Brava and BACCE Present

Duck Gulps in Silence: A Staged Reading Written by AeJay Antonis Marquis

 A New Play by AeJay Antonis Marquis
Staged Reading | March 21 @7:00PM & 22 @3:00PM, 2026
Directed by Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe

Brava Studio Theater

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Duck Gulps in Silence is a raw, lyrical, and darkly funny new play by AeJay Antonis Marquis that centers a queer Black man, Paul, navigating grief, inherited silence, family obligation, and the fragile work of staying alive. Set “between home and escape” in July 2017, the play moves fluidly between present-day realism, ancestral memory, and poetic rupture as Paul reckons with his father’s suicide, his mother’s impending remarriage, and the emotional cost of being “the strong one.” Through blistering banter on bourbon-soaked afternoons, the piece interrogates Black masculinity, queerness, faith, and the violence of emotional repression with both ferocity and tenderness.

Duck Gulps in Silence is a memory play, a love story, and a ritual of unlearning - asking what it means to soften, to ask for help, and to choose life when grief feels hereditary.

Director Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe, whose work through BACCE centers Black artists and unapologetic storytelling, has described the company’s mission as creating space for “bold, truth-telling Black work that is rooted in cultural memory and radical imagination.” Her direction brings a fierce tenderness and spiritual clarity to this deeply intimate family story.

“Brava was the first theatre community in the Bay that truly saw me — held me — and made space for my full voice. Their continued partnership with BACCE has been beautiful, and to bring this work back to Brava feels like coming home to the place that first said ‘yes’ to me. Duck Gulps in Silence is about the things we swallow, the things we survive, and the things we finally let ourselves feel. I’m deeply honored to share the first steps of this process here.”

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