Richard Greenblatt to Direct Diane Flacks' WAITING ROOM for Tarragon; Cast Announced!

Tarragon Theatre presents the world premiere of Waiting Room, written by the talented and multi-faceted Diane Flacks, and directed by the equally talented, multi-faceted Richard Greenblatt, teaming up for a second time as writer and director for Tarragon. This powerful new drama about diagnosis, prognosis and uncertainty opens January 14, 2015 and runs to February 15 (previews from January 6) in Tarragon's Mainspace. Six outstanding actors - Ari Cohen, Michelle Monteith, Jordan Pettle, Warona Setshwaelo, Jane Spidell, Jenny Young - are featured in this penetrating work.

What are you willing to risk to save a life? A doctor embarks on a ground-breaking medical experiment despite the objections of his colleagues. Meanwhile, a couple are torn about whether the doctor has what it takes to save their baby. This is a play about life in the waiting room of a major children's hospital. This is a play about medical compassion and risk. This is a play about families who find the will to keep going. This is a play about the needs of the heart and the extremes of medicine. This is a play about breaking the rules. This is a play about hope.

"Hope is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - At all." -Emily Dickinson

Says Flacks, "Waiting Room began percolating as an idea almost seven years ago as I sat in a coccyx-crushing rocking chair in a Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit with my baby son. During our nine-month sojourn there, and in the years to come, I could not have imagined the suffering I would witness or the deep humanity I'd encounter both from the medical staff and other parents. They became our world and our family. While inspired by my personal situation, Waiting Room is not my story - it has elements of my story as well as the stories of dozens of people I met and interviewed. It speaks to tricky, often insoluble questions of humanity that both patients and doctors confront when they find themselves on the precipice of life and death, and contemplate whether they should risk, or refrain."

Diane Flacks is a writer/performer in theatre, TV, radio, and fiction. She has been lauded for her four critically acclaimed solo shows - Myth Me, By a Thread (directed by Richard Greenblatt), Random Acts and Bear With Me ¬- and her Chalmers-nominated collaborations with Richard Greenblatt: Sibs and Care, both for Tarragon. She has written and performed in theatres across the country and in New York and Los Angeles. She has also written for, and appeared on, numerous Canadian TV series including The Kids in the Hall (for which she was nominated for a writing Emmy). She is Nightwood Theatre's 2014 playwright-in-residence with a new play about women and religion upcoming, Unholy; and can currently be heard as CBC Radio's national parenting columnist. Her book Bear With Me, What They Don't Tell You About Pregnancy and New Motherhood was published by McClelland & Stewart. She has been a feature columnist for the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail. Recently, she acted in Freda and Jem's Best of the Week for Buddies in Bad Times 2014-2015 season, directed by Judith Thompson.