COMING: January 11 – 20, 2024
Greenhouse Residency and Festival
Greenhouse Festival
The Greenhouse Festival is a process-led residency program, focussed on growing vibrant, theatrical ideas and facilitating exchange between artists and audience.
Audiences are encouraged to come and explore new parts of Tarragon as a space, as they explore new works from the celebrated creatives in residence for Greenhouse Festival. Tickets for the festival can be purchased for Single Show performances, or through a Festival Pass.
Festival Pass $35
Provides unlimited access to both weeks of the Greenhouse Festival, including Greenhouse Resident sharings, Special Presentations and micro-performances.*
*Seating is subject to availability.
Buy a Festival Pass
Single Show Tickets $15
As the name implies, the Single Show ticket is a one-time ticket available for select performances throughout both weeks of the Greenhouse Festival.*
*Seating is subject to availability.
Buy tickets - Short SightedBuy Tickets - Hot Girl YogaBuy Tickets - 2021
The Collectives
Greenhouse Festival 2024
Meet the Extraspace artists and collectives!
Short Sighted
From Graham Isador
Graham Isador has a degenerative eye disease. Because there are no visual identifiers for the condition, people don’t think he’s losing his sight. They think he’s an asshole. Blending experimental music and comedic storytelling, Short Sighted is an attempt to explain vision loss using sound.
Created and performed by Graham Isador (Vice, GQ, The Globe and Mail)
Performances
Jan 12, 7:45 PM
Jan 13, 9:30 PM
Jan 18, 9:30 PM
Jan 19, 7:45 PM
Jan 20, 6:00 PM
Hot Girl Yoga
From Marium Masood
Healing starts from the outside in at Now Wow Studios. Join a yoga class like no other led by our Sh-EO, founder and saviour. Hot Girl Yoga is a darkly hilarious look at the sickness of the wellness industry.
Created and performed by Marium Masood (Buddies In Bad Times’ Emerging Creator’s Unit, Queer Pride)
Performances
Jan 11, 7:45 PM
Jan 12, 9:30 PM
Jan 13, 6:00 PM
Jan 19, 9:30 PM
Jan 20, 7:45 PM
2021: Mechanisms to Hold
From: Guilty by Association
When Patient #203 discovers he is dying, he sets off to find a way to hold on. Under the guidance of his daughter, you will both help him and not help him. The performance will end, but will Patient #203 end? 2021 is GbA’s follow up to their acclaimed live cinema production, 1991.
Previous works include: 1991 (RISER Project), these violent delights, and Antigonick (SummerWorks)
Performances
Jan 11, 9:30 PM
Jan 13, 7:45 PM
Jan 18, 7:45 PM
Jan 19, 6:00 PM
Jan 20, 9:30 PM
Studio Activations
MORE AT THE FESTIVAL
Activating our Studios at the Greenhouse Festival.
ANIMACY THEATRE COLLECTIVE’S
THE RHINO LASSIES
Morgan Brie Johnson, Alexandra Simpson: creator/performers
Jan 13, 7:00 pm
Jan 19, 7:00 pm
From Dora-Award-winning Animacy Theatre Collective, The Rhino Lassies is an outrageous clown piece that explores the pervasive and invasive wellness culture. These rhino-spirited and exquisitely-nosed lassies invite you to struggle alongside them, as they navigate the complex and absurd journey towards being well.
Created and performed by Alexandra Simpson and Morgan Johnson (Finding Home: A Salmon Journey – Theatre Direct, Dora-Award: Outstanding New Play, TYA; Pest Me Pet Me – Undercurrents Festival; Bad Hats Theatre’s Bad New Ideas Residency).
TAN VU’S
FLOATING FLOWERS CABARET
Tan Vu: Creator/Producer/Performer
Aidan Reimer : Collaborator/Performer
Long Nguyen: Sound/Projection Support
Viet Anh Vu, Alice Ping Yee Ho: Arrangements
Jan 12, 8:45 pm
Jan 19, 8:45 pm
Floating Flowers Cabaret is an experiment that merges musical theatre with Vietnamese folk songs, folktales, and the true history of queer Vietnamese icons. And unicorns!
Created and performed by Tan Vu (Buddies In Bad Times’ Emerging Creator’s Unit, Caminos Festival, Canadian Opera Company’s FIDELIO)
PICKLES THEATRE CO’S
UNTITLED VIDEO GAME PROJECT
Christopher-Elizabeth: Creator/Designer
Dean Vukovic: Creator
Kayleigh Mundy: Stage Manager
Alex Grozdanis: Technical Coordinator
Nicole Kleiman, Jonnie Lombard, Kyra Tang Jacob Willis: Performers
Jan 13, 8:45 pm
Jan 18, 8:45 pm
Untitled Video Game Project weaves interactive media and theatre to create spontaneous narratives. Audiences are given a video game controller that controls the design of the play in real time shaping the narrative, while actors journey through the treacherous, silly, and absurd world brought to life by “players” in the audience.
