The latest made-in-New Brunswick production will be hitting television screens Thursday night. “Revival,” which stars award-winning Canadian actress Melanie Scrofano, is based on the graphic novel series of the same name. The series consists of 10 hour-long episodes, all of which were filmed in southern New Brunswick. “This has been a number of years leading up to this moment for us to have a TV series of this scale here in New Brunswick produced by our company,” says Greg Hemmings of Hemmings House Pictures. “So, we’re pretty thrilled.” Hemmings, who is also an executive producer of the show, says the series is a ‘cult classic’ based in a sleepy little town called Wausau, Wisconsin. Tensions and fear run high in the community when the recently deceased come back to life and return to town. Dana Cypress, played by Scrofano, stars as a police officer at the centre of the plot. She is tasked with solving a murder where both the living and revived are suspects. Fellow executive producer, Stephen Foster, who is also with Hemmings House Pictures, says Saint John works as a perfect backdrop for the setting. “You just got to not point the cameras at the Bay of Fundy, that’s the only trick,” Foster jokes. Southern New Brunswick viewers will likely recognize some locations with filming being done around uptown Saint John, and in neighbouring communities like Grand Bay-Westfield, Hampton, and Sussex. Filming for the series saw over 200 New Brunswickers find full-time work for the production and over 400 part-time workers, says Foster. There were also 51 people who experienced working in the industry for the first time during production. One of those was nine-year-old Flora McInroy from Saint John. McInroy plays the character Jordan Borchardt, who is one of the youngest people to come back from the dead in town. She was one of over 100 girls to audition for the role in an open casting call - one she only found out about thanks to her mom being a hairstylist for production. She says, with it being her first time acting, she never expected to get the part. “I just can’t believe it,” McInroy admits on the thought of starring in a TV series in her hometown. “I’m very proud of myself for being able to do this, and I’m very thankful and grateful for just being able to do this, meeting other people, being able to share this experience and share the work that everyone has worked so hard on.” She, like Foster and Hemmings, hopes “Revival” is the first of many big productions to be filmed in the province in the months and years ahead. McInroy notes she may never have gotten the chance to act had it not been for the local production. “These aren’t just beer and pizza paying jobs,” points out Foster. “These are union scale jobs. These are jobs that you can get a mortgage on and we’re continuing to urge the government to continue to participate with us on this.” The show debuts Thursday at 11 p.m. Atlantic time on CTV’s Sci-Fi Channel and will stream the next day on Crave. A free community public screening of the first two episodes will be held in Saint John on June 27. For more New Brunswick news, visit our dedicated provincial page.
