CHICAGO - Babes With BladesTheatre Company’s (BWBTC) 2022 season opens with Plaid as Hell, January 22 through March 5, 2022 at The Factory Theater, 1623 W. Howard St, followed by Richard III, BWBTC’s biannual Shakespeare production running August 25 until October 15, 2022 at The Edge Theater, 5451 N. Broadway.
“I am thrilled to be returning to live performances. Our company used time during the pandemic to reflect on our direction, who we are, what we say, and how we do things, and I think have come out stronger for it,” states Artistic Director Hayley Rice+. “This season of complicated characters and complex stories is one I am deeply proud of, between the tales being told, and the folks who are doing the telling. We cannot wait to share this all with Chicago’s theatergoing audiences, and beyond.”
Plaid as Hell
January 22 - March 5, 2022
- By Cat McKay+
- Winner of the 2019-20 Joining Sword & Pen Competition and the Margaret W. Martin Award
- Directed by Christina Casano+
- Fight and Intimacy Direction by BWBTC Ensemble Member Maureen Yasko+
- Previews: Saturday, Jan. 22 at 8 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 23 at 3 p.m., Thursday, Jan., 27 at 8 p.m. and Friday, Jan. 28 at 8 p.m.
- Press Opening: Saturday, Jan. 29 at 8 p.m.
- Regular Performance Schedule: Thursdays – Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m.
- All performances will be held at The Factory Theater, 1623 W. Howard St.
- Select performances will be available for live streaming.
Cass was hoping her annual camping trip would go well this year. But with her best friend Emilie sniping at Cass’s new girlfriend Jessica, not to mention the serial killer on the loose, the weekend is off to a rocky start. This winner of the 2019-20 Joining Sword & Pen Competition is an honest, slightly raunchy, queer comedy that takes a swift left turn into unexpected violence.
Richard III
- By William Shakespeare
- August 25 - October 15, 2022
- In partnership with the University of Illinois Chicago’s Disability Cultural Center
- Directed by Richard Costes*
- Fight Direction by BWBTC Ensemble Member Samantha Kaufman+
- Previews: August 25 - September 2 (specific times TBA)
- Opening: Saturday, Sept. 3 at 8 p.m.
- Regular Run: Thursdays – Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m.
Aligned with their mission of representing marginalized voices, “BWBTC Shakespeare” specifically features actors of marginalized genders to provide an opportunity for audiences to perceive these classic stories through a new lens. For this production, BWBTC has partnered with UIC’s Disability Cultural Center to tell the tale of Richard of Gloucester’s rise to power. Casting both disabled and non-disabled actors, this production will not only examine stage combat as a storytelling tool, but interrogate the divide between “regular” theatre and “theatre for the disabled”.
For more information, tickets and live performance streaming information, please visit www.babeswithblades.org.
ABOUT CAT MCKAY+, PLAYWRIGHT OF PLAID AS HELL
Cat McKay has played more aliens than queer female characters, but if you’ve got a gay alien role, feel free to hit her up! She’s recently dipped her toes into the writing world, and it’s going well so far. Favorite roles include Bella in Valkyries, Badasses on Bikes (based on the NYC Sirens motorcycle gang; dir. Maggie Spanuello), Lil in Interventions (Paragon Festival at Otherworld Theater) and various characters in About Face’s Scary Stories to Save Your Life, for which she wrote multiple scenes. McKay is a proud alum of Case Western Reserve and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
ABOUT CHRISTINA CASANO+, DIRECTOR OF PLAID AS HELL
Christina Casano previously worked with BWBTC on Plaid as Hell while in development and as a part of the 2019 Fighting Words Festival. She is a freelance theatre artist and the artistic director of The Plagiarists. Based in Chicago, Casano’s training includes a Bachelor of Arts in theatre from Miami University and the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey's Summer Professional Training Program. She was selected for Victory Gardens Theater’s Directors Inclusion Initiative for the 2019-2020 season, and served as the assistant director for How To Defend Yourself. Selected directing credits include: Poison (The Plagiarists), Deep Shadows (audio drama series, Eclectic Full Contact Theatre), Anne Frank, Sleepy Hollow (GreatWorks), and The Living Newspaper Festival (Jackalope Theatre). Other favorite projects include Some Like It Red and The Epic of Gilgamesh, etc. (The Plagiarists), Bury Me (Dandelion Theatre), The Light Fantastic (Jackalope Theatre). You can find out more at her website: www.cmrcasano.com.
