It's All Tru

By Sky Gilbert

“There used to be people dying and they didn’t know why and there was nothing anyone could do, but most of all—no one cared whether we lived or whether we died.”

Love, sex, and pharmaceuticals are put to the test when a gay couple’s open relationship is threatened with dangerous consequences.

Kurt, a silver fox dance instructor, and his young fiancé, Travis, have an arrangement: when one’s away, they’re allowed to stray . . . as long as they’re safe. One night, over a dinner conversation about wedding invitations, Travis admits that he had a fling with a man named Gideon whom he believes removed the condom during sex. He also reveals that he didn’t start taking the HIV preventative medication PrEP (Truvada)—as promised—putting himself and Kurt in danger of contracting HIV. When Gideon appears on their doorstep in the middle of the night, the threat against Kurt and Travis’s relationship is an alarming force to be reckoned with.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Playwrights Canada Press
• Release date: Jun 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9780369100962

Sky Gilbert

Sky Gilbert is a writer, theatre director, and drag queen extraordinaire. He was the founding artistic director (1979 to 1997) of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre—one of the world’s longest-running gay and lesbian theatres. There is a street in Toronto named after him—Sky Gilbert Lane (you can google it!). He has had more than forty plays produced and has written seven critically acclaimed novels and three poetry collections. He has received three Dora Mavor Moore Awards, the Pauline McGibbon Award, and the Silver Ticket Award. His latest novel, Sad Old Faggot (ECW Press), was critically acclaimed. His book Shakespeare Beyond Science: When Poetry was the World will be published by Guernica Editions in 2020. He lives in Hamilton.

Book preview

A neon pink representation of a spiky virus looms over a blue background at the top of the page. The virus is cut in half by a solid neon pink square of colour in the lower half. The words 'It's All Tru' is presented in large white and yellow block letters over the whole cover.

Also by Sky Gilbert

Drag Queens in Outer Space

Drag Queens on Trial

I Have

AIDS

!

The Mommiad

St. Francis of Millbrook

Suzie Goo: Private Secretary

It’s All Tru

Sky Gilbert

Playwrights Canada Press

Toronto

It’s All Tru © Copyright

2020

by Sky Gilbert

First edition: May

2020

Jacket art and design by Leah Renihan

Playwrights Canada Press

202

-

269

Richmond St. W., Toronto, ON M

5

V

1

X

1

416.703.0013

:: [e-mail] :: www.playwrightscanada.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, downloaded, or used in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for excerpts in a review or by a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca.

For professional or amateur production rights, please contact:

The Playwrights Guild of Canada

350

-

401

Richmond Street W., Toronto,

ON

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3A8

416.703.0201

:: [e-mail]

Library

and

Archives

Canada

Cataloguing

in

Publication

Title: It’s all Tru / Sky Gilbert.

Names: Gilbert, Sky,

1952

- author.

Description: First edition.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print)

20200221108

| Canadiana (ebook)

20200221116

|

ISBN

9780369100948

(softcover) |

ISBN

9780369100955

(

PDF

)

|

ISBN

9780369100962

(

EPUB

) |

ISBN

9780369100979

(Kindle)

Subjects:

LCGFT

: Drama.

Classification:

LCC

PS8563

.

I4743

I87

2020

|

DDC

C812

/.

54

 — dc

23

Playwrights Canada Press operates on Mississaugas of the Credit, Wendat, Anishinaabe, Métis, and Haudenosaunee land. It always was and always will be Indigenous land.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts — which last year invested $

153

million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country — the Ontario Arts Council (

OAC

), Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada for our publishing activities.

A stylized, illustrated blue tree sits to the left of the words 'Canada Council for the Arts / Counseil des arts du Canada.''The word Canada is written out with a Canadian flag—a red maple leaf flanked by two vertical red stripes—situated above the final A.An orange O is bisected by a green and purple C, situated to the left of the words 'Ontario Creates | Ontario Créatif.''A large red A is bisected by an angled blue C, with a green O balanced between the two letters on the left. To the right of the OAC logo are the words 'Ontario Arts Council / Counseil des arts de l'Ontario' over a red line with the words 'An Ontario Government Agency / un organisme du gouvernement de l'Ontario' below the line.

For Ian, again.

Contents

Also by Sky Gilbert

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Production History

Characters

It’s All Tru

Scene One

Scene Two

Scene Three

Scene Four

Scene Five

Scene Six

Scene Seven

Scene Eight

Scene Nine

About the Author

Landmarks

Also by Sky Gilbert

Copyright

Dedication

Table of Contents

Introduction

Production History

Characters

It’s All Tru

Scene One

Scene Two

Scene Three

Scene Four

Scene Five

Scene Six

Scene Seven

Scene Eight

Scene Nine

About the Author

Page List

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Introduction

The situation with the criminalization of

HIV

in Canada has changed somewhat since this play was written. So is It’s All Tru still relevant now?

In

2012

the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that people with

HIV

have an obligation to disclose their status "when there is a realistic possibility of transmission of

HIV

" (R. v Mabior). It was under this rubric that only the

USA

managed to surpass Canada for the largest number of arrests and prosecutions for

HIV

non-disclosure. It was also in this atmosphere that I wrote this play, partly to call attention to what I saw as an unjust situation.

However, in December

2018

, a binding directive was issued by the Attorney General of Canada, which recommended that judges take into consideration several other details about the accused: their viral load, whether or not they were being treated with

HIV

drugs, and what type of sexual activities they engaged in. The attorney general also recommended that non-disclosure be considered a non-sexual offence, which brings a milder penalty. These recommendations — because they were made at the national level — only directly affect Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon. However, Ontario and

BC

have both also made some attempts to limit the prosecutions for

HIV

non-disclosure.

So it’s true that governments in Canada are beginning to recognize that the prosecution of people for