Every Day She Rose
Description
After the Black Lives Matter protest at the 2016 Toronto Pride Parade, two friends find their racial and queer politics aren’t as aligned as they thought, and the playwrights behind them must figure out how to write about the fallout.
Cathy Ann, a straight Black woman, and her roommate Mark, a gay white man, came home from the parade with such differing views of what happened and how it affected their own communities. Cathy Ann agrees with the protest that the police presence at the parade doesn’t make her feel safe, while Mark felt safer with them there, especially in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Frustrated he can’t see the bigger issue, Cathy Ann questions if she can continue living with Mark. Simultaneously, playwrights Andrea and Nick—who share the same identities as their characters—pause throughout the show to figure out how to work together to tell the story of a significant turning point in a friendship.
Through both sets of dialogue, Every Day She Rose is a powerful exploration of white supremacy, privilege, and patriarchy in supposed safe spaces.
Reviews
“All of the writing is superb… [Every Day She Rose is] absolutely of the moment and asks important questions. And that is what theatre is supposed to do.”
- Susan G. Cole, NOW Magazine
“Every Day She Rose asks more and more complex questions: whose experience should be centered? Whose fears are valid? Is Pride a celebration or a site of protest? How do we hold and validate each others’ trauma? What is the responsibility of an ally or co-resistor to their best friend? Of a collaborator to their collaborator? The characters hold it all.”
- S. Bear Bergman, Mooney on Theatre
“A blazingly intelligent play… Every Day She Rose is a bracing, highly charged, funny, intelligent play and it’s important.”
- Lynn Slotkin, The Slotkin Letter