Theatre Projects Manitoba invites you to join us for an evening of music and literature!
When: October 22, 2024. 8:00pm – 11:00pm (doors @ 7:30pm, first reading @ 8:15pm).
Where: Times Change(d) High & Lonesome Club, 234 Main St
On October 22nd, Theatre Projects Manitoba will celebrate Mennonite voices in music and literature to support our upcoming world premiere production of The Recipe by Armin Wiebe (a co-production with the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre).
Plotting our Roots is a joyful night of music and literature intended to cross-pollinate the theatre, literary and music communities in our province and celebrate the unique cultural expression of Mennos creating work out of and in response to their rural roots.
Plume Winnipeg is joining us as a curatorial partner to highlight the rich multi-generational literary culture that surrounds us here in Manitoba—especially those that have sprung from rural Mennonite communities.
Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at the door; advance tickets are on sale now!
Plotting Our Roots
Music by professional Manitoban musician Paul Bergman
Literature and poetry readings by 6 local writers
In partnership with Plume Winnipeg, including beloved Mennonite voice and playwright of The Recipe, Armin Wiebe.
A Recipe Swap
Guests will be asked to either bring in their favourite recipe or jot it down on a recipe card at the event that will later be compiled into “The Recipes – a digital cookbook by Theatre Projects Manitoba”
Delicious on-brand Mennonite treats courtesy of Old Church Bakery in Steinbach!
Meet the Writers!
Andrew Unger
Andrew Unger is author of the satirical news website The Unger Review (formerly The Daily Bonnet). Since 2016, Andrew has written more than 3000 satirical articles, including the collection The Best of the Bonnet. Andrew’s novel Once Removed won the best first book award at the 2021 Manitoba Book Awards.
Angeline Schellenberg
Angeline Schellenberg is a Winnipeg writer, photographer, and contemplative spiritual director, the host of the Speaking Crow poetry open-mic and author of three poetry collections: Tell Them It Was Mozart (Brick Books, 2016), Fields of Light and Stone (UAP, 2020), and Mondegreen Riffs (At Bay Press, 2024)
Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Bluesky | Threads
Armin Wiebe
No one paid much attention to Armin’s writing until he stumbled into the voice of Yasch Siemens, a voice he has riffed off in numerous ways in his Gutenthal novels, on stage in The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz, and now in The Recipe.
Website | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube
Di Brandt
Di Brandt is one of Manitoba’s most distinguished literary writers, with more than a dozen book publications, multimedia creations and numerous prestigious awards and recognitions to her name. She served as Winnipeg’s Inaugural Poet Laureate, and recently received an honorary doctorate from Grant MacEwan University in recognition of her leading work in the creation of contemporary multicultural prairie poetics, maternal narrative studies, urban cosmopolitan ecopoetics, and the innovative creation of influential and wide-reaching community-based literary arts programming across the country. She was the first professionally published woman writer ever from the traditionalist Mennonite villages of southern Manitoba, and is proud to share the stage with fellow Darp writer Armin Wiebe, who similarly understands and celebrates the long distance from there to here. Her most recent poetry collection is The Sweetest Dance on Earth: New and Selected Poems (2022).
Mitchell Toews
Mitchell Toews left his advertising and marketing job in 2016 to devote himself full-time to fiction. Since then, Mitch has placed 125 short stories in literary journals, anthologies, and contests. His debut book, lovingly published by At Bay Press in 2023, is a collection of short stories titled “Pinching Zwieback.” The linked stories high-step through the furrowed fields of Hartplatz, an imaginary sister village to Steinbach. A coming-of-age novel — “Mulholland and Hardbar”, set in the boreal forest of Manitoba — is underway. One beta reader described it as “Fargo, with a Mennonite accent.”
Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | LinkedIn
Sarah Klassen
Sarah Klassen, a Winnipeg poet and fiction writer, was initially inspired by her work as English teacher and by her story-telling mother. Her latest publications are New and Selected, Poems and a novel, The Russian Daughter. Her work has received various awards and nominations.
Meet the Musician!
Paul Bergman
Paul Bergman (1983 -) was born in a half-hour, and has done little since with even approximately that much haste. He’s released five records, and ‘I just want to walk in the dark with you’, the single released by Birthday Cake, is the torchbearer of an upcoming collection of songs.