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A play with a man standing in the centre with a cane and the spotlight on him, two women are speaking in the left corner, a person is laying in a bed in the back, and a woman in a pink blazer and skirt is staring at the man in the centre. His bed is behind him.

Casey and Diana

A man in a robe with cuts and bruises and a woman in a pink suit sitting on a bed with a quilted blanket. The woman is holding the man's arm.
Sean Arbuckle (left) as Thomas and Krystin Pellerin as Diana in Casey and Diana. Stratford Festival, 2023. 2024 Heritage Toronto Public History Award nominee. Image by Cylla von Tiedemann. Courtesy of Stratford Festival.

Sean Arbuckle (left) as Thomas and Krystin Pellerin as Diana in Casey and Diana. Stratford Festival, 2023. 2024 Heritage Toronto Public History Award nominee. Image by Cylla von Tiedemann. Courtesy of Stratford Festival.

A man in a wheelchair wearing a sweatsuit is looking out and in the spotlight. A woman wearing a pink floral blazer is to the back right looking at him.
Davinder Malhi (left) as Malhi and Linda Kash as Marjorie in Casey and Diana. Stratford Festival, 2023. 2024 Heritage Toronto Public History Award nominee. Image by Cylla von Tiedemann. Courtesy of Stratford Festival.

Davinder Malhi (left) as Malhi and Linda Kash as Marjorie in Casey and Diana. Stratford Festival, 2023. 2024 Heritage Toronto Public History Award nominee. Image by Cylla von Tiedemann. Courtesy of Stratford Festival.

A woman in a jacket is staring from behind at a man in a hoodie and jacket with cuts on his face.
Sophia Walker (left) as Vera and Sean Arbuckle as Thomas in Casey and Diana. Stratford Festival, 2023. 2024 Heritage Toronto Public History Award nominee. Image by Cylla von Tiedemann. Courtesy of Stratford Festival.

Sophia Walker (left) as Vera and Sean Arbuckle as Thomas in Casey and Diana. Stratford Festival, 2023. 2024 Heritage Toronto Public History Award nominee. Image by Cylla von Tiedemann. Courtesy of Stratford Festival.

Winner: 2024 Public History Award

Director: Andrew Kushnir

Playwright: Nick Green

Project Website 

Date of Release: May 23, 2023

Playwright Nick Green’s powerful play “Casey and Diana”, directed by Andrew Kushnir, premiered at the Stratford Festival in May 2023. Since then, it has engaged thousands of theatregoers, was written about in the New York Times, and was named a must-see by the Guardian. The Toronto Star called it “the most moving Canadian play of the year.”

In 1988, while fearless activists tried to catalyze political action, while intrepid scientists tried to find treatments, while against-the-grain healthcare professionals tried to provide quality care to those succumbing to AIDS-related illness, there emerged Toronto’s Casey House. It was Canada’s first free-standing AIDS hospice, brainchild of beloved journalist June Callwood. It was different. It was defiant. It wasn’t there to fight AIDS, but to fight something our society had created: the utterly avoidable indignity that a death by AIDS was met with.

The production animates the stories of volunteers, nurses, and clients of Casey House and a fateful day in the organization’s history: on October 25, 1991, Casey House was visited by Princess Diana. “Casey and Diana” engaged the public by dramatizing the lived experiences of individuals during the AIDS epidemic in Toronto, highlighting the harsh realities of stigma and misinformation.


Additional Project Members: 

Bob White – Dramaturg
Stratford Festival – Original Commissioner and Producer
Soulpepper Theatre – Co-Producer for January 2024 run in Toronto
Josh Quinlan – Set/Costume Design
Louise Guinand – Lighting Design
Debashis Sinha – Sound Design
Laura Condlln – Actor
Sean Arbuckle – Actor
Davinder Malhi – Actor
Linda Kash – Actor
Sophia Walker – Actor
Krystin Pellerin – Actor
Katherine Gauthier – Actor (Diana replacement for Soulpepper run in Toronto)