An award-winning teenage play is coming to the stage at Shadbolt Centre for the Arts.
Concord Floral, by playwright Jordan Tannahill, is onstage at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts Jan. 19 to 21.
The play was shortlisted for the 2016 Governor General’s Award and won the 2015 Dora Award for Outstanding New Play.
It’s now in its fourth production, with an all-B.C. cast of young actors – including Burnaby Mountain Grade 12 student Chantal Gering.
The play, which draws on Boccaccio’s The Decameron, is set in a massive abandoned greenhouse where 10 teens find refuge from a plague they have brought upon themselves.
A press release notes that in The Decameron,10 youth flee the 14th-century Black Death and escape to an abandoned villa for 10 days, where they keep each other alive by telling one another stories.
In Concord Floral, audiences will see echoes of the classic work in the context of the current age.
Director, producer and co-creator Erin Brubacher says she’s delighted to bring the production to the West Coast.
“Re-contextualizing the piece here allows us to find further relevance and meaning in the work, through hearing and seeing new voices and bodies perform it,” she said in a press release. “It is crucial to us that the play be performed by actual teenagers so that their real presence and experiences inform what the work offers.”
Brubacher and Cara Spooner, both Toronto-based artists, worked with Tannahill to co-create the production.
It’s onstage from Thursday to Saturday, Jan. 19 to 21, at 8 p.m. at the Shadbolt Centre, 6450 Deer Lake Ave. Tickets are $10 to $25, available through tickets.shadboltcentre.com or 604-205-3000.
It then moves on to the Roundhouse community centre in Vancouver and the Surrey Arts Centre for further performances.
Check out www.pushfestival.ca for further details.
