Canadian Stage to Close 2015-16 Season with Pair of World Premieres

Two world premiere plays by acclaimed Governor General's Award-winning playwright Jordan Tannahill (Concord Floral, Late Company) will close Canadian Stage's 15.16 season. A bold and refreshingly current re-telling of two events - one historic, one mythic- Botticelli in the Fire & Sunday in Sodom feature Salvatore Antonio, Valerie Buhagiar, Nicola Correia-Damude, Stephen Jackman-Torkoff, Christopher Morris and Alon Nashman, and are directed respectively by Matjash Mrozewski and Estelle Shook, 2015 graduates of York University's MFA Program in Theatre - Stage Direction in Collaboration with Canadian Stage.

Commissioned by Canadian Stage and presented in collaboration with the Department of Theatre at York University, the joyfully apocryphal double bill marries a vivid moment in art history with a moving biblical tale in an unabashedly theatrical production that sets references of the past squarely in an all-too contemporary present.

"We are thrilled to have accompanied Jordan Tannahill, Canadian Stage's 2015 Playwright in Residence, on the incubation and production of these momentous new Canadian works," said Matthew Jocelyn, Canadian Stage Artistic and General Director. "Poignant, sensual, and deliciously anachronistic, these texts tap into the relationship between historical events and the deepest of human pulses."

Drawing inspiration from a footnote in art history linking iconoclast Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli to the 1497 Bonfire of the Vanities - a religious inferno of art, books and matters of sin - Botticelli in the Fire imagines the famed painter of The Birth of Venus as an irrepressible seeker of love and pleasure, caught in a web between the powerful Medici family, the firebrand teachings of a zealot friar and his young lover. Entangled in sexual and political brinkmanship, Botticelli must choose between art and survival.

In Sunday in Sodom, Edith recounts how her husband Lot welcomed two American soldiers into their house and the fury this sparked in their village, contextualizing the events that led to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and her choice to look back on her hometown, turning her into a pillar of salt.

"The two plays in this double bill question who writes the official record via decidedly queer and feminist lenses," explained Tannahill. "While Botticelli in the Fire is a meditation on the ways in which, throughout history, pleasure, sexuality and 'vice' are blamed for all manner of ills, Sunday in Sodom gives identity and voice to the unnamed wife of Lot from the Book of Genesis. From a very young age, I tried to imagine what went through her mind as she decided to disobey god and turn back to behold his wrath."

Hailed as a "Renaissance Man" by NOW Magazine and "One of the most exciting independent theatre artists" by the Toronto Star, Jordan Tannahill is the recipient of the 2014 Governor General's Award for Drama for his book Age of Minority: Three Solo Plays, the 2014 John Hirsch Prize for directing, and two Dora Awards. His 2015 book Theatre of the Unimpressed (Coach House Press), was called "essential reading for anyone interested in the state of contemporary theatre and performance" by The Globe and Mail. His gothic suburban teen thriller Concord Floral - co-conceived with his company Suburban Beast - will open Canadian Stage's 16.17 season in September 2016.

Botticelli in the Fire & Sunday in Sodom will be on stage at the Berkeley Street Downstairs Theatre (26 Berkeley Street) from April 26 - May 15 (Previews: April 26 & 27, Media night: April 28). Performances run Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 8 pm, Fridays at 7 pm, and with matinees on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday at 1 pm beginning May 1. Tickets from $24 to $53 are available online, by phone at 416.368.3110, or in person at the Berkeley Street box office. For details visit www.canadianstage.com/online/botticelli

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