East of Tarragon

ANNOUNCING FREE PUBLIC PERFORMANCE

A free public presentation is scheduled on Thursday, June 15 at the The Leigha Lee Browne Theatre at the University of Scarborough Campus.

Doors at 7:00 pm
Performance at 7:30 pm

The Plays:

“Մայրիկս” by Alina Habtian

“Մայրիկս” is an Armenian Play written by Armenian playwright Alina Habtian. It follows the story of an aspiring student novelist, Anoush Sarinian and her mother Garni, who is less approving of Anoush’s choices. After a big fight about their differences, they must learn how to finally confront their own feelings, and learn how to connect with one another.

Featuring:

Emily Fang – Garni
Stephy Ip – Aunosh
Kelly Wuw – Tantig Noor
Miya Rose – Tantig Ani
Aidan Moir – George

A Ride with Hope by Ahd Abdel Kayoum

Mostakable graduates University and on his way home finds Ameel.

Featuring:

Lana Shao – Mom/A&W employee
Evan Deng – Mostekable
Sophie Ding – Ameel
Matthew Hu, Shao Wu – The Friends

A Twist of an Arm by Sajal Moin Metla

Nina comes home one day to receive some shocking news about her sister. Now she has some issues to solve—and some things about herself to discover.

Featuring:

Carmen Cao – Nina
Island Chen – Mom
Jia Wei – Dad
Dexter Yang – Matt

education is her right by Thara Majid Shamji

A young South Asian woman’s quest for success in higher education, she constantly battles with her father’s misogynistic beliefs and notions. Her narrative sees a positive outcome through her persistence and courage.

Featuring:

Kelly Wu – Mother
Quinnton Hynde – Father
Lucas Rose – Son
Miya Rose – Daughter
Aidan Moir – Margaret/Mark

YOUTH BUILDING THEATRE

A Launchpad for Young Creatives in East GTA

Now in its sixth year, East of Tarragon is a launchpad for young creators and community members to explore their creativity, connect with their community, and gain a deeper understanding of themselves and others through storytelling. This program is responsive and adapts each year to best suit the needs of its partnered schools and organizations.

5+

Years of community partnership

200+

Students engaged and supported

Meet The Program Facilitator

Zahida Rahemtulla is a playwright and short story writer whose first two plays, The Wrong Bashir, and The Frontliners, will premiere on stage next year. The Frontliners received the Playwrights Guild of Canada RBC Emerging Playwright Award, Theatre BC’s Play of Special Merit Award, and was runner-up for the national Voaden Literary Prize.

The Wrong Bashir is being developed for the stage by Touchstone Theatre. Her stories have been shortlisted for the Alice Munro Award and long-listed for the CBC short story prize.

Zahida has worked for several years in the immigrant and refugee non-profit sector in the areas of housing, employment, and literacy.

She especially enjoys teaching and working with new playwrights, and is really honoured to be working with East of Tarragon this year.

Meet The Assistant dramaturg and Stage manager

Infamous for wearing many hats, Sara Currie is a multi-hyphenated artist specializing in comedic and new media creations. With humble beginnings acting as an unnamed Lost Boy in Peter Pan Jr., she has gone on to write, direct, and produce her own stageplays (Where You Can’t Find Me, ImagiMation), screenplays (Go Live!), and sketch shows (Shape of a Sketch Show) — in addition to acting in the occasional role as well. She is set to graduate from the University of Toronto this summer with an Honours Bachelor of Arts with high distinction, after majoring in New Media and double-minoring in Theatre and Performance and Literature and Film. Her passion for the art of storytelling is coupled with her skill in video production, as she continues to create content for organizations such as the Royal Ontario Museum, the York Region, HIP (Honouring Indigenous Peoples), the McMichael Art Gallery, and the Aga Khan Museum.