ABOUT JOINING SWORD & PEN INTERNATIONAL PLAYWRIGHTING COMPETITION AND THE MARGARET W. MARTIN AWARD
The Joining Sword & Pen international playwriting competition launched in 2005 to generate more scripts that featured women in roles involving stage combat. Created in collaboration with Artistic Advisor and Fight Master in the Society of American Fight Directors David Woolley* who sponsors the competition, scripts inspired by a specific image are submitted and go through a blind judging process. The winning script goes through BWBTC’s new play development program, and then receives a full production, cash prize and the Margaret W. Martin Award.
Margaret W. Martin+ was ahead of her time. In the 1960s and 70s, she maintained her full time job, taught piano, and raised a family of 6 children (4 girls, two boys) all while she traveled the globe from the States to Saudi Arabia, across Europe and Vientiane Laos during the height of the Vietnam war. She founded the American International School – Riyadh (K-12) in Saudi Arabia in 1963, and it has flourished as an institution since then. The Margaret W. Martin Award is in honor of Artistic Advisor and SAFD Fight Master David Woolley’s mother.
ABOUT RICHARD COSTES*, DIRECTOR OF RICHARD III
Richard Costes is a deaf artist of color who has also worked as an actor, director, playwright and accessibility consultant. Costes grew up near Youngstown, Ohio where he graduated from Kent State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Studies. His professional career began in Chicago, where he fell in love with the storefront theater scene and its continued work towards diversity and inclusion. Since 2014 he has performed at Steep Theatre Company, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Red Tape Theatre, Redtwist Theatre, Broken Nose Theatre, Porchlight Music Theatre, Rasaka Theatre Company and many others. He is a 2017 recipient of a 3Arts Make a Wave grant. He has presented at Gallaudet University’s symposium on Visual Shakespeare and was a member of the 2019 Deaf Theatre Action Planning Session hosted by HowlRound at Emerson College.
ABOUT UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS CHICAGO DISABILITY CULTURAL CENTER (UIC DCC)
As one of the first Disability Cultural Centers in the country, the UIC DCC is committed to building community around disability experience and anti-ableism. It centers disability issues as social justice issues, exploring intersectional identities, developing disability culture, fostering a sense of belonging, and imagining radically different futures. Most UIC DCC programming is open to everyone--students, staff, faculty, and community members--and nondisabled allies are welcome to join; the Center also hosts intentional spaces for disabled people to find community. The UIC DCC's programs include public lectures, discussion series, arts-based workshops, and one-on-one support.
ABOUT BABES WITH BLADES THEATRE COMPANY
Babes With Blades Theatre Company – for over the past 20 years, and moving into the future – strives to develop and present scripts focused on complex, dynamic (often combative) characters who continue to be underrepresented on theatre stages based on gender. Babes With Blades Theatre Company uses (and will continue to use) stage combat to tell stories that elevate the voices of underrepresented communities and dismantle the patriarchy.
In each element of their programming, they embrace two key concepts:
1) Folks of marginalized genders and underrepresented communities are central to the story, driving the action rather than responding or submitting to it.
2) Everyone is capable of a full emotional and physical range, up to and including violence and its consequences.
The company offers participants and patrons alike an unparalleled opportunity to experience every person as heroes and villains; rescuers and rescues; right, wrong and everywhere in between: exciting, vivid, dynamic PEOPLE. It’s as simple and as subversive as that.
BWBTC’s 2022 programming is partially made possible by the kind support of The Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, a grant from The Illinois Arts Council Agency, a CityArts Grant from the the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events (DCASE), and the support of the Small Business Alliance Shuttered Venue Operators (SVOG) grant program.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT STATEMENT:
Babes With Blades Theatre Company produces theatre in venues located on the traditional homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. Many other tribes such as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, and Fox also called this area home. This region that we now commonly refer to as “The Chicagoland Area”, has long been a center for Indigenous people to gather, trade, and maintain kinship ties. Today, one of the largest urban Native American communities in the United States resides in Chicago. Members of this community continue to contribute to the life of this city and to celebrate their heritage, practice traditions and care for the land and waterways
(L to R): Chistina Casano, director, Plaid as Hell, Cat McCay, playwright, Plaid as Hell and Richard Costes, director, Richard III