FLYING START PROGRAM

Giving a stage to new professional playwrights

Flying Start is a two-year program designed for an underrepresented, early-career playwright or devisor(s) ready to take their script to the next level. Those selected receive a commission, dramaturgical and workshop development opportunities that lead to a world premiere production of the theatrical piece in Touchstone’s mainstage season.

The Flying Start program is divided into two phases. In phase one, the focus is on script development and dramaturgy which includes workshops with professional actors and ongoing mentorship during the writing process. In phase two, the play is fully realized onstage in a professional production.

Flying Start’s 2023 -2025 Call for Proposals is CLOSED. Selection announcement will be made in late-March 2024.

Pictured: Aman Mann, Leena Manro, Hussein Janmohamed, and Parm Soor in Touchstone’s 21/23 Flying Start production of The Wrong Bashir by Zahida Rahemtulla. Photo by Matt Reznek

SUPPORT FLYING START

Your gift will support the development of new and diverse Canadian Voices.

Donate Now

Please join us in congratulating Jordyn Wood and their play “Vascular Necrosis” for selection into the Flying Start Program!!

For the next two years, Jordyn will embark on an extensive dramaturgical development process led by our Associate Artist, Daniela Atiencia, and supported by Touchstone’s artistic team, culminating in a mainstage world premiere as part of Touchstone Theatre’s future season.

“With an artfulness both sensitive to its subject matter and unique in its vision, Vascular Necrosis cleverly subverts the Zombie-apocalypse genre to explore both our post-pandemic society and the complicated experience of mental illness in the context of this altered world. We are honoured to join Jordyn on this creative journey and can’t wait to see this incredibly original and insightful work hit the stage!”

Daniela Atiencia | Flying Start Jury Chair

About Jordan:
Jordyn Wood is a Vancouver-based playwright, theatre artist, and producer. Their practice has been intentionally varied, jumping from devising to playwriting to directing to curating and producing. Their written work negotiates the line of autobiography and fiction, using imagined subplots and scenarios in the service of a search for self. Influenced by their lived experience of queerness, chronic illness, and Madness, their work poses the question: how do you exist in a world you never felt a part of? Jordyn is currently the Company Producer of Realwheels Theatre, and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Simon Fraser University’s School of Contemporary Arts in the Theatre Performance stream. Recent playwriting credits include Vascular Necrosis, (presented as staged readings by Realwheels Theatre in 2024 & rEvolver Festival 2023), and Dry Rot (Or Festival 2022).

Visit them at jordynwood.com

PAST RECIPIENTS | PRODUCTIONS

THE WRONG BASHIR by Zahida Rahemtulla - 2021/2023

THE WRONG BASHIR

by Zahida Rahemtulla
World Premiere March 3, 2023

Featuring Aman Mann, Seth Ranaweera, Neha Devi Singh, Sabrina Vellani, Parm Soor, Salim Rahemtulla, Shera Haji, Hussein Janmohamed, Leena Manro

Directed by Daniela Atiencia


Bashir Ladha—wayward philosophy major leaning towards nihilism—has been selected to assume an important religious position, and his parents have dutifully accepted on his behalf. Family conflict ensues over Bashir’s reaction to his appointment. As the doorbell rings and several unexpected visitors turn up at the Ladha door, there is a sneaking suspicion that a mistake has been made, and the family is taken on a comedic intergenerational ride that forces them to grapple with long-avoided questions of identity and family.

Photo by Matt Reznek. Pictured Neha Devi Singh, Aman Mann, Seth Ranaweera

LIGHTS by Adam Grant Warren - 2018/2021

Lights

by Adam Grant Warren
World Premiere December 3, 2021

Featuring Adam Grant Warren, Susinn McFarlen, and Leslie Dos Remedios

Directed by Roy Surette


At once funny, intimate, and unsettling, Lights is a portrait of a tight-knit family facing profound life changes and what remains when a lifetime of memories begin to fade away.

