About the Play:

Finalist for the 2011 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama (Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize)

Gas Girls is a full-length drama by Donna-Michelle St. Bernard. Plying her trade with the truckers at the Zimbabwean border, Gigi works for gas. Her young protégé, Lola, wants to learn and can't figure out why it isn't love she is finding.

Gas Girls looks at the lives of two sex trade workers in an economically depressed region. Gigi and Lola live by one motto: love for gas, gas for cash, cash for living, living for love. Living in Zimbabwe's depressed economy, both women live day-by-day, plying their trade with the truck drivers that stop at the border. Gigi knows the limitations of her trade, while her young protege, Lola, looks for love in every man that comes her way. Lola's brother, Chickn, ekes out his own living while keeping an ever-watchful eye for Gigi's affections and Lola's safety. But love is not a luxury these girls can afford. Through story, song, and play, Gigi and Lola inspire each other to find joy on the edges of survival.

Cast: 2 women, 2 men

Gas Girls premiered in 2009 at Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto and was nominated for a Governor General's Award in 2011. Subsequently presented in 2014 by Black Theatre Workshop at the Segal Centre Studio in Montreal.

What people say:

"A strong production that's both brash and sensitive." — NOW Magazine

"...the considerable strength in the play lies in the gut-punch of its central premise and the humanizing of its inhuman implications...." — Roverarts

About the Playwright:

Donna-Michelle St. Bernard is a Canadian playwright, theatre director, and arts administrator. Her work has been recognized with a Siminovitch Prize nomination, SAT Award nomination, the Herman Voaden Playwriting Award, APT's National playRites Award, a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play, and two nominations for the Governor General's Literary Award for Drama (Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize). She is the current artistic director of New Harlem Productions.