Previous works by Pickles Theatre Co include: Pickles Arcade: An Interactive Cabaret – Supermarket, [Insert Clown Here] – Toronto Fringe w/ Parlous Theatre, VELVETHEAD – Factory Theatre
JESSE WABEGIJIG’S
PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION
Jan 13, 5:15 pm
Jan 20, 7:00 pm
Pictures At An Exhibition is a puppet play that will have you on your feet, for community, dance, and an epic journey from the Ukrainian countryside to the heart of Kiev.
Created by Jesse Wabegijig (Weesagachuck Fest Dreamer and Turtle by Dakota Ray Hebert, Eighth Fire by Yolanda Bonnell)
ALEX CAMERON’S
HIP HOP 100
Cloud, Juliet Jones-Rodney: writer/performers
Cloud: sound design/music
Donna-Michelle St. Bernard: dramaturgical support
Donovan Hayden: sociopolitical support
Stephon Smith: sound session support
Jan 11, 8:45 pm
Jan 20, 8:45 pm
It is now 2023 – the 50th anniversary of hip hop.
Welcome to 2073 – the 100th anniversary of hip hop.
Hip Hop 100 is an Afrofuturist vision of the art-form’s original four principals – MCing, DJing, graffiti, and breakdancing – and how hip-hop can continue to build and rebuild community and culture for decades to come.
Created and performed by Alex Cameron (Myseum of Toronto, Dead Name Theatre, Paprika Festival)
Play Readings from Artists in Residence
Join us for FREE readings from our Artists in Residence:
RBC Emerging Playwright Sharing
Quid Pro Quo created by Breton Lalama
Saturday, January 13th, 3:30pm
Quid Pro Quo
running time: 60-75 Minutes
While rehearsing for QUID PRO QUO, the lines between reality and fiction start to tangle. What is the cost of telling stories that mine lived experience? The audience helps decide in this interactive exploration of truth, manipulation, and choice.
Playwright: Breton Lalama
Choreographer: Celia Green
Supported by:
RBC Emerging Artist Award
Cast: Rick Roberts, Nancy Palk, Xavier Lopez, Celia Green
Urjo Kareda Resident Sharing –
Midline and Dead Ends created by Aria Evans
Saturday, January 20th, 3:30pm
Midline
Running Time: 25 minutes
Midline investigates the scars we choose, the scars that happen by accident and the scars that save our lives. Through text and movement, this piece highlights the endurance of the human body.
A Note from Aria: I interviewed 20 people (from their teens to their 60’s) about their visible scars and if there was a metaphor that helped them make sense of what they had been through. Reflecting on these interviews I found the metaphor that is helping me move through and process a medical emergency that left me with a midline scar.
Concept, Staging and Performer: Aria Evans
Composer: Eirene Cloma
Outside Eye: Yolanda Bonnell
Supported by:
TO Live’s explorations initiative
Tarragon Theatre
Pemmican Collective and Punctuate! Theatre
Ontario Arts Council
Interviewee’s: Allison, Anonymous’, Brennan, Eirene, Emerjade, Fanny, Kareem, Katherine, Kayla, Keira, Kez, Lindsey, Maeve, Sofia and Tavia.
Dead Ends
running time: 12 minutes
choreographer, performer: Aria Evans
dramaturgy: Dedra McDermott
supported by: Dust and Soul Dance
music:
Komiku – A tale about somewhere, where the end of the story already occurs
File Under Toner – orgy
Komiku – The end
TRG Banks – Daybreak in a new town
HoliznaCC0 – The End
This piece is a reflection on when you have given away so much of yourself to others that you feel unrecognizable – that your capacity has run thin and you feel like you have nothing more to give. Dead Ends is a piece about presencing this state, reconciling with it, choosing to heal and as a result, finding new growth within.
note: The idea for Dead Ends has been adapted from explorations with The Mermaid Project facilitated by Ximena Huizi.
A Special Presentation
SHIRA LEUCHTER PRESENTS:
THE HAUNTING
From award-winning performance artist Shira Leuchter, The Haunting is a one-to-one participatory performance that explores what happens when we invite our ghosts into the room with us. Part ghost story, part seance, this encounter invites participants to collaborate on making the invisible visible.
Previous credits: Lost Together (WINNER of the 2018 SummerWorks Performance Prize, Progress Festival, In the Soil Festival, Nightwood Theatre, OFFTA) and All The Things I’ve Lost (Gardiner Museum)
THE HAUNTING will have just 25 showings across the Greenhouse Festival, each uniquely performed for an audience of one.
Shira Leuchter: Writer, Performer
Chris Hanratty: Outside Eye, Creative Collaboration and Technical Production
Special Thanks to:
Justin Miller and the amazing staff at Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Direct, Balancing Act, The Birthing Body Project, Julie Tepperman, Samantha Bernstein, Sasha Singer-Wilson, Joyce and Jeff Leuchter, Belarie Hyman Zatzman, Calla and Geneva Hanratty
For a full list of artworks and ideas referenced in The Haunting, please visit https://www.shiraleuchter.com/the-haunting
An Installation
ART IS HARD PRESENTS:
BLANKET FORT
For the people and by the people, BLANKET FORT invites you to become part of a community that plays together. Come build something with us.
