We spoke to Jordan Hall to find out more about how her creative mind works and the idea of building a romantic comedy mixed with apocalyptic themes came to be.

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Can you start by telling us a little bit about you and How to Survive an Apocalypse?

I’m a playwright and screenwriter in Vancouver, British Columbia. I’m probably most recognized for my previous play, Kayak, which is about climate change and activism and not getting along with your mother-in-law—and in a lot of ways How to Survive an Apocalypse is a follow-up to that: A romantic comedy about preppers and hipsters and the looming spectre of the Apocalypses (whether personal, professional, or global) that await us all.

What was the inspiration for the story?

Plays tend to creep up on me. How to Survive emerged out of the collision of a lot of things I was experiencing and observing back in 2013 and 2014—There had been this resurgence of apocalyptic ideation (with movies like This is the End, It’s a Disaster, and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World), which crashed into the new visibility of the Prepper movement in mainstream culture, and the pressure of scarcity and growing inequality on the prospects for the current cohort of young adults—all of that sort of smashed together into the kernel of the play. I could see this young couple, who’d felt like they had such a promising life ahead of them, having to grapple with adulthood in the pressures of this environment—and turning to prepping as kind of an escape valve to avoid dealing with the spectres of personal and professional failure. And maybe I just have a really bleak sense of humour, but that seemed hilarious to me.

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What should audiences expect to see on stage?

A romantic comedy for the End of Days. A kind of heightened portrait of where I think people my age (and a little older and a little younger) find themselves as they face the challenges of maturity. And probably some of the least effective survival training anyone has ever seen.

What was your writing process like in creating the script?

You mean beyond: Get up, Make Tea, Open Laptop, Clutch Head?

Whenever I can, I like to engage in practical research. While I was writing How to Survive, I went through the process of getting my hunting license, took urban and rural survival courses, and even started a permaculture certificate—all to get a solid material sense of the world of prepping and survivalism.

Much of my actual writing process is really about drilling down into character. One of my biggest projects as a writer is the creation of female characters, and in particular female protagonists, who are afforded the same degree of agency and psychological scope as their male counterparts. A real challenge in How to Survive was to take the figure of the rom-com heroine, a figure that’s frequently use to reinforce unfortunate tropes about female behaviour, and to try to build a character in Jen who feels like a real person, grappling with failure and disappointment and the difficulties of navigating relationships between feminist ideals and the lingering expectations of entrenched patriarchy.

What advice would you offer to aspiring playwrights?

Be utterly, hopelessly in love with theatre. There are a lot of ways you can become a writer, a lot of ways you can become an artist—If you’re going to write plays, do it because there’s something essential about the communion with the audience that happens in that space, about the potential for magic inherent in the unity of space and time, about the flexibility the form affords to really experiment with the relationship between form and content. Write plays because you want, more than anything, the space to play with those things. The space to be as fearless as possible.

What was the biggest challenge for you in writing the play and how did you deal with it?

This was actually one of those rare plays that came together structurally quite early in the process, possibly because I knew I wanted to play with the comedy of remarriage as a genre, and that offered this amazing structural template. Which isn’t to say we didn’t push hard in workshop, driving for the moments of realism that keep the content of the play in tension with that structure—and that is absolutely where the alchemy of the play lives for me.

What’s the most rewarding element for you about writing?

I think what I love most about writing is the space it opens up for you to be deeply interested in so many things: I’ve written plays about fairy tales and climate change and particle physics and each of them was an opportunity to learn so much about a whole new world. I love the chance to try to empathize with characters whose psychology is very different from my own, to dig at the knotty, gnarly heart of the problems that they live with. I love the way writing is always an attempt to understand the infinite complexities of the world.

Also the jokes. There’s very little in the world that’s as fulfilling as an audience laughing at your jokes.

What plays, books, and authors have been influential in your career so far?

Tom Stoppard. I’m continually in awe of the way he merges the intellectually rigorous and the entertaining. Yasmina Reza, who creates comedies that are so incisive about both the hypocrisy and the human heart of privilege. I really love both Charlie Kaufman and The Coen Brothers for the ways they’re engaging with genre. And Shaw. Always, always George Bernard Shaw.

What other projects are you involved with at the moment?

I’m currently writing Season 3 of Carmilla: The Series for ubykotex and SmokeBomb Entertainment. I’m also working on a play about our relationship to biodiversity and manmade extinction called Rate of Loss, for Up in the Air Theatre. And it’s pretty new—but I was just lucky enough to be awarded a commission with Western Canada Theatre for what I’m thinking of as a “nursing home revenge comedy” called The Smallwood Solution.

Where can we find out more about you and How to Survive an Apocalypse?

I can be found online at JordanHall.ca and @save_my_script on Twitter.

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Thanks to Jordan Hall for speaking with us!

How to Survive an Apocalypse is on from June 2nd until June 11th the Firehall Arts Centre. For tickets, please visit  tickets.firehallartscentre.ca.

The post The Biz Interview: Jordan Hall appeared first on Biz Books.

Production Details

How to Survive an Apocalypse By Jordan Hall

A Flying Start Play.

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. A romantic comedy about the end of days.

