[Editor's note: This is the second article in a Tyee series about past crimes and unexpected consequences in Vancouver. Find an introduction to the series here.]

Under the glare of a single spotlight, Meghan Gardiner faced a North Vancouver high school audience of hundreds to perform Dissolve, a play about date rape.

She sported black pants and a tank top, her feet bare. A single wooden box stood behind her -- the play's only prop.

The lights dimmed, house music pumped from the speakers and Gardiner plunged into her one-woman show. Pulling her hair into a ponytail, she began her portrayal of a girl who during the show's 24-hour time frame would be drugged, dragged home and raped.

Performing at high schools was second nature by now, and Gardiner knew what to expect from crowds, usually entranced by the show. But these students were obnoxious. Their inattention irked her. By the question-answer period, Gardiner's patience was running out.

As usual, the first student asked why she wrote the play. Angry that the unruly crowd hadn't grasped the performance's message, she publicly blurted the truth for the first time: It happened to her.

A night blurred

In the spring of 2000, a small pill erased 13 hours of Gardiner's memory.

She was busily wrapping up her third year at the University of British Columbia on the lush grounds of its coastal campus. A friend proposed a temporary change of scene. Why not stop by a house party? Hardly in the mood, she eventually agreed.

It seemed like a standard night out. Pop tunes blared and voices escalated, struggling to be heard over the music. The sound of popping beer bottles mingled with the smell of cologne. There were plenty of people she knew at the house -- even the host's parents. She didn't plan to drink much and nursed one rum and Coke the whole time. But she didn't keep her eye on the drink, and the night quickly became a blur.

Her next clear memory is from the morning after, leaving hours unaccounted for.

"I woke up, unfortunately, not by myself -- with somebody that I'd known for years and years and years," she recalled, "which was odd and bizarre." When and how she'd arrived, she hadn't a clue. After the young man left, Gardiner, still dazed, drove alone in her parents' car to a clinic. The doctor wasn't helpful at first. He seemed to think her queasiness stemmed from consuming too much liquor. He finally clued in to her dilated pupils and sent her to the hospital where nurses drew blood. They confirmed she had substances other than alcohol in her system.

"It was oddly comforting in a way, because I could stop blaming myself entirely," Gardiner said.

She told some close friends about the assault and word spread like wildfire.

Yet she avoided confronting her emotions. She acted normal. "One of my natural instincts is to put on a brave face all the time ... so that's what I did," she explained. "But, inside, I hadn't dealt with it at all."

Surprise hit

Stephen Heatley, a professor in the UBC theatre department, taught Meghan Gardiner during the 2000-01 school year. He assigned a major playwriting exercise in which students created original, 12-minute plays. By September's end, Gardiner revealed she would be writing about her experience with date rape.

"You take your weaknesses and turn them into your strengths," Heatley said. "You take your tragedies and turn them into something that you can … express yourself with." Two years later, under Heatley's direction, Gardiner debuted a longer version of Dissolve at the Vancouver Fringe Festival -- a platform for young artists to showcase their work. Gardiner, however, did not have high expectations beyond the event. "I thought, 'Oh, good for me. I'll do these six shows and pat myself on the back,'" she said.

Back then, she didn't share her personal connection to the story on stage. She just wanted to act for a living. To her surprise, Dissolve became a bona fide hit, receiving press coverage, regional fame and relentless demand for bookings.

Now, more than 400 audiences have watched Gardiner tackle sexual assault and consent on stages across the continent. And since spilling the truth in that North Vancouver high school years ago, she has continued to explain it's her story she performs.

Heatley believes Gardiner's talent, perseverance and technique make her successful. "She was determined not only to earn a living," he said, "but also to make sure that people heard these stories, her story."

'Dissolve' expands

Gardiner dreamed of being a performer since childhood, belting out Les Mis tracks from her living room floor. She joined her church choir at age 5. Six years later, she caught her first acting break, starring in a professional production of A Christmas Carol.

"All I've wanted to do since I was a child is be on stage, but I didn't think that it was going to take such a harsh turn in this direction," Gardiner said.

Dissolve, she found, gradually corralled her into an advocacy role as it grew into the focal point of her career.

Gardiner remembered the moment she told that unruly high school audience it was her story. "For the first time you could hear a pin drop," she recalled. "And that's when it hit me that this is going to be heavier than I thought it was going to be. This isn't just me having fun playing funny characters. I've got to sit there now and tell my story 500 times."

She began telling the full truth behind her play during question-answer period following her performance. Students would hang back and chat after their classmates had left. Feeling pressure to continue educating them, Gardiner initially gave some of them her phone number.

"So that was the beginning of me turning … from an actor into more of an advocate, which is something that I've been forced into," she said.

As she realized the play's potential to spread awareness about sexual consent, so did everybody else. Bookings came months in advance. Soon she couldn't keep up with demand.