Bloor West and Dufferin streets based actor Jordan Pettle stars in Tarragon Theatre's 'Waiting Room,' which makes its world premiere Wednesday, Jan. 14. Pettle plays a father whose infant son needs life-saving medical treatment. - Courtesy/TARRAGON THEATRE
Tarragon Theatre’s production of Waiting Room tells the heart-breaking story of having a sick child
Thespian Jordan Pettle is drawing on his experience as a father to two young boys for his latest role in Tarragon Theatre’s world premiere of Waiting Room.
Bloor West and Dufferin streets based actor Jordan Pettle stars in Tarragon Theatre's 'Waiting Room,' which makes its world premiere Wednesday, Jan. 14. Pettle plays a father whose infant son needs life-saving medical treatment. - Courtesy/TARRAGON THEATRE
Thespian Jordan Pettle is drawing on his experience as a father to two young boys for his latest role in Tarragon Theatre’s world premiere of Waiting Room.
Billed as a drama about diagnosis, prognosis and uncertainty, Waiting Room tells the story of a doctor who undertakes a ground-breaking medical experiment amid the disapproval of his colleagues. His infant patient’s parents are torn about whether or not the physician can save their baby. The play is set in the waiting room of a major children’s hospital. It opens Wednesday, Jan. 14 and runs until Feb. 15.
Despite its heavy subject, Pettle says there are a lot of laughs.
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"Thankfully, I’ve never experienced what my character is going through," the Bloor West and Dufferin streets-area told The Villager. "But, my son had to have a surgery at SickKids – he was four years old at the time. I have a lot of things I’m drawing on."
The play was inspired by playwright Diane Flacks’ own experience in a neo-natal intensive care unit with her baby son seven years ago. For nine months, the medical staff and other parents became Flacks’ world and her family.
"While inspired by my personal situation, Waiting Room is not my story – it has elements of my story as well as the stories of dozens of people I met and interviewed," she said in a statement. "It speaks to tricky, often insoluble questions of humanity that both patients and doctors confront when they find themselves on the precipice of life and death, and contemplate whether they should risk, or refrain."
A friend of Flacks, Pettle said he was drawn to the play for its "enormous" amount of love. It possesses a number of universal themes a lot of people will be able to relate to, he said.
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Pettle caught the acting bug in high school. He took acting classes at Tarragon Theatre’s Maggie Bassett Studio where he’d see actors on lunch break from rehearsal and think, ‘I want to do that,’ he recalled.
Growing up in Leaside, Pettle would go on to perform at Stratford for four seasons. He has done film, television and lots of voice-over work.
"I’ve always loved the pure play of it," he said about acting. "I love make-believe."
See Waiting Room at Tarragon Theatre’s Mainspace, 30 Bridgman Ave., Tuesday to Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2:30 p.m. and select Saturdays at 2:30 p.m.
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