\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
![\"Chris](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4120361_web1_25239326_LA-PREMIERE-OF-_TULLY_.JPG\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n
Chris Pizzello \/ Invision files<\/p>\n
Nia Vardalos portrayed Sugar when the drama premi\u00e8red in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
But even though Vardalos has lived stateside for the bulk of her estimable career on television, stage and film, readers had better be careful before referring to the Shaftesbury High School Wall of Famer as a past-tense local.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only time I\u2019ve ever been insulted by a review was when it referred to me as \u2018former Winnipegger Nia Vardalos.\u2019 I was like, \u2018How dare you, sir.\u2019 Once you\u2019re a Winnipegger, you\u2019re always a Winnipegger,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
This week, at least one piece of Vardalos\u2019s creative self is coming home in the form of Tiny Beautiful Things, a stage adaptation of writer Cheryl Strayed\u2019s Dear Sugar advice column, which ran anonymously on the website The Rumpus from 2010 to 2012.<\/p>\n
Co-created by Vardalos, Marshall Heyman and Hamilton director Thomas Kail, the epistolary production premi\u00e8red at New York\u2019s Public Theater in 2017 with Vardalos starring as the central adviser.<\/p>\n
Theatre Preview<\/p>\n
Tiny Beautiful Things<\/p>\n
\u25cf Prairie Theatre Exchange,
393 Portage Ave.<\/p>\n
\u25cf Preview April 7, opening night April 8, runs to April 19<\/p>\n
\u25cf Not suitable for audiences under 16<\/p>\n
\u25cf Tickets $45 to $63 (general) with seniors, students and arts worker discounts at pte.mb.ca<\/p>\n
When Tiny Beautiful Things opens Wednesday at Prairie Theatre Exchange, local actor Laura Olafson will play the soul-searching writer helping her correspondents heal.<\/p>\n
More frequently called upon for her musical theatre talents at Rainbow Stage and the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre \u2014 performances as Cynthia Weil in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and as Becky in Waitress are recent career capstones \u2014 Olafson will play in her first straight role in six years. (For her work in 2020\u2019s Theatre Projects Manitoba\u2019s staging of Ann-Marie MacDonald\u2019s Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) Olafson won a Winnipeg Theatre Award).<\/p>\n
Both Vardalos\u2019s adaptation and Strayed\u2019s original book \u2014 which was adapted into an Emmy-nominated miniseries starring Kathryn Hahn in 2023 \u2014 frequently knocked Olafson back with their \u201cvisceral, beautiful, descriptive and, at times, heartbreaking\u201d writing.<\/p>\n
It took Olafson three months to finish reading Strayed\u2019s 2012 bestseller.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would burst into tears and have to put it down, then I\u2019d pick up again and burst into tears again,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you\u2019re a Winnipegger, you\u2019re always a Winnipegger.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vardalos can understand where Olafson is coming from. After she turned down a role in Kail\u2019s directorial version of the basketball drama Bird\/Magic \u2014 she had just adopted a child with her former partner \u2014 Vardalos says Kail vowed that they would work together some day.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrue to his word, a few years later, he handed me a book and said, \u2018I think this is a play. I think you can adapt it, and I think you should play Sugar,\u2019\u201d recalls Vardalos.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Joey Senft photo<\/p>\n Laura Olafson (left) answers a letter from Arne MacPherson in the production of Tiny Beautiful Things.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I read it, I knew that I would have to be pushed outside my comfort zone.\u201d<\/p>\n Vardalos quickly but to no avail contacted Strayed\u2019s agency in 2014. Still motivated, she reached out over social media, and when Strayed told her she would be in Los Angeles the next day, the two writers met for tea.<\/p>\n Strayed was going to be in town for the premi\u00e8re of the film adaptation of her book, Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon, whose book club helped launch Strayed\u2019s writing career into the stratosphere.<\/p>\n Vardalos interviewed Strayed dozens of times over the course of three years.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I read it, I knew that I would have to be pushed outside my comfort zone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI asked her so many questions and she didn\u2019t have any boundaries, which was incredible. She told me stories and truths about herself, which helped me find the overarching theme of the play \u2014 love, the pursuit of it and the safety of it and the security of it,\u201d Vardalos says.<\/p>\n Strayed\u2019s writing about topics including sexual assault, domestic abuse and drug usage felt visceral and honest \u2014 attributes that made Vardalos nervous at the prospect of mishandling the material; she\u2019d felt that way before when writing about her own \u201cbig fat Greek\u201d family, but it was markedly different when portraying the inner lives of an outside voice.<\/p>\n \u201cI stopped and started (the script) many, many times, until I just sat down one day and said, \u2018Come on. You want this? Go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Vardalos, who regularly mentors emerging storytellers through the Writers Guild of America, also wasn\u2019t too shy to ask the advice columnist herself for feedback.<\/p>\n Strayed was flown to New York for a workshop production. Afterwards, \u201cwhen I\u2019d had a good cry,\u201d Vardalos returned to ask Strayed for her notes.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Joey Senft photo<\/p>\n Laura Olafson (front) plays the soul-searching writer helping her correspondents, played by Arne MacPherson, Gislina Patterson and Honey Pham (back, from left).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things I found completely audacious was that I had to write in Cheryl\u2019s voice while trimming, connecting or adding whole pieces that didn\u2019t exist in the book. But Cheryl gave me permission in this way, with her generous heart, and said, \u2018The book exists. The play is yours,\u2019\u201d says Vardalos.<\/p>\n \u201cCheryl gave me permission in this way, with her generous heart, and said, \u2018The book exists. The play is yours.’\u201d<\/p>\n Strayed gave Vardalos, Kail and Heyman the rights to the book on a handshake, and in the nine years since its debut, the play has been licensed more 250 times. Tiny Beautiful Things has been staged in Korea, Sri Lanka and Australia. Last May, the production ran in Greek at Athens\u2019 Pallas Theater.<\/p>\n Now, Vardalos\u2019s hit play arrives in Winnipeg, a city that was once and continues to be her hometown.<\/p>\n winnipegfreepress.com\/benwaldman<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Ben Waldman Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University\u2019s (now Toronto Metropolitan University\u2019s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Reporter
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n