Jordan Tannahill (born May 19, 1988) is a Canadian writer and director. He is author of the play Prince Faggot,"Jordan Tannahill's Prince F sets World Premiere Off-Broadway via Playwrights Horizons and Soho Rep". Playbill, Oct 29, 2024. and the novels The Living Realm and The Listeners, the latter of which was shortlisted for the 2021 Giller Prize,"Read an excerpt from Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist The Listeners by Jordan Tannahill". CBC Books, October 5, 2021. and adapted into a limited series for the BBC. His novels and plays have been translated into twelve languages, and honoured with several prizes including two Governor General's Literary Awards. "Thomas King wins Governor General's award for fiction". The Globe and Mail, November 18, 2014.
Tannahill has been described as "the enfant terrible of Canadian Theatre" by Libération and The Walrus, and "one of Canada's leading writers" by Helen Shaw in The New Yorker. In 2019, CBC Arts named Tannahill as one of sixty-nine LGBTQ Canadians, living or deceased, who has shaped the country's history.
Early life
Tannahill was born and raised in Ottawa, where he attended Canterbury High School. He moved to Toronto at the age of eighteen, and began making short films and staging experimental plays, often with non-traditional collaborators like night-shift workers, frat boys, preteens, and employees of Toronto's famed Honest Ed's discount emporium."SummerWorks 2009: The Graveyard Shift". Torontoist, August 8, 2009."Takes Two Men To Make a Brother at The Harbourfront Centre" . The Harbourfront Centre, February 6, 2009."Biting Into Rhubarb: Part Two". Torontoist, February 19, 2010."Honesty". Now, October 22, 2012. In his early twenties, he made several photographic and video works with artist Nina Arsenault."After a death hoax in February, playwright, performance artist and journalist Nina Arsenault speaks candidly about art, aging and mortality". Toronto Star, March 18, 2021."Performing Que(e)ries: Nina Arsenault with J. Paul Halferty". City University of New York, 2013. After living in Toronto for ten years, Tannahill moved to London in 2016, where he became active in the city's kink scene."6 fetishists debunk the kink scene's biggest myths". Dazed, December 1, 2022."Author Jordan Tannahill is making latex dreams come true". Interview (magazine), April 19, 2022.
Videofag
In 2012, Tannahill and his then-boyfriend William Ellis converted a former barbershop in Toronto's Kensington Market into Videofag, a small, multi-arts space that functioned variously as a gallery, cinema, and performance venue. Over the four years of its existence, Videofag became a hub for queer counterculture in Toronto."A 'cacophonous homage' to Videofag". Toronto Star, November 24, 2022."The legacy of a great late Canadian queer art space". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, June 28, 2016.
Novels
Liminal
Tannahill's debut novel, Liminal, published in 2018, is a work of autofiction which follows the author as he reckons with the nature of consciousness and the abject, precipitated by the sight of his mother's sleeping - or possibly dead - body."Jordan Tannahill's Liminal plays truth for dramatic effect" The Toronto Star, February 9, 2018. In her review of the novel, Martha Schabas of The Globe and Mail wrote "Tannahill's lushly intelligent debut... captures something illuminating and undefinable about the present moment; it speaks in the code and cadences of the late 2010s and paints an incisive portrait of the demographic we call millennial"."Jordan Tannahill's Liminal paints an incisive portrait of millennials" The Globe and Mail, February 8, 2018. In Le Devoir, Anne-Frédérique Hébert-Dolbec called the novel "a prodigious odyssey that tests the limits of reason and materiality.""«Liminal»: entre la vie et la mort, un temps suspendu" Le Devoir, December 28, 2019. Liminal won the 2021 Prix des Jeunes Libraires."Prix des jeunes libraires". Prix des jeunes libraires, June 16, 2021.
The Listeners
The Listeners, published in 2021, follows Claire Devon, a woman whose life and beliefs are irrevocably altered after she starts hearing The Hum. The book made the Canadian national bestsellers list, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Giller Prize.Adina Bresge, "Two-time runner-up Miriam Toews among authors on Giller Prize shortlist". The Globe and Mail, October 5, 2021. In their citation, the Giller jury called the novel "a masterful interrogation of the body, as well as the desperate violence that undergirds our lives in the era of social media, conspiracies, isolation and environmental degradation.""What you need to know about the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize finalists". CBC Books, November 5, 2021.
The Listeners began as a story written for a new opera by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek, which premiered at the Norwegian National Opera in 2022, directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz."The Listeners at Den Norske Opera & Ballet". Den Norske Opera & Ballet, November 11, 2022. Zachary Woolfe in the New York Times named the production one of the Best Classical Performances of 2024, calling it "the unmissable opera of the season","6 Performances Our Classical Critics Can't Stop Thinking About". The New York Times, October 30, 2024. while Alex Ross of The New Yorker called it "mesmerizing" and declared Mazzoli "a once-in-a-generation magician of the orchestra.""Missy Mazzoli's Mesmerizing New Opera About a Sonic Cult". The New Yorker, October 7, 2024.
Tannahill adapted his novel into a limited series, produced by Element Pictures for the BBC, directed by Janicza Bravo and starring Rebecca Hall."‘The Listeners’ Review: Rebecca Hall’s Tour de Force Performance Carries Starz’s Eerie and Elusive Semi-Thriller". The Hollywood Reporter, June 11, 2026. The series premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival,"The 8 best movies (and one TV show) we saw at the Toronto International Film Festival". The LA Times, September 12, 2024. and aired to critical acclaim"Rebecca Hall's hauntingly delicate drama will paralyse you with dread". The Guardian, November 19, 2024."The Listeners review - a primetime mystery with an ear for the profound". The Times, November 19, 2024. on BBC on November 19, 2024.
