Babes With Blades Theatre Company to Open 18th Season with PATCHWORK DRIFTER

Babes With Blades Theatre Company is kicking off their 18th season with the world premiere of Patchwork Drifter, by ensemble member Jennifer L. Mickelson, at City Lit Theatre, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Chicago. Previews will be Saturday, August 8, Thursday, August 13, and Friday, August 14 at 8PM and Sunday, August 9 at 3PM. The press opening is Saturday, August 15 at 8PM, and the show will run Thursdays-Saturdays at 8PM and Sundays at 3 from August 15-September 19.

Patchwork Drifter is directed by BWBTC Artistic Director Leigh Barrett, and the cast features BWBTC ensemble members Elyse Dawson and Delia Ford, as well as guest artists Eliza Rose Fichter, Meredith Rae Lyons, and Zoe Shiman. JKChoreography (Bo Thomas and the Case of the Sky Pirates and Trash) will be returning to provide violence design.

California-bound and down on her luck, Emmy Fox finds refuge working for shopkeeper Harriet Cooper and her two daughters. But they soon discover that the past can follow you over miles and years, and secrets can be as dangerous as any hazard of the Wyoming frontier.

The Patchwork Drifter design and production team includes BWBTC ensemble member Kimberly Morris (Costume Design), and guest artists Mason Absher (Sound Design), Kurt Brandt (Props Design) Lindsey Miller (Stage Manager), Nicci Schumacher (Scenic Design), and Laura Wiley (Lighting Design).

The creation of Patchwork Drifter, according to playwright Jennifer L. Mickelson, was practically an accident. "I made an offhand remark one day that maybe I should write a Western," she says. "Suddenly people started coming up to me and saying things like, I hear you're working on a Western, When can I read the Western? and I'm so excited about your Western! Leigh [Barrett, BWBTC's Artistic Director] asked if we could develop it through Fighting Words, and thus I was committed to writing the thing."

Through the writing and research process however, the script began to take the form of something other than a Western as we typically think of them. "As we all know it's an overwhelmingly masculine genre," Mickelson continues, "I didn't want to do the obvious, which would have been to put women in traditionally male roles. I wanted a story of the West focused on women operating from a traditionally female point of view in what would have been female spheres of influence at the time."

Patchwork Drifter is a 2013 graduate of BWBTC's Fighting Words script development program.

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