It was during his undergraduate English degree at McGill that playwright and podcaster Dane Stewart (BA ’13) discovered his passion for theatre and playwriting. Now, as the host, writer, and producer of a new and highly moving podcast called ‘Resurrection’ which chronicles the life of a forgotten queer playwright who died of AIDS in 1991, Dane is channeling the same creative energy, introspection, and storytelling he discovered as a burgeoning playwright at McGill for an international audience of podcast listeners.
‘Resurrection’ is the product of five years of research, and it’s described as a ‘journey through queer history as it was lived by one man and pieced together by another, 30 years later.’ Throughout the podcast, Dane recounts the life, loves and experiences of Daryl Allen, a queer man and playwright whose life was cut short by HIV in 1991.
Dane begins the podcast by recounting a fateful encounter he had with one of Daryl’s ex-boyfriends, who entrusted him with a treasure trove of correspondence between himself and Daryl, as well as one of Daryl’s forgotten and unpublished scripts. Daryl’s letters and his play, Mustang Zero-One, form the basis for the stories that Dane weaves through the podcast’s eight episodes, which brings listeners to Harvey Milk’s San Francisco in 1979, to present day Montreal, and to Independence, Kansas, USA, the city of Daryl’s childhood.
The beauty of ‘Resurrection’ lies in the earnestness of its narration, its meticulous attention to detail and impressive research, and Dane’s empathetic approach to telling us about Daryl’s life as though he were a familiar friend we lost touch with over the years. Throughout the podcast Daryl and producers Matthew Kariatsumari and Hannah Sung, and sound editor and composer Matthew Rogers, take great care in honouring the life and story of an ordinary man whose life and experiences have proven to be extraordinary.
We asked Dane about discovering theatre at McGill, the journey from playwright to podcaster and the importance of queer storytelling and queer history.
Read our interview here:
Q: Your 2018 play, The History of Sexuality, premiered during that year’s Montréal Pride Festival. Tell us about your passion for theatre and how it was shaped/influenced during your time as a student at McGill.
I fell in love with theatre while I was studying at McGill. In my first semester, I took part in a student-led production of Cabaret where I met many people who would become my close friends and community during my studies. I had such a wonderful time during the production that I decided to study theatre through the English department.
Following the production of Cabaret, I became involved in McGill’s wide array of student-led theatre groups, volunteering with both Players’ Theatre and Tuesday Night Cafe Theatre, acting and directing my way through my undergraduate degree.
However, I felt most drawn to playwriting as an art form. In the final year of my time at McGill, I wrote a play called How Exile Melts, for a class taught by Professor Patrick Neilson, who has since retired. In the year after I graduated, Patrick opted to produce and direct my play as the English department show for the fall semester. It was magical to see the work that I wrote produced by McGill faculty and students.
All these experiences ignited my passion for theatre and playwriting and inspired my to focus on these creative pursuits through graduate studies.
Q: In a CBC interview, you said that writing, researching, and producing the podcast has helped you understand the meaning of Pride in a whole new way. What changed for you personally when creating this podcast series and what did you discover about yourself?
One of the early moments of the project that made me say “oh, I have to tell this story” was when I first read through Daryl Allen’s script for his play Mustang Zero-One. In the play, one of the characters struggles with this deep shame surrounding his attraction to another man. The shame prevents him from accessing love and allowing himself to find joy in his life.
In this character, I felt Daryl was naming a feeling that I’d been struggling with ever since I realized I was gay.
Through the rest of the podcast process, I have come to understand Pride not merely as a celebration, or a protest, but also as a response to this shame. For me, Pride has become an opportunity to articulate an alternate narrative. Through community, we queers can choose to embrace our sexualities and genders not by renouncing shame, but by choosing to be proud of who we are despite it.
Over the years, Daryl Allen learned how to live with his shame—I hesitate to say he overcame it—and still find joy in life. Daryl learned how to live as his authentic self and how to love with reckless abandon.
I think many of us in the queer community can draw inspiration from Daryl’s journey. Through Daryl, I’ve learned how to manage some of my shame and I hope others can do the same.
Q: What differences or similarities did you encounter in creating a script for a podcast as opposed to a play? What challenges or discoveries did you uncover?
Podcasting as a medium offers some unique benefits. The biggest benefit, by far, is that podcast listeners are willing to follow a story in-depth for hours. This offers the podcast writer some opportunities that don’t exist in the theatre world.
A typical two-act play might run for about two hours, while the total time for Resurrection is more than six hours. This allowed me to go into more depth both about the people in the story and about the creative process. One of the key benefits, for me, was that this allowed me to tell listeners why and how certain parts of the story were being told in certain ways, to pause and dive into our ethical framework.
That being said, podcasting is an audio medium, which brings with it its own set of best practices for the creator. Early on, I was told that podcast listeners, on average, are not as engaged as theatre listeners. A podcast listener may be multi-tasking: driving to work, doing the dishes, or at the gym. For this reason, it’s important to make the story easy to follow, to keep up with.