The Living Realm
Tannahill's third novel, published in September 2026 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, follows an unnamed British expat who, while cruising one evening by Teufelssee, encounters a stranger who he becomes convinced is his long-dead lover, Lukas."The Living Realm". Farrar, Straus and Giroux, accessed April 8, 2026. Christopher Bollen, in his review of the novel in The New York Times, described the novel as "astonishing" and wrote: "In this extraordinary and sensitive novel, Tannahill puts Leo Bersani's ideas to the test, proving there’s a lot of brain fodder in bodies groping in the dark.""A Slim, Astonishing Novel of a Man Haunted by His Dead Boyfriends". New York Times, accessed September 10, 2026. In a starred review, Publisher's Weekly described the novel as "a perfectly rendered story of friendship, love, and the porous border between the living and the dead.""The Living Realm". Publisher's Weekly, accessed September 10, 2026.
Other Writing Tannahill is a regular contributor to Butt (magazine),"Durk Dehner". Butt (magazine), Autumn 2022. and has both written and spoken openly about his experiences with escorting and kink."Prince F*gg*t Says It's About Prince George — It’s Really About Jordan Tannahill". Them (magazine), September 12, 2025.‘Gimp play is a craft’: how a Canadian writer went from fetish sex work to creating powerful BBC drama, The Guardian, Nov 15, 2024.
Tannahill's book of essays on theatre, Theatre of the Unimpressed: In Search of Vital Drama, first published in 2015,"The 50 most anticipated books of 2015 (the first half, anyway)". The Globe and Mail, January 2, 2015. was called "essential reading for anybody interested in the state of contemporary theatre and performance" by The Globe and Mail."Jordan Tannahill's Theatre of the Unimpressed is essential reading for anybody interested in contemporary theatre". The Globe and Mail, June 12, 2015. In 2022, Playbill listed the book as one of fourteen essential books for theatre students."14 Essential Books for Theatre Students". Playbill, September 10, 2022.
Theatre and performance
Tannahill's first collection of plays, Age of Minority: Three Solo Plays, was published in 2013 and received Canada's Governor General's Award for English-language drama.
His play Late Company, about two sets of parents seeking closure after a tragedy involving their sons, premiered in Toronto in 2014, and went on to receive multiple productions across Canada, and abroad, including on London's West End. The play's Polish translation has been running in repertory at Juliusz Słowacki Theatre in Kraków since 2021.. Teatr w Krakowie, January 22, 2025.
Concord Floral, a play written by Tannahill, and developed and directed by Erin Brubacher and Cara Spooner over a three-year process involving Toronto-area teenagers, is a reimagining of Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron as a contemporary suburban ghost story. The play premiered in 2014 at The Theatre Centre in Toronto, and has since been produced in translation at theatres including the Volkstheater, Vienna and the Deutsches Theater (Berlin). Concord Floral was a finalist for the 2016 Governor General's Award for English-language drama, and won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for 'Outstanding New Play'.
Tannahill premiered a double-bill of plays, Botticelli in the Fire & Sunday in Sodom in 2016 at Canadian Stage in Toronto. The first play, Botticelli in the Fire, is a queer reimagining of the events leading up to the bonfire of the vanities in 1497 Florence, while the second play, Sunday in Sodom, is a retelling of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah from the perspective of Lot's wife. The plays jointly won the 2018 Governor General's Award for English-language drama.
Tannahill's play Declarations, regarding his mother's terminal illness, premiered in 2018 at Canadian Stage in Toronto, was later presented at the 2021 Festival TransAmériques in Montreal. His play for an ensemble of young people, Is My Microphone On?, was commissioned by Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus and Theater der Welt, and premiered at the 2022 Theater der Welt, before productions in Canada, Germany, Sweden, and as part of the 2023 National Theatre Connections festival in London."Ist mein Mikro an?". Residence Theatre, March 19, 2023."Connections". Royal National Theatre, March 19, 2023. The play was a finalist for the 2023 Governor General's Award for English-language drama.
Prince Faggot had its world premiere Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons, in a co-production with Soho Rep, and ran from May 30, 2025 to August 3, 2025."The Play Is Fiction, but Their Monologues Are (Partly) Their Own". New York Times, September 15, 2025. It later transferred to Studio Seaview, where it ran commercially Off-Broadway from September 10, 2025 to December 13, 2025."Prince F****t Extends Off-Broadway Return". Playbill, Sept 10, 2025. The play won the 2026 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, and was a finalist for the 2026 Lambda Literary Award for Drama."Jaime Burnet, Jordan Tannahill and jaye simpson shortlisted for 2SLGBTQ+ writing awards". CBC Books, March 20, 2026.
Other performances
In 2024, Tannahill wrote a text for artist Miles Greenberg's nine hour durational performance, RESPAWN, at the Art Gallery of Ontario, which was both incorporated into the performance’s soundscape, and tattooed onto life-sized, sex doll sculptures bearing Greenberg’s likeness."A Performance Piece The Required a Fencing Coach and a Sex Doll Maker". New York Times, August 5, 2024.