New Play Premieres with Cast of 10 Teenagers at Theatre Centre

Why Not Theatre proudly presents Suburban Beast's world premiere production of Concord Floral, a new play written by acclaimed young playwright Jordan Tannahill. Featuring a cast of ten teenagers, Concord Floral is a contemporary adaptation of Giovanni Boccaccio's 14th century allegory The Decameron, set in the suburbs of contemporary Vaughan. Concord Floral previews from October 12, opens October 16 and runs through to October 26 at The Theatre Centre in the Mainspace and is collaboratively directed by Erin Brubacher, Cara Spooner and Jordan Tannahill.

Concord Floral is a million-square foot greenhouse located just above Highway 7 in Vaughan, Ontario. Abandoned for years, it is seen as a scourge by concerned parents in the nearby suburbs. But it is also a hangout and refuge for neighbourhood teens; a place all to themselves in which to throw parties, experiment, dream, dare, and come of age. As in Boccaccio's original, in which ten youth flee to an abandoned villa when the Black Death sweeps through medieval Florence, ten youth flee to the abandoned greenhouse when a mysterious plague descends upon their neighbourhood. But in Concord Floral, it is a plague they have brought upon themselves.

Inspired by the real-life greenhouse in Vaughan (demolished in 2012), and the ways in which adolescents reclaim abandoned and unused spaces in their suburbs, Tannahill has written a lyrical, choral-driven play for mature audiences performed by ten teenagers.

Over three years in the making, Concord Floral's development has been a collaborative effort between multi-disciplinary artist Erin Brubacher, choreographer/dancer Cara Spooner and playwright Jordan Tannahill.

With work-in-progress showings presented by Canadian Stage (BASH 2012) and Theatre Passe Muraille (Bring the Buzz 2013), the cast of Concord Floral is comprised of participants from the three cohorts of Tarragon Theatre's Spring Training Project, led by Brubacher during her Tarragon tenure, and for which Spooner was a principal artist-teacher.

For this full production premiere, the creative team is enlarged by innovative sound designer Christopher Willes and award-winning lighting designer Kimberly Purtell. The sound design by Willes includes field recordings captured from the former site of the actual Vaughan greenhouse and, in collaboration with the cast members, recordings from their actual homes and bedrooms. The stage manager is Laura Hendrickson. Much of the diverse young cast hails from far-flung neighbourhoods across the GTA - from Mississauga to Vaughan to Scarborough - and several of them have dedicated the majority of their high school years to the project.

While this is their first professional play, many of the cast members are active cultural movers-and-shakers. Theo Gallaro is a rising young (16-year-old) visual artist whose artwork has been exhibited at Toronto's Narwhal Gallery and Buffalo's Albert Knox Museum; Rashida Shaw has become a prolific youth leader in the Toronto theatre community; Liam Sullivan is one half of an electronica duo called NOSEX4U; and Eartha Masek-Kelly is an active concert booker (who will be curating a not-to-be-missed post-show party featuring several young musical acts on October 17).

Coinciding with the production of Concord Floral is a photographic exhibition at The Theatre Centre by Erin Brubacher titled This is my room. Look. In this photo-essay, Brubacher frames the ten teen cast members in their real-life bedrooms, in the details of their personal refuges, all across the neighborhoods of the GTA. Brubacher has long incorporated her performance practice into her photographic work, with projects including Private Commute, a Featured Exhibition for the CONTACT photography festival; and Readers, 70 portraits of people reading in public spaces of the city of Paris. Jordan Tannahill is Artistic Director of Suburban Beast. Concord Floral is the continuation of his ongoing theatrical exploration of the suburbs, in which he combines documentary elements with fiction and magical realism (notable among his past works was the Dora-nominated, multimedia-driven Post Eden, set in Richmond Hill, which the Globe and Mail listed as one of the 'Top 10 Theatre Productions of 2013). Recently, Tannahill was the 2014 recipient of the Toronto Arts Foundation's Emerging Artist Award; the inaugural recipient of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre's Emerging Queer Artist Award; and named the 2014-15 Urjo Kareda Emerging Artist at Tarragon Theatre.

His company, Suburban Beast, frequently collaborates with non-traditional performers to create work lying at the intersection of documentary and imagination, new media and theatre. Other production highlights include rihannaboi95 (Dora Award for Outstanding New Play - Young Audiences Division), a solo play performed entirely over the internet as a live-stream; and All Our Happy Days are Stupid, an absurdist musical by Sheila Heti and Dan Bejar (Destroyer), directed by Tannahill with Brubacher, which, after it's multi-Dora nominated, sold-out run at Tannahill's storefront theatre Videofag, will have a two-week run at The Kitchen in New York City in February 2015.

This premiere production of Concord Floral is presented by Ravi Jain's Why Not Theatre, an award-winning, Toronto-based theatre company with an international scope. Over the last seven years, it has developed over 12 productions, touring to 20 different cities on four continents. In recent years, the company has also become known for its presentation of international productions and workshops from diverse cultures and artistic practices, along with support for the development of local emerging artists and companies. Jain has been an ongoing champion of Suburban Beast's work.

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