Created by Art is Hard (Flip The Table, Fringe 2014; The People’s Gallery, Rhubarb 2016; TPM’s Crapshoot, 2017-2018)
Also announcing the BLANKET FORT Drive!
Bring your soft items and textiles – blankets, bedsheets, pillows, cushions, stuffed animals – to Tarragon Theatre on your next visit. Help us meet our target of 50 blankets!
Your items will be used in the collectively created installation BLANKET FORT at the Greenhouse Festival!
After the Festival closes, all items will be cleaned, and donated to Street Haven, providing services to women who are at-risk and experiencing homelessness.
www.streethaven.org
BLANKET FORT is a part of The Greenhouse Festival and included as part of the festival pass.
Past Greenhouse Festivals:
Greenhouse Festival 2023
New to Tarragon in the 2022/2023 season was the performance spectacle of Greenhouse, unique visions were brought to life through a series of never before seen artistic creations.
Emilio’s A Million Chameleons
From Adam Francis Proulx
A family-friendly musical spectacular, about embracing what makes you special and letting that inner sparkle shine.
Multi-award-winning puppeteer Adam F Proulx (THE FAMILY CROW: A Murder Mystery; BAKER’S DOZEN: 12 Angry Puppets) presents a masterful escape of puppetry and theatre.
He has been experimenting with all things sparkle, sequin and glitter in his puppet building for a few years now, and continues to explore how else these materials can be used in a theatrical setting.
Performances
Mass Exodus
With: Amelia Blaine, Sienna Singh, Sara Jarvie Clark, Devlin Flynn
Mass Exodus is a non-verbal, sensorial fairy-tale set on a dying planet.
Tasked by The Government ™ to “be the solution” and save their world, a lone worker wonders: do the animals have other plans?
BadFox Performance creates multi-disciplinary work using shadow puppetry, overhead projectors, movement, original composition and sound design to create immersive, sensory experiences.
Performances
Benevolence
With: Kevin Matthew Wong, Echo Zhou, Chris Ross-Ewart, Noel Pendawa, Sooji Kim
Benevolence examines and celebrates the history of the Hakka (客家) diaspora in Canada, who represent some of the first Chinese in Canada.
Intimate, epic, personal, and playful, this solo-performance by Kevin Matthew Wong (Chemical Valley Project) tells the story of the 2000-year migration, and their struggles and triumphs as early Chinese-Canadians.
The Benevolence Collective seeks to interrogate, expand, and complicate representations of Chinese-Canadians. Centering design and audience connection in their storytelling, the Benevolence Collective seeks to provide audiences with new ways to think about their own journeys and relationships to Canada.
Performances
Jane
With: Camille Intson, Nicole Eun-Ju Bell, Bryn Kennedy
JANE is a speculative fiction drama about three college students caught up in a virtual reality deepfake pornography scandal, inspired by growing ethical concerns around digital consent and content regulation.
Pantheon Projects is an award-winning, queer, feminist, and new generation performance collective. Their work defies traditional theatrical form, by foregrounding emerging technology, new media, and projection-design into live performance.
Performances
These are the Songs That I Sing When I'm Sad
Jane Miller and Brian Quirt
These Are The Songs That I Sing When I’m Sad is an intimate and joyous performance that explores the songs people turn to when they’re sad, the songs that they play to soothe their blues or lift them up out of the depths.
It’s a rare opportunity to hear a superb singer up close and personal, as she delves into the link between deep emotions and the musical elements that make sad songs so addictive.
This special presentation is part of Tarragon’s collaboration with Nightswimming for PURE RESEARCH, bringing innovative research-based process back to Toronto after a four-year hiatus and
opening up a discourse on play development through dramaturgy.
Performance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSzoTgCIeNU
More from previous Greenhouse Festivals
MORE ACTIVATIONS AT THE FESTIVAL IN PREVIOUS YEARS
Between shows, a dizzying array of micro-performances and interactive games await.
Soundhole
with Twin Mask
Weird Bingo
with Weird Alice
Kit Kat Mini
with Ryan G. Hinds
Beatnik Madlibs
with Isaac Kessler & Alaine Hutton
SPECIAL APPEARANCES UPSTAIRS
Tarragon Theatre’s Urjo Kareda and Bulmash-Siegel resident artists share their work
Saturdays at 3:30 PM
Ping
by Aaron Jan
Jan 7th 3:30pm
Lettuce Head
by Alyssa Martin & Jacob Vanderham
Jan 14th 3:30pm
CLOSING NIGHT KARAOKE
Join us on closing night for the Festival finale: a no-holds barred musical extravaganza, starring YOU!
Hosted by Fatuma Adar
Saturday Jan 14th – 9:30pm