{"id":2480183,"date":"2026-06-29T10:32:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T10:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2480183"},"modified":"2026-06-29T10:32:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T10:32:26","slug":"moving-casey-and-diana-plumbs-the-messy-layers-of-hope-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/moving-casey-and-diana-plumbs-the-messy-layers-of-hope-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"Moving \u2018Casey and Diana\u2019 plumbs the messy layers of hope | Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Cap Times is an independent newsroom serving Madison and Wisconsin. Sign up for the Food & Culture newsletter<\/a> for exclusive weekly insight.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

Inside Casey House, hope has a sound.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Colleen Madden plays a caregiver and Elizabeth Ledo plays a nurse in “Casey and Diana” at American Players Theatre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n MICHAEL BROSILOW<\/span>
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Thomas, the longest tenured resident at this AIDS hospice in Toronto, can hear it \u201cthrough the walls and floors \u2026 a faint, warm ringing. The whole house was ringing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In seven days, the people\u2019s princess (\u201cPrincess freakin\u2019 Diana,\u201d per Thomas) will visit. Thomas and his sister \u201cwatched every single minute\u201d of the royal wedding. He is determined to make it \u2014 to stay alive \u2014 until the princess arrives.<\/p>\n

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La Shawn Banks stars in “Casey and Diana” at American Players Theatre, directed by Michael Herwitz and with lighting design by Zach Lobel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Nick Green\u2019s play \u201cCasey and Diana,\u201d onstage indoors at American Players Theatre through Sept. 24, takes inspiration from a real visit the Princess of Wales paid to Canada\u2019s first stand-alone hospice for\u00a0people dying of AIDS in October 1991.<\/p>\n

Commissioned by the Stratford Festival, \u201cCasey\u201d premiered in June 2023 and has already been widely produced in Canadian theaters.<\/p>\n

La Shawn Banks, a new\u00a0core acting company member<\/a> and a regular at APT for more than a decade, slides into Thomas\u2019 slippers like the role was written for him. Wickedly funny and incredibly quick, Thomas ribs the staff, tossing out \u201cGolden Girls\u201d references and quips from \u201cSteel Magnolias.\u201d Banks has a comedian\u2019s hyper-tuned sense of timing. He\u2019s divine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Thomas (La Shawn Banks, left) narrates the week to Princess Diana (Hannah Ruwe) in “Casey and Diana.” Daniele Tyler Mathews designed the costumes, set firmly in 1991.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n MICHAEL BROSILOW<\/span>
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Yet underneath his wisecracks \u2014 or beside them, perhaps \u2014 Thomas wrestles with the injustice of this untimely, painful end. Young Andre (Joe Meyer) arrives from the hospital at the top of the play as Thomas\u2019 fourth roommate. Men don\u2019t come to Casey House to get better.<\/p>\n

\u201cCasey and Diana\u201d braids three storylines together. The first follows Marjorie, a volunteer played with self-deprecation and empathy by Colleen Madden, and prickly, vulnerable Andre, estranged from his family.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Marjorie (Colleen Madden) tries to help new Casey House resident Andre (Joe Meyer) in “Casey and Diana” at American Players Theatre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n MICHAEL BROSILOW<\/span>
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Andre has his walls up, but as he softens, Marjorie gets attached. She crosses patient-caregiver lines she knows she shouldn\u2019t. Vera, a relentlessly competent hospice nurse played with subtle compassion by Elizabeth Ledo, notices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are here to help men with AIDS,\u201d Vera says. \u201cWe are here to help them die. It is a huge gift to give, and it is enough. Any confusion about that \u2014 trust me, trust me \u2014 will only cause pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

A second storyline revolves around Thomas and his sister, Pauline (a marvelous Dee Dee Batteast), who disappeared from Thomas\u2019 life after his diagnosis. The reconciliation between these two feels hard-won and deeply human, and is among the play\u2019s most hopeful scenes.<\/p>\n

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Pauline (Dee Dee Batteast) attempts to make amends with Thomas (La Shawn Banks) in “Casey and Diana” by Nick Green, produced by American Players Theatre. Zach Lobel designed the lights.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n MICHAEL BROSILOW<\/span>
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The third storyline involves Diana herself, played with a ballerina\u2019s posture and a whisper of a smile by Hannah Ruwe. Thomas imagines the princess, narrating each day to her as the residents start eating more and taking walks. They\u2019re holding on until her visit.<\/p>\n

Lighting designer Zack Lobel shifts and warms the lights as Thomas slides into fantasy, and every day, \u201cno one died,\u201d Thomas says.<\/p>\n

Scott Penner\u2019s intimate set, complete with a dollhouse-sized rendering of Casey House, grounds the action of the play among quilts over hospital beds, the residents\u2019 suitcases tucked underneath.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Daniele Tyler Mathews\u2019 costumes tell stories in themselves. Thomas wears a jean jacket emblazoned with Madonna\u2019s face and teal nylon windbreaker pants. Marjorie\u2019s plaid top evokes the \u201990s, as do Joe Cerqua\u2019s pre-show song picks (Marky Mark and Mariah, anyone?). Diana\u2019s pink blazer was inspired by the one\u00a0she actually wore<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Pauline (Dee Dee Batteast, left) and Princess Diana (Hannah Ruwe, right) attempt to comfort Thomas (La Shawn Banks) in “Casey and Diana” at American Players Theatre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n MICHAEL BROSILOW<\/span>
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\u201cCasey and Diana\u201d is brilliantly built. Michael Herwitz, a New York-based director making his debut at APT this summer, conducts it like a piece of music. The play moves in and out of imagination with the ease of breathing. Yet throughout, Herwitz\u2019s staging does not flinch amid the messy, complicated business of dying.<\/p>\n

The stories in \u201cCasey and Diana\u201d are \u201cunbelievably sad,\u201d as Diana says. Yet at Casey House, we find dignity, love, even hope. Listen closely. Hear it ringing.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source captimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cap Times is an independent newsroom serving Madison and Wisconsin. Sign up for the Food & Culture newsletter for exclusive weekly insight. Inside Casey House, hope has a sound.\u00a0 Colleen Madden plays a caregiver and Elizabeth Ledo plays a nurse in “Casey and Diana” at American Players Theatre.\u00a0 MICHAEL BROSILOW Thomas, the longest tenured […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2480184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2480183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Moving-\u2018Casey-and-Diana-plumbs-the-messy-layers-of-hope.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2480183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2480183"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2480183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2480185,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2480183\/revisions\/2480185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2480184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2480183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2480183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2480183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}