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As it embarks on another century of theatre arts in the heart of St. Boniface, a new era has officially begun at Théâtre Cercle Molière with the appointment of a new artistic director.
Marie-Ève Fontaine is no stranger to Winnipeg’s Francophone theatre community. She got her start at TCM’s youth theatre festival and has also performed in productions in her adult career, including Cet été qui chantait back in 2023, a piece inspired by the book of the same name by Gabrielle Roy. Although she has been living in the Ottawa area for the past 15 years, Fontaine is excited to return to her theatre roots in Winnipeg.
“When the job opened up, it felt like I was ready for a homecoming,” Fontaine says.
Fontaine succeeds Geneviève Pelletier as artistic director after a 13-year tenure. Even though she didn’t have a hand in planning TCM’s 100th anniversary season, Fontaine is excited to pick up the mantle left behind for her while also bridging a gap to different audiences.
“When Geneviève took over, she... tried to help develop local voices and also develop international partnerships to tell new stories and to open up in the French community,” Fontaine explains, noting efforts to share the stories of French-speaking communities from Africa. “Some of the old guard felt left behind from that shift, and so I’m arriving at a time where a lot of the way has been cleared to open up to those new audiences... [and] I feel like I’m at a place where we can actually merge these two worlds together and tell stories that bring people together. That’s my hope.”
The company’s history will be on full display throughout its centennial season, which officially gets underway in October. In addition to new performances of Cet été qui chantait which Fontaine will perform in alongside her mother and Juno Award-winning musician Gérald Laroche, the company will open their season with Pauline Boutal, entre les toiles et les planches, a production written by local writer Lise Gaboury-Diallo inspired by the company’s third artistic director. “We’ve [had] three women in a century,” Fontaine says, noting the production’s significance in an historic season.
As she contemplates the first years of TCM’s new season, Fontaine is not at all daunted by contributing to the company’s legacy as one of the longest continuously-running theatre companies in North America. “This is my theatre,” she says. “It’s my artistic North Star. I’m really excited to learn my role through this intense season, and I think that it will allow for my first season that I will program – the 101st – to be a little more low-key so we can go back to basics and recoup and reconfigure to set out what I’m hoping to do.”
To learn more about plans for Théâtre Cercle Molière’s 100th anniversary season, theatregoers are encouraged to visit their website or follow them on social media.