White or Red by Sara Tilley

In White or Red, three writers are forced to form a community and rely on each other to survive. Leah is in her 30's, bisexual, and Canadian. She is coming to terms with a chronic, invisible illness that has ravaged her life. She's signed up for a writing retreat in rural Sicily, and arrives to find she is the only participant. Her host, Turner, is a gay, unwittingly misogynist ex-pat American writer in his 70’s, who was once famous. Tony is a straight, unwittingly misogynist Italian writer in his 50’s who becomes entangled with them both.

Faced with remaking a world for themselves, the line between real and surreal becomes increasingly blurred as the play continues. Hunger, ecstatic visions, bondage, withdrawal, marionette shows, healing ceremonies, collective drug trips and the makings of a new goddess cult blend together as the three fall further away from normalcy.
White or Red is either a relentlessly dark comedy or a demented tragedy, taking on big themes such as systemic misogyny and violence against women, homophobia, monosexism, trans- and genderqueerphobia, national identity, organized crime, PTSD, communication across language, chronic illness, kink, mythology, revolution, and the creation of community out of sheer need to survive.

Winner of the NL Arts and Letters Award for Playwriting 2019 and shortlisted for the Jenny Munday Atlantic Canadian Playwriting Award, 2024.
Dramaturged by Don Hannah and Robert Chafe in 2017 and 2018, through developmental support of the Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre Playwright’s Colony and Kitchen Table Reading Series, as well as via funding from ArtsNL and the City of St. John’s. Revised in 2024.

Keywords: Sicily, Canada, Newfoundland, surreal, dark comedy, drugs, chronic illness, gender, queer, bisexuality, feminism, writers, Italy, gay, italian, sick, cult, silly, marionettes, multimedia, goddess, puppets