"Bill" by Roger Q. Mason (Philadelphia Reading with Post-Show Social)
"Bill" by Roger Q. Mason (Philadelphia Reading with Post-Show Social)
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Join us after the reading for a conversation with the playwright and an informal social in the lobby of the theatre.
Bill by Roger Q. Mason
Directed by Danilo Gambini
Dramaturgy by Amrita Ramanan
Featuring Rayne, Nick Jonczak, Roger Q. Mason, and Charlie Thurtson
This play is supported by a generous grant from The Linda and David Glickstein Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation.
Democracy is dead, to begin with and Taffeta, a Black, queer femme of impossible brilliance, refuses to be this country’s janitor once again. Instead, she appoints herself freedom’s only mourner, digging its grave.
As she honors a system that feasted on her people’s rights, three crusty yet resplendent Founding Muthafuckaz (Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Paine) drag their ghostly essences onto the scene and try to enlist Taffeta to build them a new nation for free, brick by brick. But a stranger forces Taffeta to confront whether the country she’s inherited is worth fighting for, or whether it deserves to be rebuilt at all, forcing her to choose a louder, riskier dream built on our rage, our care, and our refusal to succumb to the status quo in silence.
Bill, a sequel to Miss Mason’s Lavender Men, excavates Constitutional history and asks who was intentionally excluded from the founding vision of “We, the People.”
About the Playwright
Roger Q. Mason is an award-winning writer, performer, and thought leader whose work uses history as a lens to challenge systems of exclusion. Roger’s plays are theatrical mythologies for the marginalized, especially those who are Queer, Black, Filipinx, TGNC, plus-sized, and previously erased from the classical canon.
Their plays include The Duat (Barrymore Award Winner), Lavender Men, The Pride of Lions, Califas Trilogy (California Story, Hide & Hide, and Juana Maria), The Pink, Waiting for a Wake, and Night Cities: A Bayard Rustin Ritual. The award-winning cinematic adaptation of their play, Lavender Men, directed by Lovell Holder, continues to resonate with audiences and is available to stream online on AppleTV+.
A fierce advocate for artist development and collective uplift, Roger mentors with the Marsha P. Johnson Institute’s Starship Fellowship, the New Visions Fellowship, and the Shay Foundation Fellowship. They are also the creator and co-host of the acclaimed podcast Sister Roger’s Gayborhood and former host of Queerly Yours: Portraits in Courage on This Way Out Radio.
About the 2026 New Play Development Conference
PlayPenn’s nationally recognized New Play Development Conference brings together readings of new plays alongside a citywide series of civic gatherings, workshops, artist exchanges, and public conversations focusing on art, democracy, historical memory, belonging, and collective imagination. This community-focused approach to new play development reflects a broader vision of theatre in a shared civic life that illuminates what theatre can do, who participates in it, how it unfolds, and why it matters.
The 19-event Conference brings together 22 playwrights participating across workshops, conversations, and five new work presentations while expanding its scope to include an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Eboni Booth (Primary Trust), free playwriting workshops for adults, teens, and women over 50, and a public conversation examining constitutional history and civic identity.
Additional programming includes a community workshop for queer theatre makers; a convening on innovation in theatre-making with leaders from Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Cannonball Festival, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Lemonade Stand, and Tiny Dynamite; and an acting lab focused on approaches to new play development and cross-community exchanges among theatre artists.
Location
Wilma Theater, 265 S Broad St, Philadelphia, PA 19107