An awakening: Ex-Winnipegger returns after three-decade absence and finds city all grown-up

Doug McKeag on the "positively alive" Portage Avenue.

By: Doug McKeag
I grew up in the Peg, trained as a performer here, and left for greener theatre pastures 30 years ago.

Now, like a salmon returning to the river of its creation, I wend my way back to a much different Winnipeg: The grotty is now green, the run-down is looking up.

When I left a quarter century ago, I had forever abandoned the Tuxedo suburbs of my youth and was renting a party house near the University of Winnipeg. My hood was the downtown core -- from the messy rail yards of The Forks to a hippy happy Osborne Village to a Portage Avenue that still included the neon glow of Clifford's.

As a young teen I explored all of downtown from my bedroom in Government House. I am so grateful for my five years there -- there were limitless seedy and sensational things within a comfortable walk: buying incense and black-light posters on Osborne Street, claiming the free birthday sundae at Dutch Maid; searching out amazing record deals at Opus 69; buying giant stereo equipment at Western Sound; trading in crap music at the Record Exchange (Hey! I just bought back a Shaun Phillips record I traded in there 30 years ago! Complete with my concert hall ticket stub!).

And look at the Forks now! And all of Waterfront Drive! Stonkin' big museum, awesome ballpark, condos, pretty landscaping and hundreds of downtown pioneers, setting up their homes near the arts, the games and the priceless splendour of all these old buildings.

Look at Portage Avenue, finally having the Renaissance it has deserved for so long! It is positively alive with the MTS Centre, new condos, hotels... And while the Village has lost most of its boho haunts, it's still where I go for groovy music and great patio action.

My incense and Buddhist chanting CDs and hemp soap now come from The Forks. I haven't skated on the river yet (nobody did that 25 years ago!), but it's delightful that the river has been claimed as a playground and not ignored as a meandering nuisance.

My Winnipeg is downtown. My wish is for all those gorgeous empty old buildings to find love -- they are so beautiful and so deserving. Anyone? Live downtown! It's what big-city folk do!

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 8, 2012 A8

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Top 20 Dorothys for CBC TV's Over the Rainbow includes one Winnipegger



Winnipeg's Colleen Furlan, 19, right, and Ottawa's Stephanie Larochelle, 17, left, wait to audition for the role of Dorothy during the CBC auditions for the new Mirvish play Over The Rainbow in Toronto on Thursday June 21, 2012. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim, The Canadian Press)

Posted by CBC Manitoba SCENE Staff - Tuesday June 26, 2012

Twenty aspiring young musical theatre actresses from across Canada will compete for the plumb role of Dorothy in CBC-TV's new series Over The Rainbow.

On June 26 producers unveiled the list of 20 names heading to the next stage and whittled down from the masses who attended auditions across Canada in recent weeks.

Of nearly 40 young women who auditioned from Manitoba, seven were chosen to go on to the next round. One Manitoban made it to this list of 20. She is Colleen Furlan of Winnipeg.

Furlan is in her first year at the University of Manitoba studying at the Faculty of Music. She is the recipient of the 2012 Rainbow Stage Trophy/Scholarship and is the 2012 Provincial Highland Adult Dance Champion. Furlan has a number of principal roles under her belt. She's performed in A Funny Thing Happened at the Office, Snapshots, Get Your Act Together and Street Scenes.

The young performers will spend the summer training at a musical theatre boot camp to hone their singing, dancing and acting skills. The goal is to be one of 10 contestants to compete live on television this fall on the Over the Rainbow broadcasts.

The winner will star in a forthcoming Mirvish-Andrew Lloyd Webber production of The Wizard of Oz, slated to open in Toronto in December.

A triumph in the TV competition can help launch the winner's career. In 2008, budding actress Elicia Mackenzie nabbed the lead role of Maria for a Toronto production of The Sound of Music by winning the CBC reality series How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? She went onto roles in We Will Rock You and Rock of Ages.

The 20 contestants vying to appear on the CBC talent series are:
Colleen Furlan, Winnipeg, MB
Malindi Ayienga, Etobicoke, ON
Michelle Bouey, Charlottetown, PEI
AJ Bridel, Kitchener, ON
Alessandra Cannito, Toronto, ON
Rebecca Codas, Toronto, ON
Sarah Forestieri, Nobleton, ON
Julia Gartha, Unionville, ON
Jennifer Gillis, Coquitlam, B.C.
Cassandra Hodgins, London, ON
Stephanie La Rochelle, Ottawa, ON
Lia Luz, Scarborough, ON
Fiona McIntyre, Port Moody, BC
Jessie Munro, Toronto, ON
Tevra Plamondon, Red Deer, AB
Emily Robertson, Milford Station, NS
Christie Stewart, Vernon, BC
Michelle Thibodeau, Moncton, NB
Kelsey Verzotti, Calgary, AB
Danielle Wade, La Salle, ON

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