Digital Production Reckoning Draws Prairie Theatre Exchange’s 50th Season to a Fiery Close

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/By Hélène Crowley / Jun 9, 2023

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It is time for a reckoning, and it’s coming June 21st.

Winnipeg’s Prairie Theatre Exchange will soon premiere their digital production Reckoning, by Tara Beagan and Andy Moro, PTE collaborators and co-founders of the Indigenous Activist Arts group, ARTICLE 11. This production will also officially conclude PTE’s 50th anniversary season.

With its online premiere on National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21st, Reckoning spotlights Indigenous and Canadian history and society through three unique and distinct lenses: it explores stories of colonization, residential schools, and the country’s attempts at truth and reconciliation. These vital topics are explored in the feature-length film through an expressive blend of movement, video, and text.

Described in press materials as an “incendiary theatrical presentation,” Reckoning’s digital format helps create a permanent record of Indigenous Peoples’ stories. This production, along with ARTICLE 11’s other digital work, highlights the “big questions” of adapting stage productions to digital formats by experimenting with theatre’s ephemerality. 

“We all speak video fluently,” said ARTICLE 11’s co-founder Beagan in a press release. “[Reckoning] can be received with open hearts and minds.”

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed theatre companies to explore the world of digital theatre, and Reckoning is now ARTICLE 11’s second stage-to-screen adaptation. This initiative has allowed for important theatre and performance productions to be shared with wider audiences, something that PTE has explored previously as well.

ARTICLE 11’s productions tell stories that are “urgent, provocative, beautiful, and inspiring,” in the words of PTE artistic director, Thomas Morgan Jones, and Beagan and Moro are known for their intensity and passion in their work. Although the production’s content may be difficult to face, Reckoning shows audiences the importance of telling these stories, so intertwined with Canada’s existence, and how crucial it is to share everyone’s truth.

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Reckoning runs digitally June 21–25, 2023. Tickets are available here.

WRITTEN BY

Hélène Crowley

Hélène is a queer musician, editor, and writer in Toronto. She is currently an intern at Intermission. She holds a BMus from Wilfrid Laurier University and an MSt in Musicology from the University of Oxford. Currently, Hélène is actively involved in the Canadian publishing industry through volunteering, writing, and freelance editing. When she has free time, she loves to go for runs, play piano, crochet, and travel.

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