Broads' Word to Present the West Coast Premiere of THE LADY WAS A GENTLEMAN

Join Broads' Word Ensemble for a screwball comedy of seduction, mistaken identity, and all the fun you can get away with when you're famous.

The Lady Was a Gentleman is an examination of love, identity, race, and gender that is sure to leave you laughing out loud as celebrated actress Charlotte Cushman goes on (another) farewell tour of the U.S. with her personal assistant Sallie, a free black woman, and an ever-expanding entourage of adoring younger women.

The cast is led by Dawn Alden (Charlotte Cushman), last seen with the Broads in her critically acclaimed turn as Petruchio in Fifty Shades of Shrew. Broads' Word newcomers include Sonja Inge (Sallie) and Chantal Thuy (the distraught French mail-order bride, Marie). Inge is coming off stints with Long Beach Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare Orange County, while Thuy hails from the New York theatre scene, having played Nina in The Seagull and Perdita in Winter's Tale. Broads' Word company members Maikiko James, Lacy Altwine, and Tara Donovan round out the cast of characters; James (Fifty Shades of Shrew, Above the Curve, Company of Angels, East West Players TfY, African American Shakespeare Co) as willful fangirl Emma, Altwine (Goneril in King Lear and Vera in She Kills Monsters at LOFT Ensemble, Baptista in Fifty Shades of Shrew) as romantic roughneck Jane, and Donovan (Ithaca Ladies, Ethan Claymore, and Taking Sides at Little Fish Theatre, Bianca in Fifty Shades of Shrew) as conflicted ingenue Dierdre.

Director Kate Motzenbacker says, "Art about queer women's history tends to focus on two subjects: unadulterated misery or finding true love despite the odds. What a treat to work on this light, laugh-out-loud comedy about a well-meaning lothario!" Written by Barbara Kahn (Theatre for a New City, New York), a playwright known for the dramatization of the forgotten stories of women, particularly lesbians, giving the lesbian community the opportunity to see their history onstage and showing audiences in general the richness of lesbian life both past and present.

Broads' Word Ensemble's Executive Director Tara Donovan and Artistic Director Danielle Ozymandias will serve as the show's producers. The Broads' producing team also includes Sylvia Loehndorf, Lacy Altwine, and Dana DeRuyck. Lighting by Stacey Abrams (Little Fish Theatre, Stephanie Feury Theatre, Broads' Word Ensemble's Women w/o Walls) and Sound Design from Suze Campagna (SacRed Fools, LOFT Ensemble, and Broadway World nominee for The Aeroplane).

Tickets now on sale through Brown Paper Tickets for this West Coast Premiere. Performances run April 8 through 29, 2017 at the Dorie Theatre (Complex Stages) in Hollywood. For more information, visit www.BroadsWordEnsemble.com.

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