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Community Update

October 8, 2020

Welcome to the first of PTE’s community updates. We have created this update to offer transparency into the workings of our company and to share insights into plans, actions, and thoughts that are driving the work we do.

While producing theatre is an important part of what we do as a company, it is only a part of what we do. The morals, ethics, philosophy, politics, and passion that drive us may not be clearly evidenced in our programming alone. These updates aim to give a fuller picture of PTE.

Our goal is to release two updates each season on our website: one in the fall as the season is beginning and another in the spring as the season closes. This will allow our community (of artists and audiences) to know some of our priorities at the beginning of a season, and then to see how those priorities have grown, evolved, been met or changed by the end of the season.

The content of this first update very much reflects the focus and priorities of PTE at this moment, particularly how we are navigating the beginning of the season during the pandemic and also our anti-racism work (including meeting commitments made in our recent statement).

At the end of each update, we will include information on how to reach our Artistic Director, our General Manager/Managing Director, and our board of directors.

The Hub

In mid-October we will launch the PTE Training Hub. This is four weeks of free training (in-person and on Zoom) for our Winnipeg theatre community. We know how deeply the pandemic has impacted artists financially and also artistically. These four weeks aim to bring us together to practice our craft, without a financial barrier in the way. We are so grateful to our roster of instructors and speakers from here at home and across the country. We cannot wait to welcome our artistic community into our space (physical and virtual).

Company in Residence and Director Mentorship

As part of our initial commitments to anti-racism work, we shared our intention to offer an IBPOC Company in Residence opportunity. We recently released a call, and our selection committee is assessing the applications now. To act as a selection committee, we engaged two artists who have and are working closely with our company: Cherissa Richards and Hazel Venzon.

We also created an additional opportunity, a paid mentorship for an IBPOC director to collaborate on Post-Democracy and the yet to be titled Ismaila Alfa play. Those applications are currently being assessed as well. Our Artistic Director, Thom, and Cherissa Richards will be the selection committee for this opportunity.

Beyond this season, we are dedicated to continuing to have opportunities such as these for the IBPOC artists of Winnipeg. We say “such as these” because we want to be open to change as we work with artists this year and continue to receive feedback. We will respond with opportunities that are necessary and reflective of the needs of the community.

Policy

In our recent statement on anti-racism, we announced that we would be creating an anti-racism, anti-discrimination and equity policy to work alongside our existing Violence and Harassment Prevention Policy.

We have a first draft of our new policy and have had one consultation with law firm Thompson, Dorfman and Sweatman who have lawyers specializing in policy. We have taken this opportunity to also update and analyze our Violence and Harassment Prevention Policy as well as our Child, Youth, and Vulnerable Person Protection Policy.

We have recently brought together a paid, nine-member policy committee to review and give notes on the new draft policy.

The policy committee is:

Seraph-Eden Boroditsky

Thomas Morgan Jones

Melissa Langdon

Tracey Loewen

Debbie Patterson

Ray Strachan

Stephanie Sy

Hazel Venzon

Liam Zarrillo

Following notes from the committee, we will announce a public town hall/forum where the broader Winnipeg arts community can hear the new policy and give their feedback. This event will be moderated by our artistic director and one member of the policy committee.

The next stages will include another consultation with lawyers and, finally, a review and vote by our Board of Directors. Our goal is to have this process completed early in 2021.

General Manager/Managing Director Search

On October 5th we relaunched our search for a Managing Director. We have renamed this position from General Manager to Managing Director. The goal is to have a new Managing Director in place by April, 2021.

In addition to our post being widely distributed, we are also consulting with IBPOC leaders from provinces outside Manitoba to gain insight into potential candidates in their communities. Our Board will contact these candidates directly and invite them to apply for the position.

Our search committee for this position is:

Board Members: Jane Helbrecht (President), Melissa McAlister, Ryan Palmer (Treasurer)

PTE Staff: Thomas Morgan Jones, Artistic Director

Artistic Community Members: Debbie Patterson, Eric Plamondon, Hazel Venzon, Liam Zarrillo

Anti-Racism Training

Our staff have now completed a twelve hour, four-session anti-racism training. “Guided Conversations Towards Reconciliation, Anti-Oppression, and Social Justice Strategies” was led by Seraph-Eden Boroditsky.

Board Recruitment

We are thrilled to have recently welcomed Shyamala Dakshinamurti, Sowmya Dakshinamurti, and Sarah Luby to our board of directors. They are all eager to contribute to the conversation of how we can grow and change as a company. We are deeply honoured to have their voices help in shaping the future of our company. As we move through the fall and early winter we will continue to reach out to new potential board members to ensure that our board represents the voices of our communities.

COVID-19 Protocol

We have recently completed our rehearsal, production and filming process of Yvette Nolan’s Katharsis. As a solo show that was never performed for a live audience, it was a perfect way to begin our journey as a company with our new COVID-19 protocol. It was a new way of working, and we feel buoyed and confident by how smoothly the process went and also by the lessons we have learned.

Our next stage of re-opening will be welcoming artists as part of The Training Hub. Following that we will be open to artist residencies in November/December. The final stage will be welcoming our artists and audience in the New Year for our three planned live productions. This incremental journey has given us (and will continue to give us) time to dive in cautiously, but also to apply lessons learned along the way.

