Before We Were tells the story of Ava, a college student who, through the process of interviewing her mother, Rosa, for her documentary, learns far more than she could have ever imagined. As Rosa opens up to Ava throughout a series of interviews about her own experience living with multiple sclerosis, Ava gains independent access to Rosa's memories and watches the past unfold. It is here that Ava meets Jared, Rosa's friend who died from AIDS in 1989, who begins to haunt Ava's present. As the play oscillates between 1989 and 2016, Jared becomes more corporeal, and he and Ava develop a bond across temporal boundaries. Before We Were and the accompanying essay \"One Million Lifetimes: Dramatizing Queer Time in Before We Were\" are attempts at exploring Jack Halberstam's concept of \"queer time\" through lingering in a collective queer history laden with negative affect. The play does not fill in gaps in the historical record as much as it draws on the historical to fill in the gaps in the present, positing the existence of a queer lineage that expands beyond traditional notions of kinship and temporality. This lineage opens a path to the future that breathes through the wounds of history, not against them.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 24022