Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 28, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba CO M I N G S O O N ! Read the Winter issue at: winnipegfreepress.com/fp-features Available in your Free Press (subscribers) on March 29 and at Manitoba Liquor Marts - while supplies last! DON’T MISS THE SPRING 2025 ISSUE TUESDAY JANUARY 28, 2025 ● ARTS & LIFE EDITOR: JILL WILSON 204-697-7018 ● ARTS@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM ARTS ● LIFE SECTION C CONNECT WITH THE BEST ARTS AND LIFE COVERAGE IN MANITOBA ▼ Local production company adds L.A. television arm BUFFALO Gal Pictures has added a new TV-loving member to the herd. Last week, the Winnipeg production company announced the launch of Fiasco Global Media, an international sister enterprise devoted to finding and developing new television series. Fiasco is the brainchild of Jennifer Beasley, who has been Buffalo Gal’s vice-president of development since 2016. “That role was across features and television, but I found I was gravitating toward and my heart was lying a lot more in television,” says Beasley, who has worked in many areas of the indus- try, from craft services to executive producing to writing for television. “I know what I’m looking for and I’m really excited about working with writers, because they’re my people.” Over the last year, Beasley and Buffalo Gal president and founder Phyllis Laing met frequently at a local coffee shop to workshop the format of Fiasco, which aims to fill a niche during a time of industry upheaval following the recent actors and writers strike, and while traditional broad- casters are competing with streaming services for eyeballs. “The one thing that’s always consis- tent, though, is the need for content and for great stories, so the more we can focus on that the better,” Laing says. “We’ve built years of trust; I know what (Jen’s) taste is and I know how well she does, so it’s really a win- win.” Fiasco — named for the behind- the-scenes chaos of film shoots — is headquartered in Winnipeg and Los Angeles. EVA WASNEY RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS Founder Phyllis Laing has been at the helm of Buffalo Gal for three decades. RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS Fiasco is the venture of Jennifer Beasley. ● CONTINUED ON C2 Local playwright’s personal boombox musical a nostalgic journey through song PRESSING REWIND O N Nov. 11, 2010, Cory Wojcik went to the hospital twice. His attention was split between two rooms in two wards on opposite poles of mortality, one eye ecstatically trained on a beginning and the other mistily peering toward an end. His wife was about to give birth, his mother was about to die and Wojcik took on the role of stoic, inscrutable father and son. As far as he could tell, he was doing a good job hiding his inner turmoil. “In my mind, I was the best actor you’ve ever seen in your life,” says Wojcik with a laugh. “That’s how I dealt with that day. I thought I could hide it from my wife, but she said, ‘No, no, no. You didn’t fool me. You’re not that good of an actor.’” Perhaps not on that day, but since making the transition from a career as a substitute teacher to one as a performer, Wojcik has become a reli- ably charismatic and warm presence on Winnipeg stages, specializing in roles that situate him in the weeds of fatherly territory. In last year’s Beautiful at Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Wojcik played recording impresario Donny Kirshner, a prickly surrogate uncle to Tess Benger’s Carole King. In Trish Cooper and Sam Vint’s The Comeback, also produced by RMTC last year, Wojcik played a man forced to grow up and reconnect with his family’s roots before his own nuclear unit could flourish. As Billy Elliot’s father in a 2016 MTC production of the working-class ballet hit, Wojcik was called “marshmal- low-centred, sensitive and honest” by former CBC reviewer Joff Schmidt. But before he found his footing as an actor, Wojcik was caught in the middle of a joyful opening scene and a final cosmic bow at a Win- nipeg hospital. It’s a fateful day the actor-writer-director has relived thousands of times in private and hundreds of times in public as the basis of Mix Tapes From My Mom, an autobiographical boombox musi- cal that opens Thursday night at the Tom Hendry Warehouse. ● ● ● Before Wojcik’s mother Sherri died, she was an anti-algorithmic playlist machine, creating customized mix- tapes for her loved ones as a pastime. “Twist and Shout by the Beatles was the very first song off the very first mixtape my mom made me,” Wojcik remembers. BEN WALDMAN MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS ‘Every time I do this show, I bring my mom with me,’ playwright Cory Wojcik says. THEATRE PREVIEW MIX TAPES FROM MY MOM ● Tom Hendry Warehouse ● Opens Thursday, runs to Feb. 15 ● Tickets $26-$48 at royalmtc.ca ‘In my mind, I was the best actor you’ve ever seen in your life. That’s how I dealt with that day. I thought I could hide it from my wife, but she said, “No, no, no. You didn’t fool me. You’re not that good of an actor.”’ — Playwright Cory Wojcik on hiding his inner turmoil ● CONTINUED ON C2 ;