The Manitoba Theatre Centre (MTC), based in Winnipeg, will wrap up the City of Thompson's Concert Series for 2009-10 on Feb. 28 during their 2010 regional tour of Robert Chafe's 2002 play Tempting Providence.
The play was originally commissioned to be a "portable" play to be performed in Newfoundland and Labrador's senior citizen homes and schools, written as a series of episodes that chronicle the early years of Myra Bennett's life in Daniel's Harbour, Nfld. MTC's regional tour of Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario runs from Jan. 30 to March 3.
This year marks the 32nd consecutive year the MTC has gone on regional tour. Last year, MTC brought to Thompson Theresa Rebeck's one-character play, Bad Dates, starring actress Precious Chong, daughter of Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong fame, as Haley Walker in a monologue by a Texas woman transplanted to New York City. MTC also took the play to Churchill, making their first stop there in 17 years, as well as Atikokan, Sioux Lookout and Dryden in Northwestern Ontario.
Tempting Providence, a Theatre Newfoundland Labrador tells the story of Myra Bennett, a woman who travelled to Canada to become one of the first outport nurses on the isolated Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, and became a legend for performing a variety of medical tasks, from delivering babies to setting bones to extracting teeth.
Not only did Bennett have to handle all different types of medical emergencies, she also had a huge area to cover. Her district extended over 200 miles of rugged coastline, with the sea as the main means of transportation. During her career, Myra delivered 700 babies, extracted 5,000 teeth and reattached a nearly severed foot. On top of that, she managed to raise three of her own children and four foster children, was involved in the church, made her own bread and milked the cow.
She came from England after hearing of the desperate need for her skills in rural communities. While originally planning on settling in Saskatchewan, she made Newfoundland her home.
The show features Deirdre Gillard-Rowlings as Myra, Darryl Hopkins as Angus, Renee Hackett as Women, and Robert Wyatt Thorne as Men. Jillian Keiley directs the play for the tour.
