{"id":27915,"date":"2026-03-06T09:00:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T17:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=27915"},"modified":"2026-02-26T10:11:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T18:11:18","slug":"in-my-day-takes-unique-approach-to-discussing-hiv-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2026\/03\/06\/in-my-day-takes-unique-approach-to-discussing-hiv-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"In My Day<\/em> takes unique approach to discussing HIV crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

In My Day<\/i> is a play that tackles many hard subjects, such as the HIV crisis that swept throughout the world and what it means to watch those you love fall to an invisible, inconceivable foe.<\/p>\n

Playwright Rick Waines, having lived through just such magnitudinous times, chooses to come at it with a certain sense of levity that many would be hard-pressed to find in those unimaginable depths.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In My Day<\/i> is what\u2019s known as a verbatim play, meaning that the dialogue and action is pulled directly from real life. In this case, that includes interviews from a project conducted at UVic studying the impact of the beginnings of the HIV pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The study includes] 120 interviews of people who were HIV positive and their caregivers who lived during those first 15 years of the virus,\u201d says Waines. \u201cThose first 15 years are, roughly speaking, 1981 to \u201996, and the reason that period was chosen was \u201981 is when the pandemic began to make itself known.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
In My Day<\/em> runs until March 21 at the University of Victoria\u2019s Phoenix Theatre (photo by Morgan Christopher).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Waines says that around that time is \u201cwhen the proverbial shit hit the fan.\u201d This story and timeline is a very personal one for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was one of those folks [interviewed for the study] because I was diagnosed with HIV in \u201987,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Being involved with this project is what began Waines\u2019 journey of creation toward what would ultimately become In My Day<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fell in love with the project and started transcribing interviews, and because I had written plays about my experiences with HIV in the past\u2026 I felt like it was going to be great source material for a piece of verbatim theatre,\u201d he says. \u201cI obviously couldn\u2019t use it all, but what I do use, I use exactly as it has come out of someone\u2019s mouth, with all the \u2018um\u2019s and \u2018uh\u2019s and the beguiling ways that we speak when we\u2019re telling stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then Waines was left to the task of trying to form a narrative and compelling story arc out of all of this.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are 90 characters and 40 locations\u2026 it\u2019s all very kaleidoscopic, the verbatim material, and I felt like it would be a good idea for the audience to have a narrative arc they could follow a little more throughout the show,\u201d he says. \u201cI think of those interviews that I\u2019m using as I\u2019ve always thought of them: as flowers, and I need to arrange them, and if I just dump them on the table, it\u2019s not going to be that fascinating of a journey for our audience members.\u201d<\/p>\n

Therefore, Waines has modelled the main story arc here quite closely to reality, utilizing himself as protagonist, forming a framework for the verbatim interview material to fit into.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a character named Rick who stumbles across this archive and begins transcribing,\u201d he says, \u201cand is reminded of a friend from back in the day, calls them up, and realizes they are in the beginning stages of dementia. This frightens Rick, in that all of these stories will be lost when we are gone, so he wonders how to preserve these stories without just, you know, putting them on a shelf somewhere never to be encountered\u2026 So he endeavours to imagine and write this show with the help of some folks from the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waines says that it\u2019s not easy material but says that everyone involved has balanced it with a lot of fun and love.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the dancing and the victories and the humour and the resiliency that I could muster,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In My Day
\n<\/i>Various times and days, Thursday, March 12 to Saturday, March 21
\n$20 student rush tickets 30 minutes before show,
\nPhoenix Theatre, UVic
\nphoenixtheatres.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In My Day is a play that tackles many hard subjects, such as the HIV crisis that swept throughout the world and what it means to watch those you love fall to an invisible, inconceivable foe. Playwright Rick Waines, having lived through just such magnitudinous times, chooses to come at it with a certain sense […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27916,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[350,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-march-4-2026","category-arts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27917,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27915\/revisions\/27917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}