Pucker’s is a brand new theatre firm in Toronto, based by 郝邦宇 Steven Hao and Allison MacKenzie. Their inaugural season kicks off with a multidisciplinary remount of Jordan Tannahill’s Harmony Floral.
Tannahill, an award-winning Canadian author and director, wrote Harmony Floral in 2016. The play gained the 2015 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Excellent New Play, and the 2015 Carol Bolt Award, and was a Finalist for the 2016 Governor Basic’s Literary Award for Drama.
The performances happen at The Theatre Centre BMO Incubator from October 8 to 12.
Harmony Floral: The Play
Within the play, Harmony Floral is a one-million-square-foot deserted greenhouse, and a spot the place neighbourhood children can discover a refuge from the skin world. It’s a spot of their very own.
However, it’s additionally a spot that hides a secret, one which they’ve all been avoiding. When two associates uncover that secret, it opens a Pandora’s field of penalties, together with whispers, shadows, and a creeping plague that threatens them.
Tannahill developed the play in session with a gaggle of youngsters from throughout the GTA, and plenty of of them went on to carry out it in its authentic type again in 2014 — additionally on the Theatre Centre.
The title comes from an actual place, an deserted greenhouse in Vaughan, Ontario, that was certainly utilized by teenagers for partying, hanging out, and escaping from adults. The play additionally references The DeCameron, a group of quick novellas written by Giovanni Boccaccio round 1350. That work sees ten teenagers hiding from The Plague in an Italian villa, the place every of them tells ten tales over a two week interval to assist go the time.
In Tannahill’s play, the tales are linked to the greenhouse and its regulars, steadily weaving collectively right into a narrative that focuses round one lady, and one occasion that they’ve been making an attempt to overlook for years.
A ghost even makes an look, but it surely’s not the standard haunting. Can the teenagers confront the previous, together with their very own actions?
It’s a narrative with a message about the actual risks of mob pondering, cruelty and complicity — one which appears notably related now.
The Manufacturing
The bizarre and the surreal mix collectively in Harmony Floral. It’s very a lot a up to date setting, infused with cell telephones and textual content messages.
Visions accost them at night time, because the bonds of friendship between the group start to fray and weaken with darkish whispers and ghosts of the previous. Betrayal and worry result in an overdue reckoning.
The manufacturing is staged within the spherical, and combines stay and pre-recorded dialogue with music. Photographs and gestures additionally enter the combo, making a bodily and non-traditional storytelling mode. It’s not like any earlier productions of the play.
Harmony Floral is co-directed by Pucker’s Creative Director and Stratford Competition performer 郝邦宇 Steven Hao and rising star choreographer Alli Carry, with authentic music by Ben Yoganathan, sound design by Kai Korven, lighting design by Mathilda Kane, and scenic design by Irene Ly.
The solid contains: Arjun Kalra, Rachel Cucheron, Kole Durnford, Gillian Bennet, Micaela Janse van Rensburg, Chrystal Tam, Mya Wong, Trinity Lloyd, Meg Gibson, and Clara Isgro.
Performances
Efficiency start October 8, with opening night time October 9, and proceed till October 12.
You possibly can maintain up to date on future initiatives by following Pucker’s Theatre on Instagram here.
- Discover tickets and efficiency particulars for Harmony Floral [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 a long time, and a artistic writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
