Concord Floral
Concord Floral is a real greenhouse outside of Vaughan, Ontario. My director was inspired by its sheer length and scale, which led us to place the audience onstage and orient the performance from stage left to stage right, rather than the traditional upstage-to-downstage configuration.
This choice made the build both large and technically challenging, but ultimately created an immersive and awe-inspiring experience for the audience. We lined the hallways, audience seating, and stage with found materials, and incorporated greenhouse plastics as a kind of cyclorama for the lighting designer.
A map of Vaughan was integrated into the floor and gradually transformed into root-like patterns. This gesture reflects the idea that while leaving the suburbs may allow you to grow in new ways, the place you come from, the ground where you first took root, continues to shape who you become.