Lights by Adam Grant Warren

Pictured: Adam Grant Warren & Susinn McFarlen. Picture by Emily Cooper.

C'MON, ANGIE! by Amy Lee Lavoie - 2016/2018

C’mon, Angie!

by Amy Lee Lavoie

World Premiere June 1, 2018

Featuring Kayla Deorksen and Robert Moloney

Directed by Lauren Taylor


The morning after a one-night stand, questions of consent lead to a highly charged confrontation. For Reed, it was a sexual fantasy played out in real time. For Angie, it was a violation. The details of their night together unravel as they struggle to unpack the truth of what happened.

C'mon Angie_Robert Moloney-Kayla Deorksen-Photo by Bold Rezolution Studio

Pictured: Robert Moloney & Kayla Deorksen. Photo by Bold Rezolution Studio

HOW TO SURVIVE AN APOCALYSE by Jordan Hall - 2014/2016

How to Survive an Apocalypse

by Jordan Hall
World Premiere June 3, 2016

Featuring Claire Hesselgrave, Sebastien Archibald, Lindsay Angell, Zahf Paroo

Directed by Katrina Dunn


A young and successful urban couple become convinced that their lifestyle is coming to an end. They become ‘preppers’, hoarding supplies and learning to hunt. But their obsession takes its toll, and they are both forced to imagine the apocalypse without the love of their life.

Apocalypse_Sebastien-Archibald-and-Claire-Hesselgrave.-Photo-by-Emily-Cooper

Pictured: Sebastien Archibald and Claire Hesselgrave.Photo by Emily Cooper

THE CONCESSIONS by Briana Brown - 2012/2014

The Concessions

by Briana Brown

World Premiere June 6, 2014

Featuring Jillian Fargey, Sebastian Kroon, Marilyn Norry, Emma Slipp, Alec Willows

Directed by Katrina Dunn


The Concessions centers around an inexplicable act of violence in a rural community. When Fay, a local tarot reader, fails to either foresee or prevent this tragedy, she questions the belief on which she has based her life. Faith, trust, and moving on after community crisis are some of the themes weaving through this “hauntingly beautiful piece of Canadian gothic”.

Pictured Emma Slipp. Photo by Tim Matheson

Pictured Emma Slipp. Photo by Tim Matheson

SHELTER FROM THE STORM by Peter Boychuk - 2010/2012

Shelter from the Storm

by Peter Boychuk

World Premiere June 1, 2012

Featuring Peter Hall, Kyle Jespersen, Lindsay Winch

Directed by Katrina Dunn

Pictured: Lindsay Winch and Kyle Jespersen. Photo by Pink Monkey Studios

Pictured: Lindsay Winch and Kyle Jespersen. Photo by Pink Monkey Studios

HERR BECKMANN'S PEOPLE by Sally Stubbs - 2008/2010

Herr Beckmann’s People

by Sally Stubbs
World Premiere June 11, 2010

Featuring Dawn Petten, Christine Wiles, Anthony F. Ingram, Bill Marchant, Donna Carroll White

Directed by Katrina Dunn


Anna, an established painter living in Canada, returns to Munich – the city she ran from decades earlier. As this poetic and powerful drama unfolds, Anna forces her family to answer tough questions about their past and the events of World War II. While her mother plays a private concert, history unravels, and Anna is confronted with a moral dilemma of her own. Inspired by factual events, Herr Beckmann’s People explores the question: How do we live with the choices we have made?

Herr Beckman's People.

Dawn Petten and Bill Marchant. Photo by Emily Cooper

THE DISSEMBLERS by Jason Bryden - 2006/2008

THE DISSEMBLERS

by Jason Bryden
World Premiere May 2, 2008

Starring Sasa Brown, Medina Hahn, John Murphy, Michael Rinaldi and Juno Ruddell

Directed by Amiel Gladstone


A wickedly funny comedy about our obsession with pretence in contemporary life.

PARTNERS