Britches! A Play for Lady Romeos
With Writing by “The Wayward Sisters”: Artists and Alumni of WERDCC
Curated and Adapted by Courtney Bailey for Prison Performing Arts
Directed by Rachel Tibbetts
Thursday, March 14, 2024
Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center1101 US-54, Vandalia, MO 63382
MATINEE - 1:00pm (12:30pm check-in)
EVENING - 6:00pm (5:30pm check-in)
RSVP deadline: Friday, February 16, 2024
Britches! A Play for Lady Romeos celebrates the actors of WERDCC, a group of performers who are no strangers to playing male Shakespeare roles. Based loosely on the life of Charlotte Cushman, a nineteenth-century American actor famous for playing Shakespeare's Romeo, Britches! tells the story of Charlotte and her sister, Susan Cushman, when they played Romeo and Juliet in 1846. The new addition of a female actor playing Benvolio complicates the dynamic between the sisters, and the "showmance" between Charlotte and Joan has a potentially disastrous outcome. The creation of this play was funded by an Artistic Research Fellowship from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the world's premier research institution for the study of William Shakespeare.
Cover art by Dylan Staudte