WINNIPEG, MB– A number of professionals from UWinnipeg’s Department of Theatre and Film alumni join August: Osage County, Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize winning play, that opens TONIGHT, Thursday, March 8, 2012 at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s Tom Hendry Theatre and runs until Saturday, March 24.
This dark and heart-wrenching drama features Canada’s doyenne of theatre, Martha Henry, in the role of the powerful matriarch of a highly dysfunctional family torn apart by sinister secrets when a family crisis brings everyone home to the house they grew up in. It is a cracking-good story full of rich characterization and punctuated with humour so black that you almost feel guilty about laughing.
UWinnipeg Department of Theatre and Film actor alumni include Julia Arkos, Melanie Dean, Samantha Hill, Steven Ratzlaff, and Cory Wojcik, all professional actors who bring riveting performances to the production.
Director Ann Hodges, who also graduated from the UWinnipeg before going on to a successful career as a theatrical and operatic director of international renown, skilfully leads this dream cast. Hodges’ Assistant Director, Daria Puttaert made her start at UWinnipeg, and her apprentice, Leigh Anne Parry, is a current student. Jessica Freundl, a UWinnipeg Billy Murphy Scholarship winner, is the apprentice stage manager and alum Jacqueline Loewen directs several vitriolic fight scenes.
UWinnipeg Theatre Department’s voice professor, Shannon Vickers, is dialect and text coach, bringing robust and folksy Oklahoma accents to life. Brian Perchaluk, a veteran theatrical designer who studied at UWinnipeg and is a favourite of Winnipeg audiences, has designed a stunning set featuring a three-storey house built right on stage.
Bravo to the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre for bringing this terrific play to a Winnipeg stage and congratulations to the cast and crew, especially our UWinnipeg alumni, for contributing to such a great production!
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