Carolyn Gage
  • Home
    • Butch Visibility Project
    • Bio and Vitae
    • Endorsements
    • Production History
    • Catalog of Books and Plays
    • Online Essays >
      • Lesbian Culture and History Essays
      • Theatre Essays
      • Feminist Essays
      • Reviews
    • Interviews >
      • Audio/Video Interviews
      • Print Interviews
  • Books and CD's
    • Gage Play Anthologies
    • Feminist Thought And Spirituality
    • Lesbian Theatre
    • CD's and DVD's
    • Anthologies with Other Authors
    • Journal Anthologies
  • Plays
    • One-Woman Shows >
      • The Second Coming of Joan of Arc
      • La Seconde Venue de Jeanne d'Arc
      • La segunda llegada de Juana de Arco
      • Joana Dark - a re-volta
      • Die Wiederkehr von Jeanne d'Arc
      • Giovanna d'Arco - la rivolta
      • ВТОРОТО ПРИШЕСТВИЕ НА ЖАНА Д’АРК (Bulgarian tranlsation of The Second Coming of Joan
      • 贞德再临_中文 (Mandarin translation of The Second Coming of Joan of Arc)
      • The Last Reading of Charlotte Cushman
      • Crossing the Rapelands
    • Musicals >
      • The Amazon All-Stars
      • Babe! An Olympian Musical
      • How to Write a Country-Western Song
      • Leading Ladies
      • Women on the Land
    • Full-Length Plays >
      • The Abolition Plays
      • The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women
      • AXED!
      • Black Star
      • Coming About
      • Esther and Vashti
      • The Goddess Tour
      • In McClintock's Corn
      • Restell
      • Sappho in Love
      • The Spindle
      • Stigmata
      • Thanatron
      • Ugly Ducklings
    • One-Acts >
      • Ain't Got No - I Got Life
      • The A-Mazing Yamashita and the Millennial Gold-Diggers
      • Artemisia and Hildegard
      • Battered on Broadway
      • Bite My Thumb
      • The Boundary Trial of John Proctor
      • Cookin' with Typhoid Mary
      • The Countess and the Lesbians
      • The Drum Lesson
      • Easter Sunday
      • Entr'acte or The Night Eva Le Gallienne Was Raped
      • The Evil That Men Do: The Story of Thalidomide
      • Female Nude Seated
      • The Gage and Mr. Comstock
      • The Greatest Actress Who Ever Lived
      • Harriet Tubman Visits A Therapist
      • Head in the Game
      • Hermeneutic Circlejerk
      • Heterosexuals Anonymous
      • Jane Addams and the Devil Baby
      • A Labor Play
      • Lace Curtain Irish
      • Lighting Martha
      • Little Sister
      • Louisa May Incest
      • Mason-Dixon
      • The Obligatory Scene
      • The P.E. Teacher
      • The Parmachene Belle
      • The Pele Chant
      • Planchette
      • The Poorly-Written Play Festival
      • Radicals
      • Reef Point
      • The Rules of the Playground
      • St. Frances and the Fallen Angels
      • Souvenirs from Eden
      • Starpattern
      • 'Til the Fat Lady Sings
      • Valerie Solanas At Matteawan
    • Short Short Plays >
      • 52 Pickup
      • At Sea
      • Black Eye
      • El Bobo
      • Brett Hears the Mountain Gods
      • Calamity Jane Sends a Message to Her Daughter
      • The Clarity of Pizza
      • The Great Fire
      • Hrotsvitha's Vision
      • The Intimacy Coordinator
      • The Ladies' Room
      • Miss Le Gallienne Announces the New Season
      • On the Other Hand
      • Patricide
      • The Pickle Play
    • Dramatic Adaptations >
      • Amy Lowell: In Her Own Words
      • Brett Remembers
      • Deep Haven
      • El Bobo (one-act play)
      • El Bobo (short screenplay)
      • Emily & Sue >
        • Touring Production of Emily & Sue >
          • The Creative Team
          • Director's Vision
          • Adaptor's notes
          • Open Me Carefully
      • Georgia and the Butch
      • I Have Come to Show You Death
      • Speak Fully The One Awful Word
      • We Too Are Drifting (Screenplay)
    • Special Index: Plays That Deal with Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls
    • Special Index: Plays Featuring Old and Middle-Aged Actresses
    • Special Index: Women's History Plays
    • Special Index: Romantic Plays with Happy Endings
  • Touring Work
    • Performances >
      • Lace Curtain Irish
      • Crossing the Rapelands
      • The Parmachene Belle (performance)
      • Calamity Jane Sends a Message to Her Daughter (performance)
      • Gage on Stage
    • Lectures >
      • Lizzie Borden and Lesbian Theatre
      • The Secret Life of Lesbians
      • Paradigms and Paradigm-Shifting
      • When Sex Is Not the Metaphor For Intimacy
      • Meeting the Ghost of Hamlet's Father
      • A Theatrical Journey Through Maine's Lesbian History
      • Tara and Other Lies
      • Teena Brandon's Inconvenient Truth
    • Workshops >
      • The Art of the Dramatic Monologue
      • Acting Lesbian
      • Interrupting Racism: A Workshop
      • Playwriting Techniques for Poets and Fiction Writers
      • Ugly Ducklings Workshop
    • Residencies
    • The Lesbian Tent Revival >
      • Testimonials
      • The Lesbian Tent Revival Radio Hour Podcasts
      • The Lesbian Tent Revival Sermon on Dying Well
      • Sermons for a Lesbian Tent Revival
      • Supplemental Sermons
      • Hotter Than Hell
      • The Synapse Pendant
    • Cauldron & Labrys >
      • A Brief History
      • Upcoming Productions
  • Calendar
  • Contact/Storefront
    • Privacy Policy
  • Blog