Touchstone Theatre in association with PTC and the Firehall Arts Centre

Directed by Katrina Dunn
Dramaturgy by Kathleen Flaherty
Set by David Roberts
Costumes by Christopher David Gauthier
Lighting by Adrian Muir
Sound by Elliot Vaughan
Stage Managed by Rebecca Mulvihill

Starring Lindsey Angell, Sebastien Archibald, Claire Hesselgrave and Zahf Paroo

How to Survive an Apocalypse runs June 2nd to 11th, 2016 at the Firehall Arts Centre, 280 East Cordova Street in Vancouver, BC. 

Tuesday – 7pm
Wednesday to Friday – 8pm
Saturday -4pm & 8pm
Sunday – 3pm
Wednesday – 1pm Pay What You Can

For tickets, call 604-689-0926 or order online

Enter to see the Tuesday, June 7th Performance

Please send an e-mail to info@bizbooks.net and please include this information:

• Your Name

• Your E-mail Address

• Your Phone Number

• “How to Survive an Apocalypse Contest” in the subject line

Contest closes on Monday, May 30th, 2016. Winners will be selected at random and will be contacted by e-mail.

Recommended Reading The Perfect Stage Crew
2nd Edition Click a cover for more details Empire of the Son Ignite: Illuminating Theatre
For Young People

The post How to Survive an Apocalypse Theatre Contest appeared first on Biz Books.

This is the set-up for Late Company, written by Jordan Tannahill and produced by Touchstone Theatre.

Katrina Dunn – Touchstone Theatre’s Artistic Director – directs this production and she spoke to us to give us some insights into the play and the process of putting it together.

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Can you start by telling us a little bit about you and how you came to be involved with Late Company?

I am the Artistic Director of Touchstone Theatre and my job is to program the season’s activities.  I originally programmed Late Company for the fall of 2014.  It really struck a chord with my audience and was nominated for several awards, so I elected to remount it as part of our 40th Anniversary Season.

What can audiences expect from this production?

This is a character driven drama.  Two couples meet for a kind of restorative justice dinner after the teenage son of one couple has committed suicide.  The son of the other couple has bullied him in high school.  It’s a naturalistic play, but we’ve set it in an immersive environment, so that the audience really feels like they are in the room where it’s all happening.  So expect top notch acting, and a big emotional ride that will feel very close and present.

Recommended Reading The Perfect Stage Crew
2nd Edition Click a cover for more details Empire of the Son Ignite: Illuminating Theatre
For Young People

What are the three most important things that stage directors needs to remember to be most effective?

It’s your job to steer the ship despite the nature of the waters, so hang onto that wheel.

It’s a collaborative form, so respect your collaborators and learn how to encourage the best from them.

Try to be a blank space every time you watch a run.  Remember that your audience has only what’s onstage with which to make sense of the production.

What was the biggest challenge for you in directing the play and how did you overcome it?

This biggest challenge with this one was in modulating the audience’s emotional experience.  The stakes are high so the temptation is to get very hot very fast.  We solved this by try to really listen to the language and see where we had alternate playing options.  We also identified where we really wanted the show to peak and worked on pulling back in the lead up to those moments.

You’re also the Artistic Director at Touchstone Theatre. What are the main responsibilities of Artistic Directors and what’s a typical day like for you?

As I said, I program the season.  But I also fundraise (grants, foundations, corporate), put together artistic teams (designers, casting, technicians), and supervise my staff.  It’s a job with a pretty broad skill set required.  You need some business sense, as well as a vision for the company and high level of artistic skill.  Oh, and my job is up for grabs by the way! We are currently looking for a new AD to replace me at the end of next season.  Take a look at Touchstone’s website – the staff and board page – for details.

How would you describe your vision for Touchstone theatre and its productions moving forward?

Touchstone does only Canadian plays and we tend to be a playwright-focused company.  In the last six years I’ve also introduced a focus on new Canadian musicals.  For me, it’s really important that my audience gets to sample, through Touchstone, the finest voices in Canadian theatre.

What’s the most important piece of advice that you would give to aspiring theatre directors?

Just do it.  There is no way to learn without getting in the room, working with actors and putting shows up.  Find a way to do that without bankrupting yourself.  And develop a critical dialogue with yourself where you can (supportively) assess your own work as a way of learning and growing outside of whatever critics and others might say.

How would you describe the current state of the Vancouver theatre industry?

It’s amazingly vital.  The growth in the last 30 years has been phenomenal.  Artists now move here to be a part of it, whereas when I was young, everyone was moving away.  It’s very exciting to me to see all the sub-communities and groups of artists taking things in different directions.

What books and authors have been influential for you in your creative journey so far?

The Presence of the Actor by Joseph Chaikin.

Any of Anne Bogart’s books.

National Performance by Erin Hurley.

I don’t read books about directing, but I hear there are some really good ones!

Where can we find out more about you, Touchstone Theatre and Late Company?

It’s all at TouchstoneTheatre.com. Hope everyone can come and check out this moving and important show!

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Thanks to Katrina Dunn for speaking with us!

Late Company is now on at the Evergreen Cultural Centre until April 2nd before moving on to the Vancity Culture Lab from April 5th to April 9th.

Tickets are available through TouchstoneTheatre.com.

The post The Biz Interview: Katrina Dunn appeared first on Biz Books.