Q&A: Concord Floral

Jordan Tannahill, Erin Brubacher and Cara Spooner.

Jordan Tannahill is the talk of Toronto's theatre community this month. Last week, the young playwright was nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award in drama for Age of Minority: Three Solo Plays, a collection that explores the lives of three queer youth and their resilience in the face of violence and intolerance. And this week, Ravi Jain's Why Not Theatre presents the Canadian premiere of his new work Concord Floral at the Theatre Centre. Featuring a cast of 10 teenagers and young adults, Concord Floral is an adaptation of Giovanni Boccaccio's 13th century allegory The Decameron, set in the suburbs of contemporary Vaughan.

We caught up with Tannahill to find out more his experience creating this show with co-creators and co-directors Erin Brubacher and Cara Spooner.

Theatromania: Tell us about Concord Floral. What inspired this play?

JT: As a teen growing up in the suburbs, my friends and I found refuges for ourselves in the abandoned or unused spaces of our neighbourhood: the oversized parking lots, the vacant bus shelters, the unlit parks and walking paths beyond our backyards. A few years ago I went to a party at Concord Floral, a million square foot abandoned greenhouse in Vaughan. Judging from the piles of old cigarette butts, broken beer bottles, underwear, used condoms, graffiti, I realized that the greenhouse was, and had likely been for several generations, a haven for coming of age and experimentation. Around the same time I was reading Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, a 13th century parable in which ten youth flee plague-ridden Florence to an abandoned villa in the countryside. I found the notion of youth seeking a refuge for themselves to resonate with my experience growing up in the suburbs and I loved the idea of transposing this epic, medieval narrative to the otherwise tranquil environs of contemporary Vaughan.

Theatromania: How would you describe the production in a few sentences?

JT: When two teenage friends discover a terrible secret hidden at an abandoned greenhouse in their neighbourhood, they set off a chain of events that can’t be stopped. A suburban gothic adaptation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, set in contemporary Vaughan, and featuring a cast of ten incredible adolescent performers from every corner of the GTA.

Theatromania: Has the production changed a lot since the developmental showings in 2012?

JT: Incredibly so! In fact, never has a play of mine evolved so radically over such an extended period of time as Concord Floral - and I think the piece feels very rich and rigorous because of it. When we first presented Concord Floral at Canadian Stage in May 2012 it was a 30 minute ‘sketch’ of stage images inspired by the paintings of Kris Knight and contained very little dialogue. The piece became far more narrative for the November 2012 workshop at Theatre Passe Muraille and also extremely multimedia-driven, much like my play Post Eden. This final iteration is very text driven and choral. All multimedia elements have been stripped away. It is just the ten actors onstage, the story, and a whole lot of astroturf. The constants throughout the process have been Erin Brubacher and Cara Spooner, my incredible co-creators and co-directors, and three of our cast members, Rashida Shaw, Erum Khan, and Theo Gallaro.

Theatromania: What have you learned from this experience?

JT: Erin and Cara have taught me that how things are made affects what is made.

Theatromania: What’s next for you?

JT: I will be spending November in Montreal working at the National Theatre School on a new creation project with 11 fantastic students (I’m starting to love working with these large ensembles!).

Concord Floral runs until October 26 at The Theatre Centre (1115 Queen St. West). Visit theatrecentre.org for ore information and to buy tickets.