The stage falls apart according to the tech crew's whims during The Play That Goes Wrong in the MHMT Playhouse.--News File Photo
asmith@medicinehatnews.com
Medicine Hat’s art scene remained as strong as ever in 2025, starting and staying strong.
The Rotary Music Festival was, as it has been for 70 years, fostering ambition and accomplishment among young performers.
The 2025 Rose Bowl winner, 19-year-old Miriam Monet, made a splash during her first year as a part of the event for her performance of “Polonaise in A Flat Major Op 53 (Heroica)” by Frederic Chopin.
It was also announced that the coming festival will not be hosted at Medicine Hat College for a majority of its events as it has been for the past 40 years, but instead at St. Barnabas Anglican Church and St. John’s Presbyterian Church due to financial pressures.
Music remained strong outside the festival through the city with various events throughout the year, such as Inuit artist Susan Aglukark taking the stage at the Esplanade in March for the anniversary of her 1995 album This Child, Porchfest covering the Southeast Hill in August and the continuation of the Home Routes Concert Series at the Medicine Hat Public Library.
Art in Motion swarmed First Street during the summer, allowing for musicians, visual artists and performers alike to showcase their work with live demonstrations of technique, community art projects and various vendors of artisan goods, a repeating event that continues to bring life and colour to downtown.
In terms of theatre, 2025 saw the end of one season at Medicine Hat Musical Theatre and the beginning of a new one, putting on four different performances with Nine to Five, The Play That Goes Wrong, the Rocky Horror Show and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer all seeing favourable responses from the ever-eager Medicine Hat audience.
This saw one of MHMT’s rare forays into shows targeted toward children, as well as one of their most ambitious sets due to the technical demands of the various planned catastrophes of the well-named Play That Goes Wrong.
Firehall Theatre also made its mark this year with Christmas on the Air in November, as did the Paperback Stage with its return from hiatus with the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, not to mention several high schools with their student productions such as Monsignor McCoy’s production of Mary Poppins and Crescent Heights High School’s Beetlejuice Jr.
Medicine Hat also hosted both the regional and provincial Alberta Drama Festival Association’s One Act Festival this year, seeing performers from across the province visiting the city to perform in a series of short plays of all genres.
In visual arts, several installations made their way through the Esplanade, such as Forever Grasslands by Colin Starkevich, the Masculine Lived Experience – put together with several artists surrounding social norms and traditions, learned behaviours and stereotypes that impact self perception – and the currently-displayed glass art exhibit Between Today & Yesterday by Robert Weissmann.
Visual art expanded beyond the Esplanade however, to exhibits in the college such as recurring celebrations of the best of the previous year’s students, as well as local galleries such as a collection on pollinators at the thematic Bee Gallery or the ever-rotating displays at Cafe Verve showing off various locals’ work in painting, photography and other mediums.
With MHMT’s season not finished yet, the Night Shows announced for Stampede week and more yet to be announced for all mediums, Medicine Hat looks to remain a vibrant pocket of arts moving into the new year and beyond.
