A Public Display of Affection
Jonathan Wilson / Rhymes with Purple
Gilded Balloon Patter House
5–30 Aug (not 17, 24)
August 2026
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27
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31
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19.20
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17
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24
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31
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At a queer community event, an "inspirational" elder steps up to deliver the speech everyone expects: warm, wise and reassuring. Instead, he tells the truth. Funny, furious and deeply human, this solo show tumbles through 1970s Toronto bars, police raids, bathhouses, AIDS wards and the polished cruelty of rainbow capitalism. Friends are lost, old compromises resurface and survival proves messier than nostalgia allows. This is a sharp, unsentimental reckoning with queer history, intergenerational memory and what it really means to live long enough to watch your identity become marketable.