We have received many inquiries around space rentals (both rehearsals and performance space). It was a difficult decision, but we have chosen to only begin conversations about rentals at the top of 2021 when we have a more clear picture of the pandemic. The moment we can welcome renters back, we will be thrilled to do so. Please, stay in touch with requests.

Katharsis

When it became clear to us that we would lose much of our planned/announced season, we immediately commissioned Yvette Nolan to write us a new piece. Her only prompts were that it be a love letter to the theatre, that it be for one actor, that it be no more than 20 minutes, and that it would be filmed and released to the world for free having never met an in-person audience. To our delight, she accepted. It is difficult to describe the depth of appreciation we have for being given the honour of telling her story to open this season.

As previously mentioned, we have completed filming and will be releasing Yvette’s play on October 29th. We simply cannot wait to share this beautiful new play that speaks directly to the time(s) we are living in now as artists, as audiences, as humans.

We are also grateful to have worked for the first time with Métis film director Sam Vint and Ice River Films. Additionally, this production was our first collaboration with designers MJ Dandeneau and Ksenia Broda-Milian.

Washrooms

Effective immediately, our main lobby washrooms and office washrooms are now gender neutral.

Following consultation with Rainbow Resource Centre, new signage is being installed with simple descriptions and images of the contents of the washrooms (stalls, urinals, accessibility). Our goal is to replace all urinals with stalls in the future, and to provide more privacy for each stall. Until we receive news of the sale of the mall and how that will impact our space, we feel it is responsible to wait on these changes in the event that our space is drastically impacted by the new plans for the mall.

What we can do now is what we are doing. The 2020-2021 season will be the first with gender neutral washrooms in our space.

Portage Place

We have received many questions regarding the future of PTE if the Portage Place Mall is sold. We want to assure our artists and audiences that based on our lease, Starlight Investments is aware that PTE must remain in the mall. We have met with Starlight as part of their process, have given them a tour of our facilities, and are confident that they value our presence in the mall itself and also our contribution to the downtown arts ecology. We eagerly await more news.

Commissions

PTE is dedicated to new play development and in recent years it has become a major focus of the company’s activities. We are thrilled to share our ongoing and new commissions with you. If you are unfamiliar with any of these playwrights or creators, we encourage you to look into their work. They are, each of them, extraordinary artists and we are so grateful to be working with every one of them. Just think of all the stories on the way!

Ismaila Alfa (premiering in 2021)

Sharon Bajer and Liam Zarrillo

Keith Barker

Tara Beagan

Darla Contois

Brian Drader

Ellen Lauren

Yvette Nolan (premiering in 2020)

Debbie Patterson

Alexa Potashnik

Rayannah

Ian Ross

Andraea Sartison

Donna-Michelle St. Bernard (co-commission with Black Theatre Workshop, Montreal)

Guillermo Verdecchia

Playwright in Residence

Thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts, we are overjoyed to share that Tara Beagan is the Playwright in Residence at PTE for the 2020-2021 season. She will be developing her play Rise, Red River for a future PTE season.

Accessibility

We recognize that we have a lot more to do to make our performances accessible. We know and believe that accessibility is a human right.

For years, we have had ASL interpretation for our Munsch productions and this past season we held our first relaxed performance. This season (2020-2021), we will have relaxed performances for all of our live plays and will continue this practice for all of our live performances moving forward.

We have begun discussions with a company that offers audio description, and as soon as we are in a position to collaborate on a live production, we will do so. With the lessons learned through this collaboration, we will look to grow this practice at our theatre.

It is also our goal to offer ASL interpretation during the run of each of our performances. We have begun consultations with theatre practitioners and interpreters to this end.

Donors

With the onset of the pandemic, we were moved to tears by the outpouring of donations from our audience and the arts community. Between this support and the government supports that were made available, PTE was able to finish our fiscal year in a strong financial position. Astonishing. To say we are grateful and moved would be an understatement. There truly are no words to express our gratitude.

In this new fiscal year (and looking ahead to the next), we find ourselves facing more uncertainty and crisis. And again, more donations have begun to pour in from those that believe in us and that want to see us thrive through these times and into the future.

We have always known and felt love from our community, but never before have we needed support in this way. It is not an exaggeration to say that we are navigating through a crisis. Its duration will mean constant resilience. Knowing that we have you all behind us has empowered our team immeasurably.

The future

As for all of us, the future is uncertain. By this time, we would normally have our 2021-2022 season all planned and would be moving toward our first live performance. But things aren’t normal.

What we are certain of, what we know, is that we are being guided by our priorities. What we prioritize, what we believe in, who we aspire to be as company, these are the principals that shape our decision-making.

We are dedicated to telling stories live and to reaching audiences digitally. We are dedicated to developing new works and voices for the stage. We are dedicated to the exploration of form. We are dedicated to being a part of positive, lasting, and meaningful change. We are dedicated to celebrating and supporting Indigenous, Black, POC and 2SLGBTQ+ voices and artists. We are dedicated to the work of anti-racism and anti-discrimination. We are dedicated to accessibility and to making our spaces safe, barrier-free, and welcoming. We are dedicated to creating opportunities for artists to train, grow and explore their craft.

Finally, we are dedicated to listening, owning our mistakes, and moving forward with humility, resolve, inspiration and a full heart.

To contact us:

Thomas Morgan Jones, Artistic Director: ad@pte.mb.ca

Lisa Li, Managing Director: lisali@pte.mb.ca

Board of Directors: board@pte.mb.ca