The Real Poems
by Robert McQueen
When our world went into lockdown in March of 2020, the air outside my apartment was suddenly still and my calendar was suddenly empty.
From inside that still~emptiness I sat at my kitchen table and began to write out my experiences as a young queer man, living between Vancouver and New York City during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980’s and 90’s.
The Real Poems is spoken witness to the joy of youth, discovery and wild adventure. It is memorial to the lives of colleagues, lovers and friends lost.
Cast and Creative
Written by: Robert McQueen
Composed by: Laura Burton
Co-Directed by: Damien Atkins and Andrew Kushnir
Cast: Robert McQueen
Lighting and Sound Design: Stephen Degenstein
Stage Management: Sarah Lappano
Robert McQueen
The past two years have offered me the opportunity to deep dive into my Spanish language study, become an apprentice beekeeper, pick up my cello practice and to start writing.
The Real Poems is my first written work for the theatre.
My past theatre work includes directing productions for The Stratford Festival, Musical Stage Company, Mirvish Productions, Yonge Street Theatricals, The Canadian Opera Company, Vancouver Opera, Pacific Opera, Broadway: Associate Director of Mamma Mia, Associate Director: ShowBoat.
I have directed theatre and opera in London, New York, Tokyo, Mexico City, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Panama City, Shanghai and Phnom Penh.
Damien Atkins
Actor and playwright Damien Atkins has performed (and seen his work performed) on stages across Canada and the U.S., including the Stratford Festival (where he spent 4 seasons as an actor and where his play Good Mother opened in 2001) and the Shaw Festival (where he has spent 5 seasons as an actor, and where his adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian will premiere). He has been playwright-in-residence at Canadian Stage, The Factory Theatre, Crow’s Theatre, and currently at Necessary Angel. He has also been Writer-in-Residence at the University of British Columbia and a Guest Instructor at the National Theatre School. Damien has received a Jessie Award, a Sterling Award, a Toronto Theatre Critics Award and four Dora Mavor Moore Awards for acting and writing.
Andrew Kushnir
Andrew Kushnir is an actor, playwright, director, as well as artistic director of the socially-engaged theatre company Project: Humanity (PH) in Toronto. Since 2021, he has steered PH’s Proximity Lab, an incubator for new approaches to verbatim theatre. He has directed for PH and Crow’s Theatre, the Thousand Islands Playhouse, Western Canada Theatre, Theatre Sheridan, and the National Theatre School. He has collaborated on two books coming out in 2022: Moving the Centre: Two Plays: Small Axe and Freedom Singer (Talon Books, with Khari Wendell McClelland) and Hope in a Collapsing World (U of T Press, with Kathleen Gallagher). Andrew is the creator and host of This Is Something Else – an investigative theatre history podcast for the Arts Club. He is a graduate of the University of Alberta, a Loran Scholar and alumnist of the Michael Langham Workshop for Classical Direction at the Stratford Festival. kushnirandrew.com and projecthumanity.ca
Laura Burton
Over an incredible 42 seasons at the Stratford Festival, Laura has lent her talents to every aspect of music making, including work as a composer, arranger, conductor, musician and music director. Most recently, she was the music director for this past summer’s cabaret You Can’t Stop the Beat. Laura has worked as a music director on some of Stratford’s most well-loved musicals, including Little Shop of Horrors (2019), The Rocky Horror Show (2018), A Chorus Line (2016), Guys and Dolls (2017), and The Sound of Music (2015), and has composed music for productions like Hamlet (2000) and Inherit the Wind (2001). Beyond Stratford, Laura has worked with ACT San Francisco, the Citadel Theatre, Soulpepper, and the National Arts Centre, among others. She is the 2014 winner of the Festival’s Tyrone Award and holds five Guthrie Awards and two Sterling Awards, and has been nominated for San Francisco Bay’s Best Music Direction Award.
Stephen Degenstein
Stephen is thrilled to be on board with Here For Now Theatre as lighting and sound designer. Stephen has more than 600 production credits across Canada over the past 35 years; his theatre design credits include Stratford Festival, Drayton Entertainment, National Arts Centre, Native Earth Performing Arts and Neptune Theatre. Credits in Stratford include resident lighting designer for INNERchamber, set and lighting designer for Alternative Theatre Works where credits include lighting for The Wind in the Willows, set and lighting for The Bear, Yalta Game, Afterplay, Jewel, and A Tender Thing. In addition to creating multiple set designs for Off The Wall at Factory 163, Stephen has been the technical director for SpringWorks over the past 10 years and was the designer/technical director for The International Children’s Festival held in Stratford in 2016. Stephen has taught in various technical theatre programmes including The Performing Arts Prep Program at Sheridan College, Humber College and Fanshawe College. Stephen resides in Stratford with his wife, singer/songwriter Pamela Jane Gerrand.