Season Select: Casey and Diana

Casey and Diana

By Nick Green

Directed by Michael Herwitz

Fast Facts

Playing: Touchstone Theatre | June 23 - September 24
Featuring: La Shawn Banks, Dee Dee Batteast, Elizabeth Ledo, Colleen Madden, Joe Meyer and Hannah Ruwe.
Genre: Contemporary Drama
Last Seen at APT: Winter Words Reading - 2024
Go If You Liked: Tribes (2025), Constellations (2024), Once Upon a Bridge (2023)

About Casey and Diana

The legacy of Diana, Princess of Wales continues to dominate cultural media almost 30 years following her tragic passing. Her life has been immortalized through television, film, countless documentaries and even a Broadway musical, and yet her work as an advocate may be her most impactful and often overshadowed contribution of all.

Princess Diana’s advocacy work spanned the globe and several causes, from calling for an international ban on landmines to working with homeless youth in London. She was an active patron and partner of over 100 charity organizations during her lifetime, using her celebrity to raise awareness for often stigmatized issues, perhaps most notably the HIV/AIDs epidemic.

Princess Diana provided a kind and humanizing voice to HIV/AIDS patients around the world, transforming the prejudicial narrative that permeated the public’s understanding of the disease. As part of her work, Princess Diana toured AIDS hospital wards and hospices throughout the UK, the United States and Canada, including her 1991 visit to Casey House.

At the peak of the epidemic in 1988, founders June Callwood (nicknamed Saint June) and Margaret McBurney opened Casey House in Ontario, Canada’s first independent HIV/AIDS treatment center and hospice. Their mission was to offer exceptional medical care and to create a place where clients - not patients - felt loved. Casey House would become a leader of HIV/AIDS care practices, learning by doing and pioneering holistic HIV health care.

Today, Casey House continues to offer the highest-level of health and community services in Toronto for clients living with HIV. Over their 38 year history, the outlook for those living with HIV/AIDs has drastically changed, but Casey House’s commitment to serve remains unwavering and constantly evolving.

While researching for his 2019 drama Body Politic, Canadian social worker and playwright Nick Green intersected with Casey House’s role in LGBTQ Canadian history. His play Casey and Diana premiered at the Stratford Festival in 2023, followed by a production at Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre Company in 2024.

Green, Soulpepper and Casey House collaborated on the limited series podcast, With Digity: The Story of Casey House to accompany the production and as a tribute to those who do good. Check it out below.