Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre
Canada's oldest English-language regional theatre, in a Brutalist mainstage on Market Avenue.
The Manitoba Theatre Centre was formed in 1958 when John Hirsch and Tom Hendry merged their company Theatre 77 with the Winnipeg Little Theatre, creating what is generally described as the first English-language regional theatre in Canada and a model for others that followed. The company received a royal designation in 2010. It produces a season of about ten plays each year across two stages, mixing classics, new Canadian work and musicals, and also runs the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival, the Pimootayowin Creators Circle for Indigenous writers and a regional touring programme.
The John Hirsch Mainstage opened in 1970 to a design by Allan Waisman of the Number Ten Architectural Group, a compact Brutalist block of dark brick and exposed concrete with an asymmetrical thrust-influenced auditorium seating roughly 785. It was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2009 as an early and influential purpose-built regional theatre. The company's second, more intimate stage, the 288-seat Tom Hendry Warehouse on Rupert Avenue, occupies a converted warehouse a short walk away.
Highlights
- National Historic Site of Canada for its 1970 theatre design
- 785-seat John Hirsch Mainstage and 288-seat Warehouse
- Season of roughly ten productions from autumn to spring
- Producer of the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival
