FLYING START PROGRAM
Giving a stage to new professional playwrights
Flying Start is a two-year program designed for an underrepresented, early-career playwright or devisor(s) ready to take their script to the next level. Those selected receive a commission, dramaturgical and workshop development opportunities that lead to a world premiere production of the theatrical piece in Touchstone’s mainstage season.
The Flying Start program is divided into two phases. In phase one, the focus is on script development and dramaturgy which includes workshops with professional actors and ongoing mentorship during the writing process. In phase two, the play is fully realized onstage in a professional production.
Flying Start’s 2023 -2025 Call for Proposals is CLOSED. Selection announcement will be made in late-March 2024.
Pictured: Aman Mann, Leena Manro, Hussein Janmohamed, and Parm Soor in Touchstone’s 21/23 Flying Start production of The Wrong Bashir by Zahida Rahemtulla. Photo by Matt Reznek
Please join us in congratulating Jordyn Wood and their play “Vascular Necrosis” for selection into the Flying Start Program!!
For the next two years, Jordyn will embark on an extensive dramaturgical development process led by our Associate Artist, Daniela Atiencia, and supported by Touchstone’s artistic team, culminating in a mainstage world premiere as part of Touchstone Theatre’s future season.
“With an artfulness both sensitive to its subject matter and unique in its vision, Vascular Necrosis cleverly subverts the Zombie-apocalypse genre to explore both our post-pandemic society and the complicated experience of mental illness in the context of this altered world. We are honoured to join Jordyn on this creative journey and can’t wait to see this incredibly original and insightful work hit the stage!”
– Daniela Atiencia | Flying Start Jury Chair
ABOUT JORDYN:
Jordyn Wood is a Vancouver-based playwright, theatre artist, and producer. Their practice has been intentionally varied, jumping from devising to playwriting to directing to curating and producing. Their written work negotiates the line of autobiography and fiction, using imagined subplots and scenarios in the service of a search for self. Influenced by their lived experience of queerness, chronic illness, and Madness, their work poses the question: how do you exist in a world you never felt a part of? Jordyn is currently the Company Producer of Realwheels Theatre, and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Simon Fraser University’s School of Contemporary Arts in the Theatre Performance stream. Recent playwriting credits include Vascular Necrosis, (presented as staged readings by Realwheels Theatre in 2024 & rEvolver Festival 2023), and Dry Rot (Or Festival 2022).
Visit them at jordynwood.com
PAST RECIPIENTS | PRODUCTIONS
THE WRONG BASHIR by Zahida Rahemtulla - 2021/2023
THE WRONG BASHIR
by Zahida Rahemtulla
World Premiere March 3, 2023
Featuring Aman Mann, Seth Ranaweera, Neha Devi Singh, Sabrina Vellani, Parm Soor, Salim Rahemtulla, Shera Haji, Hussein Janmohamed, Leena Manro
Directed by Daniela Atiencia
Bashir Ladha—wayward philosophy major leaning towards nihilism—has been selected to assume an important religious position, and his parents have dutifully accepted on his behalf. Family conflict ensues over Bashir’s reaction to his appointment. As the doorbell rings and several unexpected visitors turn up at the Ladha door, there is a sneaking suspicion that a mistake has been made, and the family is taken on a comedic intergenerational ride that forces them to grapple with long-avoided questions of identity and family.
Photo by Matt Reznek. Pictured Neha Devi Singh, Aman Mann, Seth Ranaweera
LIGHTS by Adam Grant Warren - 2018/2021
Lights
by Adam Grant Warren
World Premiere December 3, 2021
Featuring Adam Grant Warren, Susinn McFarlen, and Leslie Dos Remedios
Directed by Roy Surette
At once funny, intimate, and unsettling, Lights is a portrait of a tight-knit family facing profound life changes and what remains when a lifetime of memories begin to fade away.
Pictured: Adam Grant Warren & Susinn McFarlen. Picture by Emily Cooper.
C'MON, ANGIE! by Amy Lee Lavoie - 2016/2018
C’mon, Angie!
by Amy Lee Lavoie
World Premiere June 1, 2018
Featuring Kayla Deorksen and Robert Moloney
Directed by Lauren Taylor
The morning after a one-night stand, questions of consent lead to a highly charged confrontation. For Reed, it was a sexual fantasy played out in real time. For Angie, it was a violation. The details of their night together unravel as they struggle to unpack the truth of what happened.
Pictured: Robert Moloney & Kayla Deorksen. Photo by Bold Rezolution Studio
HOW TO SURVIVE AN APOCALYSE by Jordan Hall - 2014/2016
How to Survive an Apocalypse
by Jordan Hall
World Premiere June 3, 2016
Featuring Claire Hesselgrave, Sebastien Archibald, Lindsay Angell, Zahf Paroo
Directed by Katrina Dunn
A young and successful urban couple become convinced that their lifestyle is coming to an end. They become ‘preppers’, hoarding supplies and learning to hunt. But their obsession takes its toll, and they are both forced to imagine the apocalypse without the love of their life.
Pictured: Sebastien Archibald and Claire Hesselgrave.Photo by Emily Cooper
THE CONCESSIONS by Briana Brown - 2012/2014
The Concessions
by Briana Brown
World Premiere June 6, 2014
Featuring Jillian Fargey, Sebastian Kroon, Marilyn Norry, Emma Slipp, Alec Willows
Directed by Katrina Dunn
The Concessions centers around an inexplicable act of violence in a rural community. When Fay, a local tarot reader, fails to either foresee or prevent this tragedy, she questions the belief on which she has based her life. Faith, trust, and moving on after community crisis are some of the themes weaving through this “hauntingly beautiful piece of Canadian gothic”.
Pictured Emma Slipp. Photo by Tim Matheson
SHELTER FROM THE STORM by Peter Boychuk - 2010/2012
Shelter from the Storm
by Peter Boychuk
World Premiere June 1, 2012
Featuring Peter Hall, Kyle Jespersen, Lindsay Winch
Directed by Katrina Dunn
Pictured: Lindsay Winch and Kyle Jespersen. Photo by Pink Monkey Studios
HERR BECKMANN'S PEOPLE by Sally Stubbs - 2008/2010
Herr Beckmann’s People
by Sally Stubbs
World Premiere June 11, 2010
Featuring Dawn Petten, Christine Wiles, Anthony F. Ingram, Bill Marchant, Donna Carroll White
Directed by Katrina Dunn
Anna, an established painter living in Canada, returns to Munich – the city she ran from decades earlier. As this poetic and powerful drama unfolds, Anna forces her family to answer tough questions about their past and the events of World War II. While her mother plays a private concert, history unravels, and Anna is confronted with a moral dilemma of her own. Inspired by factual events, Herr Beckmann’s People explores the question: How do we live with the choices we have made?
Dawn Petten and Bill Marchant. Photo by Emily Cooper
THE DISSEMBLERS by Jason Bryden - 2006/2008
THE DISSEMBLERS
by Jason Bryden
World Premiere May 2, 2008
Starring Sasa Brown, Medina Hahn, John Murphy, Michael Rinaldi and Juno Ruddell
Directed by Amiel Gladstone
A wickedly funny comedy about our obsession with pretence in contemporary life.
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