Babes With Blades Theatre Company to Present New Works Festival FIGHTING WORDS
Events will run from September 6 – 14.
Babes With Blades Theatre Company's 2025 season will open with an extended run of its new works festival, collectively called Fighting Words, September 6 – 14 at the Bramble Arts Loft, 5545 N. Clark St. and followed by a world premiere, The Mark, by BWBTC Ensemble Member Jillian Leff, October 11 – November 22 at The Edge Theater, 5451 N. Broadway. Tickets for Fighting Words go on sale August 6 and tickets for The Mark go on sale September 11.
FIGHTING WORDS
September 6 - 14
Schedule: TBA
Bramble Arts Loft, 5545 N. Clark St.
Ticket prices: Pay-What-You-Can
Tickets go on sale: Friday, Aug. 1
Each weekend the festival will have staged readings of the 2025 selections:
Calvaria: A Play For Feral Girls
By Maggie Smith (she/her)
Directed by Morgan Manasa (she/her)
When her family's bull is found decapitated in the middle of a farm field, Edie Hruska makes it her mission to find the culprit. While on her search, she comes across a group of young girls claiming to communicate with gods, begging Edie to become their newest acolyte. While acclimating to their lifestyle, Edie finds herself face-to-face with the girls' true intentions and they are much more sinister than just a dead bull. Calvaria: A Play For Feral Girls is the 2025-2026 winner of BWBTC's Margaret W. Martin Award and the Joining Sword and Pen International Playwriting Competition.
Two Out Of Three Falls
By Bill Daniel (he/him)
Directed by Ashley Yates (she/her)
Johanna Goodish was the child of notorious pro wrestler King Kong Bruiser. 30 years ago, he was murdered in a locker room shower in Puerto Rico and the killer was never tried. The witnesses never talked. Since she began her own wrestling career, she has been trying to escape his shadow. And now, she's been seeing his ghost. When an opportunity for revenge presents itself, she takes it. But it means she'll be face to face in the ring with the man who held the knife when it happened.
Yo Ho
By SMJ (they/them)
Directed by Maureen Yasko (she/her)
Yo Ho charts the journey of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, two pirates aboard a campy, sexually charged ship facing immediate threat from the crown. Equal parts historical fantasy and introspective sexual and gender exploration, this play is a deeply emotional reimaging and reminder of queer history.
WORLD PREMIERE
The Mark
October 11 – November 22
By BWBTC Ensemble Member Jillian Leff (she/her)
Directed by Richard Costas (he/him)
The Edge Theater, 5451 N. Broadway.
Ticket prices: $35-$20
Tickets go on sale: Friday, Aug. 1
Select performances will be available for streaming.
Developed through BWBTC's Fighting Words program, The Mark centers in a dystopian, classist, society, where a young Laborer named Raina is given an unexpected chance to join The Army. As she starts to acclimate to her new position and higher standing in society, a resistance is brewing among The Laborers. An assassination attempt upends Raina's life as she becomes caught in the middle of the war between the two classes, as well as her own battle of discovering who and what she believes in.
ABOUT FIGHTING WORDS
Fighting Words is Babes With Blades Theatre Company's script development program. Each season we choose three scripts for development and read each one aloud three times–first within the company, then with a small group of invited guests and, finally, as part of Fight Words, a festival that includes all three plays. Every other season the winner of BWBTC's International Playwriting Competition and the Margaret W. Martin Award is automatically included as a part of the process. During Fighting Words, discussions after each reading provide feedback for the playwrights, assisting them in developing their scripts further.
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