Jordan Tannahill (b. 1988) is a novelist, playwright, and director of film and theatre.
His debut novel, Liminal, won France’s 2021 Prix des Jeunes Libraires. His second novel, The Listeners, was shortlisted for the 2021 Giller Prize, and formed the basis of an opera by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek.
Jordan’s work has been translated into twelve languages. His plays, performance texts, and productions have been presented at venues including The Young Vic Theatre (London), Sadler's Wells (London), Festival d'Avignon (Avignon), The Kitchen (NYC), The Lincoln Centre (NYC), The Deutsches Theater (Berlin), The Volkstheater (Vienna), Canadian Stage (Toronto), Festival TransAmériques (Montreal), and on London's West End. He has twice won Canada’s Governor General's Literary Award for Drama: in 2014 for Age of Minority: Three Solo Plays, and in 2018 for his plays Botticelli in the Fire & Sunday in Sodom.
As a filmmaker, Jordan's work has been presented at various international festivals. His virtual reality performance Draw Me Close, produced by the National Theatre (UK) and the National Film Board of Canada, was presented at the Tribeca and Venice Film Festivals in 2017, and ran at London's Young Vic Theatre in 2019. Jordan has also worked in dance, choreographing and performing with Christopher House in Marienbad for the Toronto Dance Theatre, and writing the text for Akram Khan's dance pieces Xenos and Outwitting the Devil.
From 2008 - 2016, Jordan wrote and directed plays through his theatre company Suburban Beast. The company’s work was staged in theatres, art galleries, and found spaces, often with non-traditional collaborators like night-shift workers, frat boys, preteens, and employees of Toronto's famed Honest Ed's discount emporium. From 2012 - 2016, in collaboration with William Ellis, Jordan ran the alternative art space Videofag out of their home in Toronto’s Kensington Market neighbourhood. Over the four years of its operation, Videofag became an influential incubator for queer and avant-garde work in the city. The Videofag Book was published by Book*hug Press in 2017.
In 2019, CBC Arts named Tannahill as one of sixty-nine LGBTQ Canadians, living or deceased, who has shaped the country's history.
