The traditional gift for a 20th wedding anniversary is china. Whether or not the tradition holds for anniversaries of theatre companies is up for debate, but if any company could receive a gift of china and find an inventive use for it, it would be Theatre Projects Manitoba.

Created in 1989 by founding artistic director Harry Rintoul with the help of other passionate members of Winnipeg’s theatre community, Theatre Projects Manitoba has been the foundation on which Winnipeg’s (and Manitoba’s) emerging theatre artists have flourished.

“Twenty years ago, Harry and Rick Skene and Chris Sigurdson and many people — artists and technical people — they didn’t feel like they had enough professional opportunities to develop their respective crafts, particularly for playwrights,” explains Ardith Boxall, TPM’s current artistic director, of the company’s origins. “They didn’t feel like there were opportunities at other theatres or that, when you were a junior writer, actor or technician that there wasn’t an intermediate place for you to develop.”

Thus Theatre Projects was born. While constantly working with limited resources, the limitless passion and devotion of this small company’s members have allowed TPM to foster the development of exceptional local talent. This support has led to the national success of Winnipeggers such as Rick Chafe, whose Shakespeare’s Dog was produced at the National Arts Centre in 2008, and Brian Drader.

“When we did Rick Chafe’s first full-length play, The Last Man and Woman on Earth, that was the first time he’d had a full-length play professionally produced,” Boxall says. “And I think about Brian Drader, who had a couple of his early plays produced at Theatre Projects. He’s now off at the National Theatre School heading the playwrighting department. It’s pivotal points in the careers and lives for all of the people who have worked for the company. For me, all the highs are all those individual turning points.”

Without the support of TPM, who knows where those individual artists and Winnipeg’s theatre community as a whole would be? And while TPM has grown — most visibly under the direction of Boxall, who became artistic director in 2005 — there is still a daily struggle for those most limited of resources: time and money. But TPM’s members are tireless; from supporting local artists to producing new works from across the country, Theatre Projects Manitoba continues to make an indelible mark on Winnipeg’s creative life.

Even with its 20th-anniversary season coming to an end with the debut production of local playwright Carolyn Gray’s North Main Gothic, the dedicated TPM team never stops striving for excellence, no matter the resources at hand. Maybe even some 20th-anniversary china.

“You constantly have to prove yourself — to prove that we have the artistry to do it. It’s like making the silk purse out of the sow’s ear,” Boxall says. “What you do is you hire your team — not just your actors and director, but your designers and your craftspeople, those people who have a strong desire for artistic excellence. And so you get very industrious. We couldn’t do it without a team who are committed to it. What is crucial is it’s not good enough unless everybody in the room is prepared to go all the way, because you don’t have a lot of money. And they give a lot — it’s a huge sacrifice.”

For more information about Theatre Projects Manitoba, visit www.theatreprojectsmanitoba.ca.