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Our local HIV histories often recall men's experiences, but the women who were there have their own stories to tell - we honour them here.​

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In late 2015 the project began in earnest with early collaborator Gavin Roach, followed by interviews throughout 2016. The recordings were meticulously transcribed, with serious attention paid to the vocal nuances of each speaker in the hope of translating to the page a deeply authentic re-presentation of each verbal contribution. We captured the organic inflections and casual non-verbal sounds of naturally occurring, uninhibited, and uncensored speech. By building upon playwriting techniques developed by Caryl Churchill, we set down a vocabulary of punctuation-based signifiers to inform the vocal interpretation and subsequent physical embodiment of each actor's performance, allowing for the cacophony of simultaneous voices and the mapping of internal shifts in thought and emotion. 

For the most part, the names of our participants remain unspoken within the text, and this is how we felt it should be. Their experiences did not occur in isolation; women worldwide shared them. So, you may see only four women on the screen, but we hope you hear a choir of voices, all singing "we were there". This work reflects upon aspects of the internal and social stigmas surrounding HIV&AIDS. It catalogues moments of grief, loss, survivor's guilt, and the everyday challenges faced by women living with HIV - spanning generations. It offers contrasting experiences of the virus from opposite sides of the triage counter. 

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This project would not have been possible without our participants' ongoing generosity or the work of the first teams responsible for the 2017 creative development and the 2018 play. For more information on the original production, please click here.

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<< Director's Notes >>

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