Babes With Blades Unveils 2024 Season - 'Be Careful What You Fight For'

Babes With Blades Theatre Company’s (BWBTC) 2024 season opens with The S Paradox, written by Ensemble Member Jillian Leff, directed by Ensemble Member Morgan Manasa and fight choreographed by Samantha Kaufman, April 7 - May 18, 2024 at The Factory Theater, 1623 W. Howard St, followed by BWBTC’s biannual Shakespeare production, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare and directed by Lauren Katz, in the fall of 2024. For more information, tickets and streaming information, please visit BabesWithBlades.org. 

“How mutable is an individual’s core identity, what happens when society improves for the better and what are the unexpected effects of these changes? These are questions raised in The S Paradox: a fast-paced sci-fi script with some of the most captivating dialogue I’ve heard in a while,” states Artistic Director Hayley Rice (she/her/hers). “I’m also delighted to present our first comedy in the history of BWBTC Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This play has been a favorite of theatergoers for many years and it is easy to understand why.  This show has everything, from comedy and romance to magic and combat. I’m so excited to see the always insightful director Lauren Katz’s take on this play, as well as our cast of gender marginalized artists bringing new perspectives to this well-loved show.”  

Rice continues, “I am proud to present this 2024 season of original and classic genre works that show the depth of human imagination. These productions are created with respect to all our artists and will provide our audiences with the thrilling, high quality productions they’ve come to expect from Babes With Blades Theater Company for almost three decades.
   

THE S PARADOX

By Jillian Leff*
Winner of the 2021-2022 Joining Sword & Pen Competition and the Margaret W. Martin Award
Directed by Morgan Manasa*
Fight Direction by Samantha Kaufman
Previews: Sunday, April 7 at 3 p.m., Thursday April 11 and Friday, April 12 at 8 p.m.
Opening: Saturday, April 13 at 8 p.m.
Regular Run: Thursdays – Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m.
The Factory Theater, 1623 W. Howard St. with select performances available for streaming.
Ticket prices: $20, previews; $28, students and seniors and $35 general admission 

In a distant future, the United States has undergone sweeping reform: guns are banned, healthcare is free and numerous tax and economic bills have helped lessen the division of classes and pulled millions out of poverty. Sloane is a young woman who has been tapped by a watchdog intelligence agency called the CRC, led by the odd, yet charming William Hale. As Sloane triumphantly, and a little drunkenly, leaves a warehouse after signing her contract, she is stopped by a mysterious woman who says she has come back in time to stop Sloane from making the biggest mistake of her life. 
    

    

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Lauren Katz
Fall 2024

Babes With Blades presents one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies, as only BWBTC could. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a story about desire. What are we willing to do to get what we want and what stands in the way? Who has power over us and how do we begin to forge our own fate? Four lovers and a troupe of players escape to an enchanted forest to get what they want. Whether that be a chance with the love of their life or an opportunity to rehearse the perfect play; they are all going to find that once magic is thrown into the mix nothing is quite as it seems - especially when a feuding fairy queen and king enter the picture. This production explores the depths of desire and how we respond when everything we thought we wanted is turned on its head. Do the characters encounter a nightmare or is it just a dream they could never quite have imagined? 
 *Denotes BWBTC ensemble member

ABOUT Jillian Leff, PLAYWRIGHT OF THE S PARADOX

Jillian Leff (she/her/hers) is a Chicago based playwright and actor, whose work has been produced in Chicago, Los Angeles, Florida and Indiana. The world premiere of Small World (co-written with Joe Lino) was a Jeff Award nominee for New Work. She is an ensemble member with Babes With Blades Theatre Company, where she has appeared in Richard III (Buckingham), Women of 4G (Pierce) and The Good Fight (Cicely) and is excited to work with Babes as a playwright again after workshopping her play The Mark through Fighting Words. She has a BFA in acting from Ball State University and is an advanced actor combatant with The Society of American Fight Directors.
 