I learned to use less poetic language, instead using more casual and relatable terms that wouldn’t alienate someone who was only half-listening while multi-tasking. “Okay, but how would you say this if you were talking to a friend?” is a question my Executive Producer, Hannah Sung, would regularly ask.
As well, we leaned heavily on music and sound design to amplify the emotions of the story, especially when recreating Daryl’s theatrical landscapes. And, I learned to integrate the infamous podcast cliffhanger to ensure listeners wanted to come back for the next episode.
Q: What kind of feedback have you received from friends, colleagues, and listeners? In what ways has the podcast surpassed or met your expectations and how you hoped people would connect to Daryl’s story?
Overall, the podcast has surpassed our expectations. After a number of features early on in the project, we established a strong base of listeners and their feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
A surprising and deeply gratifying outcome of the podcast has been feedback pouring in from around the world. This is another distinction from theatre: you can listen to a podcast from anywhere, and we’ve been getting feedback from many countries.
One of the most humbling messages we received came from a man in Zimbabwe, where homosexuality is still illegal. He was moved by the series, discovering resonance with his own experiences and reaffirming his resolve to become part of the solution in his country.
I’ve also been moved by some of the feedback I’ve received from listeners in my hometown of Truro, Nova Scotia, especially from other queers who echoed some of the experiences and feelings I described growing up. It’s been validating to connect and reconnect with people from my hometown after all these years.
Q: Perhaps one of the most striking things about your podcast is its ability to give voice to lives that have been seemingly forgotten. Why was it important to you to tell Daryl’s story? Why is it important for people in general to hear Daryl’s story?
I believe there is value in stories about ordinary people. If you dig deep into any “ordinary” person’s life, you will be able to find something extraordinary. Daryl exemplifies this.
Daryl’s life, ordinary as it may be on the surface, traverses many important moments and movements in history. For the queer community, the most notable is the AIDS crisis that ravaged Canada and the United States in the 1980s and 90s.
During those decades, the queer community lost tens of thousands to the virus and the failure of governments to act quickly and effectively. Daryl only represents one of the stories from that time, but I hope that by hearing his story, told in depth, listeners can begin to comprehend the staggering number of lives lost during the crisis, lives just as complex as Daryl’s, and the impacts these losses continue to have on our communities.
Q: Throughout the podcast, you take great care to voice the struggles you faced in revealing such intimate details about Daryl’s life, such as his letters and unpublished plays and discussing his romantic and family relationships. What did you discover about the responsibilities of a storyteller, and how do you grapple with doubts about the direction of your podcast and narratives?
As a storyteller, I’ve always been aware of the power I hold to shape the narratives I construct. With this story, I struggled with how Daryl would want himself to be represented.
People often perceive documentarians as ‘truth tellers,’ but that’s not always the case. By using certain facts or leaving out others, you can completely reshape the public narrative. When telling the story about someone who is dead, you can’t check in with them. I couldn’t ask Daryl what he wanted included and what he’d prefer to be kept private.
In the end, I decided to work with some of Daryl’s loved ones to ensure they felt Daryl’s integrity was being honoured. I would write the script for each episode and then send it to Daryl’s loved ones. They would let me know if they thought Daryl wouldn’t want something included or if he’d want more context added, and I’d adjust the script accordingly.
It adds more work to the creative process, but I think it’s worthwhile when you’re telling a story as intimate as this one.
Q: What’s next for you and the ‘Resurrection’ podcast team?
The big question! We’ve been trying to keep ourselves open to opportunities while releasing the first season and we’ve been pleasantly surprised at what’s come our way.
Currently, we’re workshopping a few ideas for stories to tell, some in podcast form, some in other artistic forms. Nothing is confirmed yet, so I’m hesitant to say what potential opportunities are on our plate.
What I will say, is that the stories we’re looking at are all stories that are in-your-face and unabashedly queer. Stories that tell our history, unsanitized, rife with complexity and rough edges.
And, during this project I fell in love with podcasting as a medium, so no matter where the next story takes me, I suspect I’ll be back to the mic before too long.
You can listen to all eight episodes of ‘Resurrection’ here .
Follow ‘Resurrection’ on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Bios:
Dane Stewart - Host, Writer, Producer
Dane is a queer oral history enthusiast living in Montreal, but originally from Nova Scotia. Over the years, Dane has worked across artistic disciplines. In theatre, his original play, The History of Sexuality, was presented at Montreal’s Place des Arts as part of Montreal Pride 2018. As an oral history nerd, his audio visual exhibit, Les Voix en Cuir / Voices in Leather, was presented at the MainLine Gallery during Fierté Montréal Canada 2017. As a musician, Dane spent many years playing with Montreal group, Motel Raphael.
Dane studied music and english at McGill University before completing an interdisciplinary Masters in Arts at Concordia Univeristy. He’s grateful for the opportunity to work on a story as meaningful and all-consuming as Daryl’s.
Matthew Kariatsumari - Producer
Matthew is a multidisciplinary creative and financial producer with experience in audio, video, and performing arts. He has produced radio pieces for Radiotopia, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Matthew Rogers - Sound Editor, Original Music
Matthew Rogers is a musician, member of the Montreal-based band, Fleece, and digital composer who has scored a range of digital projects.