QUEEN OF SWORDS Gets Orlando Debut

Queen of Swords, the rock musical over six years in the making will have its Orlando debut at the end of March at Timucua Arts Foundation as part of the month-long "Word Play Festival".

The musical, written by Thom Mesrobian and Ben Shepler, will be presented as an in-concert reading directed by Tara Kromer and features an all-star cast of Orlando performers.

The musical tells the true story of Julie D'Aubigny, an openly bi-sexual opera singer and sword fighter who lived at the end of the 17th century in France. Her life was an almost unending series of fantastic events that included becoming the Prima Dona of Opera Paris, successfully dueling three men at once and burning down a convent to rescue her girlfriend from the nuns.

Mesrobian began writing the show in 2016 as a follow up to his parody "Simpleton: The Legend of President Trump" which was a smash hit at that year's Orlando Fringe Festival but found the scope of the story too big for fringe. "She was such an astonishing person with such an incredible life that she deserved a full length musical. So that's what we've done."

The show with book and lyrics by Mesrobian and Music by Shepler and Mesrobian will feature Ema Pava as Julie D'Aubigny with Cathy Colburn, McKenzie Jo Frazer, Bryan Jager, Mark Gray Miller, Jarrett Poore, Kari Ringer, Eduardo A. Rivera and Matt Stevens as the various characters in her life. Sarah Lockard serves as the narrator.

The show will be presented as a live in concert reading at Timucua Arts Foundation, 2000 South Summerlin Ave in Orlando on March 24th and 25th, 2023 at 7:30pm. Tickets will be $25 and the entire show will also be available to livestream as well as video on demand at Timucua.com

The show's creators hope to attract attention and investors to the show in order to mount a fullproduction in the near future. For more information on Rogue Stage please visit Roguestage.com.

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