a queer/trans fantasia on redemptive themes. As it explores the relationship between a trans child and their parent it sets up a tender and honest conversation about our interconnectedness and the impacts our lives have on those closest to us.
The second of our staged reading showcases, The Ballad of Sylvie Gynt by Andraea Sartison, is a Canadian Western Feminist response to Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. Set in the prohibition prairies, this play with music centers Sylvie, the wife Peter (Peer Gynt) leaves behind to run the family homestead and take care of his ailing and obnoxious mother. Sylvie’s mission to deliver crucial news to Peter leads her off the ranch and on an episodic adventure of her own replete with trolls, horses, moonshine, hot touring musicians, shipwrecks and dealings with the devil.
Thank you to the Winnipeg Free Press for their article about our launch, check it out here:
I am so excited to share these strange, heartfelt, and ambitiously human projects with you in the coming year—we’ll see you at the theatre!
Suzie Martin, Artistic Director