Toller and Other Plays by Sky Gilbert

Three provocative plays exploring sexual and class identity, and the loneliness of trying to know who you are. Toller is about Toller Cranston, the world-renowned skater born in Hamilton, Ontario, now living as a recluse in Mexico, a fierce, frightened, heroic and very wounded gay man. Hamilton Bus Stop is about an accidental encounter between the artsy, conniving lady president of the local craft society and a male hooker in a bus shelter on a rainy afternoon. Do they have more in comman than they think? Naked Hamilton gives us a self-styled spokesman for the arts, a prim housewife who disapproves of sexuality, and an aging sex-worker with her alcoholic ex-boyfriend. They’re all attracted by a book of photos of important people dressed and undressed. In 2003, Sky Gilbert, gay activist, drag queen, and co-founder of Toronto’s renowned and controversial Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, moved to Toronto’s industrial sister-city, Hamilton–dull, drab and fifty miles down the highway. Nevertheless, he found himself writing plays about, and for, Hamilton. These are three of the best.