Iris Malcolm Housing Co-op
Iris Malcolm Housing Co-op is a trilogy exploring ambition, currency, and community; featuring the plays Rosie, Kwik Pick, and i-and-i. Set within a housing co-op in the east end of Scarborough, the works speak to the ingenuity of Black dreaming. What happens to a dream deferred? A question posed in the poem Harlem by Langston Hughes. Hughes asked in 1951 when limitations on Black living, much less dreaming, were extremely unyielding and often physically violent. IMHC is asking in a context where the limitations manifest more covertly but with the same potent searing of the soul.
Rosie
Omar and Benito have a new roommate, Rosie - Omar’s drag persona, who rattles their world something fierce.
Kwik Pick
A case of Kwik Pick instant lottery cards wind up in Chime’s living room. She invites her closest friends and family to help her scratch for winnings, and the women reason about their jobs, loves, and lives in Foreign. As the winter night unravels Chime realizes her sistrens have been stealing her scratch cards.
i-and-i
Part installation and part performance, with the spirit of bouffon, i-and-i is one man’s account of spirituality and masculinity - a disgraced Rastafarian with a hoarding problem obsessively reaching for enlightenment.