ABOUT Morgan Manasa, DIRECTOR OF THE S PARADOX

Morgan Manasa (she/her/hers), a graduate of the Chicago College of Performing Arts and Theatre Conservatory at Roosevelt University, has been a theatre maker in Chicago for the past 20 years. Manasa is an ensemble member of Babes With Blades Theatre Company where she’s been seen in their production of Henry V (Fluellen) and Witch Slap! (Goody Blunt). She has directed a handful of one-acts and 10-minute play festivals but made her mainstage directorial debut with Arthur M. Jolly’s The Lady Demands Satisfaction (Jeff nominated) with BWBTC. Most recently she directed JANE: The Abortion Underground with Idle Muse Theatre Ensemble where she also directed In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Jeff Recommended).
 

ABOUT SAMANTHA KAUFMAN, FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHER OF THE S PARADOX 

Samantha Kaufman (she/her/hers) is an intimacy director, fight director, actor and teaching artist. She is based in Chicago and works internationally. Kaufman is a certified intimacy director, teaching artist and curriculum developer with Intimacy Directors and Coordinators. A certified teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors and a Jeff award-nominated fight choreographer. An award-winning actor and a certified Michael Chekhov teacher with the Great Lakes Michael Chekhov Consortium. She has been a resident artist with Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Prague Shakespeare Company. Regionally, she has worked with theaters such as Lyric Opera of Chicago, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, Cleveland Play House, among others. She has her MFA from Florida Atlantic University. 
 

ABOUT Lauren Katz, DIRECTOR OF A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Lauren Katz (she/her/hers) is a director, teaching artist and arts administrator. Recent directing credits include:Women of 4G (Babes with Blades Theatre Company), Tick Tick… Boom and A Grand Night for Singing (Dunes Summer Theatre), Grease and Legally Blonde the Musical (Beverly Theatre Guild), Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins (Strawdog Theatre) and This is a Chair (Haven Theatre). Other favorite collaborations include: About Face Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Theater Wit, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Victory Gardens Theatre, Redtwist Theatre, Writers Theatre and Windy City Playhouse. Katz served as the 2016/2017 artistic apprentice at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and as a fellow in the 2018/2019 Directors Inclusion Initiative at Victory Gardens Theatre. As a teaching artist, she works with Steppenwolf Theatre and Lookingglass Theatre.

ABOUT JOINING SWORD & PEN INTERNATIONAL PLAYWRITING COMPETITION AND THE MARGARET W. MARTIN AWARD

The Joining Sword & Pen international playwriting competition launched in 2005 to generate more scripts that featured women in roles involving stage combat.  Created in collaboration with artistic advisor and fight master in the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD) David Woolley who sponsors the competition, scripts inspired by a specific image are submitted and go through a blind judging process.  The winning script goes through BWBTC’s new play development program, but also receives a full production, cash prize and the Margaret W. Martin Award.
 
Margaret W. Martin was ahead of her time. In the 1960s and 70s, she maintained her full time job, taught piano and raised a family of six children (four girls, two boys) all while she traveled the globe from the United States to Saudi Arabia, across Europe and Vientiane Laos during the height of the Vietnam war. She founded the American International School – Riyadh (K-12) in Saudi Arabia in 1963, which has flourished as an institution since then. The Margaret W. Martin Award is in honor of artistic advisor and SAFD Fight Master David Woolley’s mother.


ABOUT BABES WITH BLADES THEATRE COMPANY

Babes With Blades Theatre Company – for more than 25 years and moving into the future – strives to develop and present scripts focused on complex, dynamic (often combative) characters who continue to be underrepresented on theatre stages based on gender. Babes With Blades Theatre Company uses (and will continue to use) stage combat to tell stories that elevate the voices of underrepresented communities and dismantle the patriarchy.

In each element of their programming, they embrace two key concepts:
1)             Folks of marginalized genders and underrepresented communities are central to the story, driving the action rather than responding or submitting to it.
2)             Everyone is capable of a full emotional and physical range, up to and including violence and its consequences.

The company offers participants and patrons alike an unparalleled opportunity to experience every person as heroes and villains; rescuers and rescues; right, wrong and everywhere in between: exciting, vivid, dynamic PEOPLE. It’s as simple and as subversive as that.
 

BWBTC’s 2024 programming is partially made possible by the kind support of The Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, a grant from The Illinois Arts Council Agency, a CityArts Grant from the the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events (DCASE) and the support of the Small Business Alliance Shuttered Venue Operators (SVOG) grant program.
 

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