Meet The UTSC student director

Shannora Lankanathar is a fourth-year student doing a double major of Theatre and Performance along with Mental Health Studies at the University of Toronto. She’s excited to be a directing consult with the East of Tarragon Project. In addition to directing, she also has interest in theatre production and acting. Recent directing experience includes The Last Time I Saw You with the UTSC Drama Society. Recent acting credits include The Refugee Hotel with UTSC TAPS and The Last Time I Saw You. She hopes you enjoy the show!

This Year

East of Tarragon will foster an intergenerational playwriting unit for students and community members of our partner schools and organizations. This 10-week facilitated writing program will culminate in the public sharing of 10-minute excerpts of the unit’s plays, directed and stage managed by UTSC students and performed by Milliken Mills high school students.

Meet the Playwrights

Alina Habtian

Hello everyone, my name is Alina Habtian. I am a young, Armenian writer who works on short stories, plays, and hopefully some films in the future! I thank all of you for coming to watch my play, thank my friends who are like my second family for supporting me during the making of this play, Tarragon theater for their lovely playwrighting program, my fellow playwrights who have helped me along my journey, and of course, my own Mother. I love you so much mom, thank you for always and forever being supportive about what I do!

Ahd Abdel Kayoum

I am an English Major and Media studies minor soon to graduate. I love coming of age movies, I think they shed light on the mundane is such a lovely way. I wanted to write this play to shed light on immigrant stories, because as an immigrant to Canada I am familiar with the pressure immigrants feel. On a separate note, I love cooking, baking, walks, watching movies (and I will end it here because it is starting to sound like a dating Bio)

Sajal Moin Metla

I’m a highschool student from Scarborough. The most important thing in my life is my family, without whom I quite literally wouldn’t be who I am today. I also love reading, to be able to lose myself in a world of words at any time, and writing, because it gives me a chance to create a little bit of that magic myself.

Thara Majid Shamji

Thara is a student enrolled at the University of Toronto Scarborough, she has a double major in Women and Gender Studies and Theatre Performance. She wrote this play in the hopes that it would raise awareness on the impacts of how patriarchal powers creates a negative effect on a woman’s success. She is of South Asian heritage and enjoys implementing her culture into her works, that way she represents her community and sheds light on the ongoing struggles faced.

Archived Projects

Review previous projects from this supportive and innovative program, helping the needs of its partnered schools and organizations in giving participants full exposure into theatre arts.

East of Tarragon 2022

Playwright and facilitator, Chelsea Woolley, led a series of “Write Your Own Adventure,” text-based video game design workshops for members of the Scarborough Arts community and high school students from R.H. King Academy, Milliken Mills, Mary Ward, and Albert Campbell Colligate.

Participants explored personal narrative and character development through the choose-your-own-adventure-style video games they created utilizing multiple plot lines for readers to choose from.

Chelsea was assisted by UTSC students Jason Yu, Annie Pei, Gloria Kuang, & Ahd Abdel Kayoum

Sponsored by:

East of Tarragon 2021 Showcase Information

Sponsored by:

Plays Read

Selfless Love by Abinaya Bavananthan
Candyman by Calvin Wong, Emily Lynette Summ, Pak Kwan Chan, Yemeng Wang
Phone of Reality by Hanisha Mistry, Mavrik Sun, Alice Zhiye Chen
A 24/7 Child by Tamae Vassell
Forever and Always by Jathusan Srisathananthan and Amy Vasanth
Untitled Library Scene by Ella Lui, Ricky Ho, Jayden Phu, Laura Almanza
Tree of Knowledge by Manu Narula, Akshajan Navenachandran, and Caleb Wilson
Deer in Starlight by Madeline Hanitijo, Ryan Ambtman, and Ruyi Ru
2 Mans from the Future by Samir Hossei Seyed, Jasraj Jha-ttu, Depainder Sangha, and Stephen Lee
Buttdial by Julia Cho-yi Fung, Teissir Nouren Mahamat, Aryan Sharma
Desires and Pressure by Kassandra Oliver
Confessions by Margot Brighton
There’s Always a Limit by Rishika Shrestha

Ensemble Members

Alp Kurtkapan
Emma / Ruyi Ru
Jake Gunzel
Jefferson Igbinovia
Madeline Hanitijo
Madison Britnell
Mavrik Sun
Ryan Ambtman

Directors

Siena Jang & Olivia Rennie

Dramaturg

Chelsea Woolley

Stage Manager

Emily Pople

Special Thanks to the RH King Academy Arts Management Students who created the posters and the social media campaign for this year’s program.

