Babes With Blades’ Fighting Words Festival

Babes With Blades Theatre Company’s (BWBTC) 2023 season opens with an extended run of its new works festival, collectively called Fighting Words, June 17– 25 at The Edge Off Broadway, 1133 W. Catalpa Ave.

Fighting Words emerged from the very clear need to increase the canon of fighting roles for folks of marginalized genders. By establishing a development series for new works, BWBTC not only supports the creation of scripts that meet our mission and that we can produce, but scripts that can go beyond Chicago to increase the visibility of a wide variety of fierce folks on stage.

Babes With Blades Theatre Company – for over the past 20 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.

Rich B*tch by Rachel Lynett

Saturday, June 17 at 2:30 p.m.

Saturday, June 24 at 7:30 p.m.

Dani agrees to spend a weekend with her rich friends to celebrate her best friend’s wedding as a sort of “bachelor party” but no one was expecting the various proverbial (and literal) cuts they would ultimately cause each other as they navigate what is required and expected in order to be a rich b*tch who is also a woman of color. 

Sin Agua by Desi Moreno-Penson

Sunday, June 18 at 2:30 p.m.

Saturday, June 24 at 2:30 p.m.

Amanita, the mushroom chef, wants to open her own restaurant in Mexico City. But it’s raining. The rain is called The Spate and it carries disease. The other chefs want to leave, the enigmatic ghost of her mother wants her to find the mushroom fields of the Aztlán Gods, called El Medio, and an eccentric mushroom supplier wants to devour every mushroom in sight. What’s a girl to do with such a kitchen nightmare?

The Gatekeepers by BWBTC Ensemble Member Jillian Leff

Saturday, June 17 at 7:30pm

Sunday, June 25 at 2:30pm

All performances are free to the public and audiences can provide feedback on the scripts following each reading. For more information, tickets and live performance streaming information, visit BabesWithBlades.org. Registration for tickets is available Thursday, June 1 at 12 p.m.