I have AIDS!
By: Sky Gilbert
Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Toronto
Language: eng
Number of pages: 66
ISBN-13: 9780887549069
Subjects: Drama; AIDS (Disease)
Description: When stand-up comic Prodon Slamzeck tells his lover Vidor that he has aids, it barely interrupts their dinner. And why should it? What was once a death sentence is now no more than a chronic condition, and most gay men deal with aids with much less melodrama than they did years ago. Following him through the five stages of acceptance-- Denial, Partying, Loss of Control, Religious Conversion, and Acceptance--the play pops in and out of monologues with Prodon and into scenes with Lady Booty, an outrageous drag queen, Ron, a man who has made aids his personal religion, and the ever supportive Vidor, each giving their own advice for how to take the news. A black comedy like no other, I Have AIDS! is a play about gay men who are neither tragic or sad, and we are led to laugh with them, not at them.
Notes: Sky Gilbert is an accomplished author, actor, filmmaker, and drag queen. Born in Connecticut, Gilbert studied theatre at both York University and the University of Toronto before becoming the co-founder and artistic director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in 1979. Gilbert left Buddies in 1997 to focus on his creative pursuits, and accepted a post as an assistant professor at Guelph University. A year after receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, Gilbert was named University Research Chair in Creative Writing and Theatre Studies at Guelph.