2020 Scarborough Youth Playwrights Hub

Tarragon Theatre has partnered with Scarborough Arts for the last four years to offer free play creation opportunities to youth living in Scarborough. This year we are once again offering a series of nine free playwriting workshops at Scarborough Arts from 6 – 8 pm on Thursday nights from January 9 – March 12th, 2019. This program is open to any and all youth currently attending high school in Scarborough.

Each participant will work toward developing their own short play that will be shared with the public this spring at a performance at Scarborough Arts. These sessions will be co-facilitated by Caitie Graham and Charles Marco Diokno Manzo.

“When we write, we trust our paper, in which we give it permission to hold the ink of our memories in hopes that we may never forget them.”

Sponsored by:

Tarragon Scarborough Arts Free Playwriting Workshops for Youth January 2019

Sponsored by:

Tarragon Theatre has partnered with Scarborough Arts for the last four years to offer free play creation opportunities to youth living in Scarborough. This year we are offering a series of 9 playwriting workshops at Scarborough Arts from 6 – 8 pm on Thursday nights from January 9 – March 7th 2019.

Each participant will work toward developing their own short play that will be produced by Scarborough secondary schools in May. Plays will be directed by UTSC theatre students, and presented at the Leigha Lee Browne Theatre.

These workshops will be led by playwright Caitie Graham. Caitie is co-director of the Young Playwrights Unit here at Tarragon and is a playwright, dramaturg and arts educator with a BFA in Performance: Acting from Ryerson. She’s had work produced by Filament Incubator (Paradise Comics, 2016), and Alumnae Theatre (GASH, 2017). Her newest play was shortlisted for the 2018 Ellen Ross Stuart “Opening Doors” Award.

Scarborough Projects 2017/2018

Sponsored by:

50+ theatre students will collectively create, produce and perform a live, site-specific, public theatre event in various locations on Kingston Road as part of Arts on the Road on May 12, 2018. Made possible through the collaboration between Tarragon, RH King Academy, Agincourt Collegiate, Scarborough Arts Council, and University of Toronto Scarborough Campus.

In the fall and spring, Scarborough youth interested in playwrighting will take part in workshops held at Scarborough Arts. The work created through these classes, led by Tarragon artists, will be produced and performed by the participating schools under the direction of students from University of Toronto Scarborough.

Come and join us!

Scarborough Projects 2016/2017

To Celebrate Tarragon’s 45th Anniversary, plays from the early days of the theatre were reimagined and restaged by youth in the context of contemporary Scarborough. The Scarborough Project is a collaborative effort between Tarragon, Scarborough Arts, Scarborough Schools, and The University of Toronto Scarborough, to engage both the community and youth, through theatre.

An early Tarragon script, The Donnellys by James Reaney became new in the hands of Scarborough youth. On a blustery and cold afternoon on May, in a Scarborough lakeside park, a group of over 50 youth performed #TheDonnellyProject for an audience of over 200 people.

This project explored this Tarragon script in the dynamic context of suburban Toronto. Kat Sandler adapted The Donnellys for two secondary schools and students from University of Toronto Scarborough to rehearse and perform. Kat visited the schools, rehearsed with the students and directed the overall production. Tarragon’s Communications Director, Lauren Vandervoort, visited the R. H. King Arts Management class to support their efforts to publicize the play.

Come and join us!