Babes With Blades Theatre Company to Premiere 180 DEGREE RULE

Babes With Blades Theatre Company announces their 18th world premiere production, 180 Degree Rule, written by Chicago playwrights Barbara Lhota (playwright, The Double and BWBTC ensemble member) and the late M.E.H. Lewis, to be performed at City Lit Theatre, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., in Chicago. Previews will be Saturday, April 16, Friday, April 22, and Saturday, April 23 at 8PM and Sundays, April 17 and 24 at 3PM. The press opening is Monday, April 25 at 8PM, and the show will run Thursdays-Saturdays at 8PM and Sundays at 3 from April 28 - May 21, plus Wednesdays May 11 and May 18 8pm.

180 Degree Rule is directed by Rachel Edwards Harvith (Associate Artistic Director, Chicago Dramatists) and the cast features Kate Black-Spence, Tommy Bullington, Chris Cinereski, Amy E. Harmon*, Lisa Herceg*, Kimberly Logan*, Jason Narvy, and Kelly Yacono.*

The design and production team of 180 Degree Rule includes Leigh Barrett* (Sound Design), Libby Beyreis* (Violence Design), Kurt Brandt (Props Design), Jason Fleece (Dialect Coach), Adam Greye (Stage Manager), Kaitlyn Grissom (Technical Director), Amy E. Harmon* (Production Manager), Beth Laske-Miller (Costume Design), Barbara Lhota* (Production Manager), Carter Martin (Film Director/Editor), G. Max Maxin IV (Projection & Scenic Design), Heather Meyers (Dramaturg), Tim Tavano (Director of Photography), and Laura Wiley (Lighting Design).

*denotes BWBTC ensemble member

About the Play

A 1960s film professor searches for the missing film masterpiece of an obscure lesbian director - killed pre-World War II at the height of her talent - and speculates she was murdered because of her defiant flaunting of her sexuality with the studio's "it" girl. But once the director's former lover, now an aging, reclusive German movie star, is involved in the search, a more disturbing narrative unravels. Moving between 1930s Berlin and Hollywood and the late '60s, this play shifts from film to live action, flashback to the present as it reveals the truth behind a doomed romance.

"This is a murder mystery, but it's also a memory play," says director Rachel Edwards Harvith. "It involves characters reaching across time to find each other. Memory plays tricks on us. Sometimes we remember hard facts, and other times we fill in gaps with assumptions-over time those assumptions become rewritten history. This production has visual poetry layered in with scenes, weaving between time periods, as characters struggle to find the truth, detect the lies, and express love they have been afraid to show."

Inspired by the pioneering female directors of early Hollywood, such as Dorothy Arzner, Alice Guy-Blaché, and Lois Weber, 180 Degree Rule's most extensive historical nod is to Arzner, an open lesbian who was notorious for affairs with her leading women, including Joan Crawford. She worked throughout the 1920s-40s, creating films with independent, complex female protagonists - often with lesbian subtext.

180 Degree Rule is a 2013 graduate of BWBTC's Fighting Words script development program, was a finalist in the 2013 Pride Series Women's Work Competition (for works by women with lesbian characters or themes), and was hosted for a final public reading by Chicago Dramatists.

This production has been awarded grants by the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation and the Dramatists Guild Fund.

Tickets:

$22 general admission

$14 students and seniors

$10 previews

Available at babeswithblades.org or 773-904-0391.

To post a comment, you must register and login.