Tom Hendry Warehouse Theatre

A point of interest on the Winnipeg in the Limelight GPS-guided audio walking tour.

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Audio Transcript
 

If you take a look across the street, you'll see the Tom Hendry Warehouse Theatre.

As you may have put together, this building was not always a theatre; it was, in fact, a warehouse. In 1946, the building was constructed for the Brewery Products Ltd Garage and it remained just that until 1965, with the second stage of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, RMTC, moved in. You'll learn more about RMTC at the next stop, don't panic.

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Just two years after RMTC was founded in 1958, a second stage was opened - for edgier, more experimental pieces of theatre. Initially, this second stage was located in the Dominion Theatre, now demolished but it once stood at the corner of Portage and Main, but they moved north to 140 Rupert in 1965. Their new venue was named Across the Street and the Winnipeg Tribune sung the building's praises.

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"One felt that 21 guns should boom and rockets go off to celebrate appropriately," wrote the Tribune columnist Heather Robertson. The new venue was another rare theatrical first in Canada: a small non-profit experimental theatre.

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Today the venue name has been changed to honour one of MTC's founders Tom Hendry, but the Warehouse still organizes interesting and experimental performances every season.

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