"Bill" by Roger Q. Mason (Philadelphia Reading with Post-Show Social)

Bill by Roger Q. Mason

Directed by Danilo Gambini (Cats: The Jellicle Ball)

Dramaturgy by Amrita Ramanan

With Charlie Thurtson (Julia, Liberation)

Democracy is dead, to begin with and Taffeta, a Black, queer femme of impossible brilliance, refuses to be this country’s janitor once again. Instead, she appoints herself freedom’s only mourner, digging its grave.

As she honors a system that feasted on her people’s rights, three crusty yet resplendent Founding Muthafuckaz (Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Paine) drag their ghostly essences onto the scene and try to enlist Taffeta to build them a new nation for free, brick by brick. But a stranger forces Taffeta to confront whether the country she’s inherited is worth fighting for, or whether it deserves to be rebuilt at all, forcing her to choose a louder, riskier dream built on our rage, our care, and our refusal to succumb to the status quo in silence.

Bill, a sequel to Miss Mason’s Lavender Men, excavates Constitutional history and asks who was intentionally excluded from the founding vision of “We, the People.”

Join us after the reading for an informal social after the reading in the lobby of the theatre.

About the Playwright

Roger Q. Mason is an award-winning writer, performer, and thought leader whose work uses history as a lens to challenge systems of exclusion. Roger’s plays are theatrical mythologies for the marginalized, especially those who are Queer, Black, Filipinx, TGNC, plus-sized, and previously erased from the classical canon.

Their plays include The Duat (Barrymore Award Winner), Lavender Men, The Pride of Lions, Califas Trilogy (California Story, Hide & Hide, and Juana Maria), The Pink, Waiting for a Wake, and Night Cities: A Bayard Rustin Ritual. The award-winning cinematic adaptation of their play, Lavender Men, directed by Lovell Holder, continues to resonate with audiences and is available to stream online on AppleTV+.

A fierce advocate for artist development and collective uplift, Roger mentors with the Marsha P. Johnson Institute’s Starship Fellowship, the New Visions Fellowship, and the Shay Foundation Fellowship. They are also the creator and co-host of the acclaimed podcast Sister Roger’s Gayborhood and former host of Queerly Yours: Portraits in Courage on This Way Out Radio.