Manitoba Theatre Centre
The Manitoba Theatre Centre, or MTC, was founded in 1958 by John Hirsch and Tom Hendry. Hirsch was the Artistic Director of the theatre from the time it was built until 1966; almost ten years. Today, there are about twenty large theatres in the downtown Winnipeg area, but the Manitoba Theatre Centre, John Hirsch Mainstage is one of the oldest. In fact, it is Canada’s oldest English-speaking regional theatre. Theatre in Manitoba, however, began quite a while before this particular building was established. In the mid 1800’s local literature lovers would gather in a room they called Red River Hall. There, they would perform for a small audience who would be asked not to applaud for fear the reverberations would cause the building to collapse.
John Hirsch was born in Hungary in 1930 but moved to London, England with his mother, father and brother. During the Holocaust, his entire family was killed and he was swept off to the Budapest Ghetto by a maid of the household. Years later in 1947 he moved to Manitoba and he began to find his way in the theatre world, directing and eventually founding a children’s theatre. In ‘57 he founded Theatre 77 with his long time friend Tom Hendry.
The Manitoba Theatre centre is located at 174 Market Avenue, near the famously windy intersection of Portage and Main in the very heart of the city. It puts up ten works per season with a 789 seating capacity in the John Hursch Mainstage plus the Tom Healey Warehouse with a capacity of 286. The Manitoba Theatre Centre rates as third highest next to the Stratford and Shaw Festivals for highest annual attendance.
The current artistic director of the Manitoba Theatre Centre is Steven Schipper who is now in his twentieth year of working under that title. The 2008/2009 season has brought some classic favourites as well as some brand new work to the stage: Pride and Prejudice, Medea, Jitters, The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead, Doubt:A Parable, Scorched, The Price, Bad Dates, Bleeding Hearts and of course The Boys in The Photograph.