Award-winning Canadian playwright Jordan Tannahill’s production Late Company will transfer to Trafalgar Studios 2 in London’s commercial theatre district for a limited run starting in August.
Jordan Tannahill is set to make his debut in London's West End – with a play that was inspired by a Canadian tragedy.
Following its European premiere at the Finborough Theatre earlier this year, Stage Traffic's production of the Ottawa-raised playwright's drama Late Company will transfer to Trafalgar Studios 2 in London's commercial theatre district in August, the producers announced on Friday.
Tannahill's play received a string of four-star reviews in April directed by Michael Yale at the Finborough – a 50-seat theatre above a pub that has also produced the work of Canadian playwrights Michael Healey, Linda Griffiths and Colleen Murphy. The original London cast will be reprising their roles for the limited West End run set for August 21 to September 16.
Late Company concerns the parents of a teenager who has committed suicide – who decide to invite the parents of the boy who bullied their son for being gay over for dinner in a bid to find peace. Tannahill wrote the play following the suicide of 15-year-old Jamie Hubley in his hometown in 2011 – a death that fuelled a national conversation about bullying and homophobia in schools.
"It was a piece I intended to share with my group of friends; a means of venting anger and seeking some kind of reckoning," Tannahill said in a release. "Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it would make its way to the West End."
Since its debut at the SummerWorks Performance Festival in Toronto in 2013, Late Company has been produced at the Touchstone Theatre in Vancouver and the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in Winnipeg – as well as in Los Angeles and Chicago.
Tannahill is a winner of the Governor General's Award for drama whose next play, Declarations, will have its world premiere at Canadian Stage in Toronto in January. Upcoming projects also include a virtual reality performance called Draw Me Close co-produced by the National Theatre of Great Britain and the National Film Board of Canada.
J. Kelly Nestruck