Issue link: http://publications.winnipegfreepress.com/i/368665
42 take a culture Days cruise A three-day celebration running Sept. 26-28, Culture Days (www.mb.culturedays.ca) features more than 40 events across the province, from French improv at Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain to hands-on agricultural activities at the Pembina Threshermen's Museum. During Culture Days, join the crowds for Nuit Blanche Winnipeg (www.nuitblanchewinnipeg.ca), when galleries across the city, including the Winnipeg Art Gallery, celebrate the arts with free programming from 6 p.m. Sept. 27 until 6 a.m. Sept. 28. on WitH tHe sHoW Manitobans are passionate about live theatre. More than two dozen community theatre companies are active throughout the province, and Winnipeg is blessed with some of the world's best. Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre (www.mtc.mb.ca) presents 10 plays on two stages from October to May. The comedic wit of Sherlock Holmes and the Jersey Lily (Oct. 1-25) launches the season on the John Hirsch Mainstage. Cabaret gets a warm willkommen Jan. 7-31 and hit farce Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike takes the stage Feb. 11-March 2. Featured attractions on the Tom Hendry Warehouse stage include The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith Dec. 2-20. And Noel Coward's Private Lives (Jan. 28-14) is a cornerstone of the 15th annual Winnipeg Master Playwright Festival in 2015. Prairie Theatre Exchange (www.pte.mb.ca) opens a similarly well-balanced season with the world premiere of Small Things (Oct. 15-nov. 2). The commissioned work is from Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor, a critical and audience favourite who calls PTE his prairie home. Dark comedy Vigil, from another locally beloved playwright, Morris Panych, runs nov. 20-Dec. 7, and music is a central character when The Big Time Band and Divine Brown perform in Life, Death and the Blues (Jan. 22-Feb. 8). PTE presents the true drama of a Manitoba hockey player who grapples with demons from an abusive past in Playing with Fire: The Theo Fleury Story (Feb. 26-March 15) and closes the season with Sherlock holmes spoof The Hound of the Baskervilles April 9-26. Cercle Molière (www.cerclemoliere.com), the oldest continuously operating theatre in Canada, presents five plays in French from October to April, ranging from psychological thriller La Chanson De L'éléphant to shadow- theatre clown comedy Tubby and Notubby at a new venue overlooking Provencher Boulevard at Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain. And at The Forks, Manitoba Theatre for Young People (www.mtyp.ca) specializes in physical comedy, thought-provoking dramas and adaptations of classics like Peter Pan (nov. 27-Dec. 24). PhOTO: MIChAEl COOPER PhOTO: TRuDIE lEE playinG with fire: the theo fleury story – feB 26-Mar 15 – pte life, Death anD the Blues – Jan 22-feB 8 – pte