Babes With Blades Theatre Company Announces Winner of Joining Sword & Pen

Babes With Blades Theatre Company (BWBTC) and competition sponsor David Woolley announce the winner of the seventh round of the international playwriting competition, Joining Sword & Pen: Arthur M. Jolly's THE LADY DEMANDS SATISFACTION.

Mr. Jolly will receive the Margaret W. Martin Award: the play will undergo development via BWBTC's Fighting Words program prior to premiering as part of BWBTC's 2018-19 season, and the playwright will receive a $1,000.00 cash prize.

Mr. Jolly also won two previous Joining Sword & Pen competitions:

2009-10: BWBTC premiered A GULAG MOUSE at the Trap Door Theatre: it opened 3/29/10 and ran through 5/1/10. It has since been published by Next Stage Press, and produced in Seattle, WA; Anchorage, AK; London, England; and Los Angeles, CA.

2011-12: BWBTC premiered TRASH, featuring two rotating casts, at The Side Project Theatre: it opened 4/1&2/12 and ran through 5/5/12. It has since been published by Next Stage Press, and produced in London, England.

About Babes With Blades Theatre Company

Babes With Blades Theatre Company uses stage combat to place women and their stories center stage. Through performance, script development, training, and outreach, our ensemble creates theatre that explores the wide range of the human experience, and cultivates broader perspectives in the arts community and in society as a whole.

BWBTC's 2017-18 programming is partially made possible by the kind support of The Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The Illinois Arts Council Agency, and a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.

About the Playwright

Arthur M. Jolly is a member of the WGA, The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, and The Dramatists Guild, and is repped by Brant Rose Agency.

Mr. Jolly has penned over 50 produced plays, with productions across the US and in Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, and South America. He was a finalist for the Woodward/Newman Drama Award, and a two time semi-finalist for the O'Neill Conference. In 2016, he was featured artist at the 24th Last Frontier Theatre Conference.

Mr. Jolly was recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting, and his most recent screenplay - an adaptation of A GULAG MOUSE - is in post-production.

Additional information is available at http://www.arthurjolly.com/.

About the Competition

Joining Sword & Pen asks writers to take inspiration from a work of visual art, using it as the basis for a new play that both features complex roles for women, and explores staged violence as a storytelling tool. Since its inception, the competition has been sponsored by Fight Master David Woolley, Society of American Fight Directors. Six Joining Sword & Pen winners have been produced by BWBTC to date, most recently the Jeff Recommended THE PROMISE OF A Rose Garden by Dustin Spence.

The winner is chosen through a blind selection process: BWBTC company members find out the identity of the playwright only after voting in the piece to be produced.

Archived artwork, rules, and deadlines are available at http://babeswithblades.org/joining-sword-pen/.

A history of the competition is available at http://babeswithblades.org/joining-sword-pen/jsp-history/.

About the Competition Sponsor

David Woolley is a Fight Master with the Society of American Fight Directors, a Senior Lecturer/Combat Coordinator at Columbia College Chicago, and Guido Crescendo in DIRK & GUIDO: THE SWORDSMEN! Woolley began his sponsorship of the Margaret W. Martin Award in 2007; prior to that he sponsored the Ballantyne Award. He directed and choreographed Joining Sword & Pen winners AN AFFAIR OF HONOR (SATISFACTION) (2006) and LOS DESAPARECIDOS (2008), and choreographed A GULAG MOUSE (2010).