Gay Play Tuesdays: ONCE BEFORE I GO by Phillip McMahon (2021)
by Phillip McMahon
“a play that implores us to join the dance, to live fully, to live without judgment, to live well.” – The Irish Times
Join us for a special St. Patrick’s Day installment of Gay Play Tuesdays on March 17th at 7pm, when we will read Once Before I Go by Irish playwright Phillip McMahon (2021). Told against the backdrop of Dublin’s burgeoning gay rights movement of the 1980s and 1990s and the contemporary LGBTQ+ community of today, Once Before I Go charts the close friendship of Lynn, Daithí, and the luminous Bernard. Exploring the fragile yet resilient bonds of Irish queer lives across three decades in Dublin, London and Paris, the play steps between the early days of the AIDS crisis and today’s LGBTQ+ community, living in an era of marriage equality, gender self-determination, and untransmittable HIV. At once political, joyous and heart-breaking, Once Before I Go honors the fabulous people we lost along the way, and celebrates those who fight on.
What is “Gay Play Tuesdays”?
What makes a “gay play?” Is it dependent on the identity of the author or characters? The reception of the play by LGBTQIA+ audiences? The play’s politics or aesthetics? Or is there something else, less definable, that might make a play a gay classic?
Join our Resident Dramaturg, Jesse Marchese, for a monthly free play reading salon where we will investigate some of the most impactful, provocative, and fearless “gay plays” from the 20th and 21st centuries. Being a “salon,” this is not a professional performance. Rather, we treat each session as a classroom where the plays are our teachers.
We will treat every session as a first read through, assigning parts on a first come, first served basis. You are welcome to come and read a role out loud or just listen along – no experience necessary! Once we finish reading through the play we will engage in a short discussion of its themes and ideas.