Not My First Pandemic starring César Cadabes
61 year-old Filipino artist and activist juxtaposes and draws parallels
from living through the AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics.
Written and Performed by CÉSAR CADABES
Directed by KAT EVASCO
Presented by the GLBTQ+ Asian Pacific Alliance (GAPA) and GAPA Fund, and With You Productions
September 22-24 at 8pm
at Brava’s Main Stage
What kind of community can survive two pandemics? Cadabes’ one man show takes a closer look at what a Gay Filipino man goes through traveling from Hawai’i to San Francisco. It is a journey where he discovers his most empowered self with a community that helps him survive the AIDS pandemic and enables him to thrive during the COVID pandemic. While there is now a COVID vaccine, there is none for AIDS after 40 years from the first reported cases. Self love, community love, romantic love and political protests intersect in César’s important story. This is not just a one man show, but a bridge to a better understanding of the AIDS pandemic and its importance to the current pandemic.
tickets
$40 Orchestra Seating
$25 Mezzanine Seating
You can also purchase a pass for tickets to all three ‘With You’ Festival shows!
$100 Orchestra Pass
$60 Mezzanine Pass
Brava has undertaken appropriate modifications to comply with health and safety protocols provided by the San Francisco Department of Public Health. These measures include requiring proof of vaccination, booster shot if eligible, and mandatory face covering that completely covers nose and mouth, secured with ear loops or head strap (gaiters and bandanas are not acceptable), increased cleaning before performances, and a no-touch or low-touch experience. Read Brava’s full Covid Protocol here.
here what people have to say
“I came to the show fully prepared to experience the weight of the two pandemics stacked together, but instead, César took us on a deeply personal, intimate, and hilarious journey, after which part of that weight felt lifted. I appreciated how the layered storytelling led us to find joy and resilience in dark and unlikely places.”
“In Not My First Pandemic, César Cadabes generously shares his history as an Asian Pacific Islander HIV positive gay man, of coming out and coming of age at the height of the AIDS epidemic and continuing to live through it. It is a deeply touching, deeply political history of family, love, loss, fear and joy, that invites us to look honestly at the interconnections between police brutality and struggles for racial, gender, sexual and health justice.”
about César Cadabes
César Cadabes is a Gay Filipino American writer, actor and storyteller who presented his work Coming to America in May 2017 and Anal Sex in May 2018 for the Resilience Archives’ Performing Visible Resilience. He introduced his solo performance, #Resist, directed by Kat Evasco, at Bindlestiff Studio’s 2018 production of Queer as Fuck. #Resist was selected to be performed at the 2018 APAture Performing Arts Showcase, an annual multidisciplinary arts festival celebrating emerging Asian and Pacific Islander artists in San Francisco.
In the summer of 2019, César was a fellow for the Interdisciplinary Writers Lab (IWL), a 3-month, multi-genre master class for local writers of color, a collaboration between Kearny Street Workshop and the Asian Art Museum.
César is a 2021 artist-in-residence at the Queer Cultural Center. He is also a recipient of a 2020 Individual Artist Commission grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission. In addition to his solo performance work, he is the Artistic Director of GAPA Theatre, an intergenerational collective of Queer Asian and Pacific Islander writers and storytellers. He produced GAPA Theatre’s work at Bindlestiff Studio and the Asian Art Museum. César also serves on the Advisory Board of the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District.