Bite My Thumb
A Skirmish in One Act
Paperback
eBook (EPUB)
eBook (PDF)
Kindle

Picture
Pacific University Production
  • 2018 SUNY Potsdam Festival of One-Acts, NY
  • 2016 Gadfly Theatre, Minneapolis.
  • 2015 Shanghai Pride, EastWest Theatre, Shanghai, China.
  • 2015 Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (reading).
  • Published in Sinister Wisdom, Issue 76, Sebastopol, CA.
  • Published in Nine Short Plays, Outskirts Press, CO.
  • 2010, Pacific University, Forest Grove, OR.
  • Optioned by CottonLover Films, Indianapolis, IN.
  •  Produced in Beyond the L-Word: An Evening of Lesbian Theatre,  Cauldron & Labrys, Portland, ME. (staged reading)
  • Produced by the School of International Migration and Ethnic Studies, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden.
“… a great success… the most popular and attended play… we even had to add two extra performances to meet the demand.” —Matilda Marshall, Malmö University, Sweden.

Synopsis:

Picture
Two “gangs” from rival Off-Off Broadway productions of Romeo and Juliet meet in an alley to rumble, sixteenth-century style. Transman meets lesbian cross-dressing, and lesbian butch squares off against male machismo in this swashbuckling gender-bender!

A male “Romeo” from a traditional production shows up at the stage door of an all-women theatre company, challenging their “Romeo” to come out and fight like a man. The fact that this cross-dressing, female Romeo has stolen his former girlfriend by offering her the role of Juliet only fans the flames of his indignation. When Juliet’s Nurse, a lesbian butch, takes up his challenge, however, Romeo finds himself outclassed in the martial arts. On the brink of surrender, he is rescued by his own masked “Mercutio,” who takes on the Nurse in a dazzling display of sword-fighting techniques.

In another surprise twist, “Mercutio” is unmasked, revealing his identity as a transman. Accused of being a woman by his former buddy, he is also attacked by the lesbian butch for alleged lesbophobia. Meanwhile, the female “Romeo,” threatened by the butch’s superior fighting skills attempts to put her back in her place as a character actor. The Nurse however, joins forces with Mercutio, with the result that both find themselves expelled from their respective companies.

Having pronounced a plague on both their houses, the butch launches into a tender coda about the unsung heroism of those who renounce traditionally assigned gender roles. The two commit themselves to the creation of a new kind of theatre that can support their stories.

Two males, three females, one transman
Thirty minutes
Single set

Photos from the production at Shanghai Pride in  Shanghai, China
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.