Body Politic
- Publisher
- Playwrights Canada Press
- Initial publish date
- May 2019
- Category
- Gay & Lesbian, Canadian
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781770919747
- Publish Date
- May 2019
- List Price
- $17.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781770919761
- Publish Date
- May 2019
- List Price
- $12.99
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
The point is that we started the conversation.
In 1971 Phillip was on the cusp of starting something big. Something that would make history. Now he’s an aging journalist trying to make sense of Grindr. Phillip was a founding member of The Body Politic, a gay-liberation newspaper based in Toronto. As he recounts memories of censorship battles, police raids, historic rallies, and the onset of HIV/AIDS during an intimate encounter with a younger man, their generational differences shine a light on the massive shifts in queer identity and politics over the last fifty years.
This historical drama reimagines the events surrounding the birth, life, and death of one of the most important journalistic forces in Canada, and the opportunities it created for the future.
About the authors
Nick Green is a Dora and Sterling Award–winning playwright, and the creator of the Social Distancing Festival. Credits include Happy Birthday Baby J (Shadow Theatre); Every Day She Rose (Nightwood Theatre, co-written with Andrea Scott); Fangirl (book; Launch Pad at the Musical Stage Company); In Real Life (book; Canadian Music Theatre Projects); Dinner with the Duchess (Next Stage Festival, BroadwayWorld Toronto Award); Body Politic (Buddies in Bad Times/lemonTree Creations; Dora Award); Poof! The Musical (book and lyrics; Capitol Theatre, Sterling Award nomination); and The Fabulous Buddha Boi (Guys UnDisguised, Sterling Award). He lives in Toronto.
Donna-Michelle St. Bernard, a.k.a. Belladonna the Blest, is an emcee, playwright, agitator, and practitioner of humanitarian arts. Her main body of work, the 54ology, includes Cake, Sound of the Beast, A Man A Fish, Salome’s Clothes, Gas Girls, Give It Up, The Smell of Horses, Bilguisa Speaks Up, Diggers, Conjugal, Hunt/Peck, and The First Stone. She is a contributor to The Only Good Indian (Jiv Parasram, Tom Arthur Davis/Pandemic Theatre), Forbidden (Afarin Mansouri/Tapestry Opera), and Oubliette (Ivan Barbotin/Tapestry Opera). Other theatre works include Reaching for Starlight, They Say He Fell, and The Final Inquiry. She is co-editor with Yvette Nolan of Refractions: Solo (2014) and Refractions: Scenes (2020) and editor of Indian Act: Residential School Plays (2018), all published with Playwrights Canada Press.
Excerpt: Body Politic (by (author) Nick Green; introduction by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard)
Phillip: Kettle’s on. If you guys are okay here, I think I’m going to…
Steven: It was a good piece, Phillip. It caught the raw energy. The emotion. The hope.
Phillip: I agree. They were scared of it. Fucking typical.
Steven: That’s what I’m saying. It needs to be read.
Calvin: Well then, let’s get it the fuck out there.
Steven: It needs to be out there.
Phillip: You guys should really do that.
Steven: We can’t. Who’s going to publish it? No one’s going to publish this thing, it’s too…
Calvin: What?
Steven: No one is publishing this kind of thing.
Calvin: You just said that.
Steven: Someone should be.
Calvin: I think we’re on the same page here.
Steven: I could be.
Phillip: You could be.
Steven: We should be.
Phillip: Yeah, you guys should be.
Steven: No. All of us.
Phillip: I’m actually pretty busy these days.
Calvin: You’re not.
Steven: You really aren’t.
Calvin: But it’ll take more than three people.
Steven: Obviously, Calvin.
Calvin: Who?
Steven: You call Jason and Patrick.
Calvin: And Carl.
Steven: I hate Carl. Oh, ask Chaz.
Calvin: Maybe you should ask Chaz.
Steven: Oh, and Deb.
Calvin: Phillip, you have that friend at U of T.
Phillip: I think that this is more your speed, you guys.
Calvin: Okay, bye.
Steven: Phillip, I won’t listen to it. You’re in. Okay? Just say it. You’re in. Okay?
Phillip: Okay. I’m in.
Steven: Good. So let’s get started.
Editorial Reviews
“Body Politic is by turns funny, enlightening, heartbreaking and occasionally, for seasoning, bewildering.”
Mooney on Theatre
“For some, this will be a reminder of history; for others, an important history lesson.”
NOW Magazine