Calamity Jane Sends a Message to Her Daughter
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Leslie Bernardini as Calamity Jane
- 2024, Condemned Madonnas, edited by Judith Valade and Rebecca Evanko, publication pending.
- 2023, excerpt published in WE-US: Monologues for the Gender Minority, Smith and Kraus.
- 2022, Stonecoast Writers Conference, University of Southern Maine, Freeport, ME
- 2022, States of Play, (livestream reading).
- 2021, International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival.
- 2020, Cockpit Theatre in London, touring from the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival. (cancelled from COVID)
- 2019, Jewel Box, Puget Sound, WA.
- 2019, Highlands Inn, Bethlehem, NH.
- 2019, Empty Closets Women's Theater, Lake Worth, FL
- 2018, included Calamity: The Many Lives of Calamity Jane by Karen Jones, Yale University Press.
- 2017, SWAN Day, Southwest Harbor Public Library, SW Harbor, ME.
- 2017, International Dublin Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival.
- Winner, Lambda Literary Award in Drama, (The Second Coming of Joan of Arc and Selected Plays).
- Published in The Second Coming of Joan of Arc and Selected Plays, Outskirts Press, CO.
- 2014-15, Arlington & Easthampton, MA and Bethlehem, NH in Gage on Stage.
- 2015, produced in She Speaks, Kitchener, Ontario.
- 2015 The Actor’s Gym, Hampden, CT.
- 2015 Charlie Utterly Theater, Deadwood, SD.
- 2013 Women in the Arts Festival and MSU Center for Poetry, East Lansing, MI.
- 2007, International Center for Women Playwrights Readings, Dramatists Guild, Time Square.
- 2007, Featured performance, Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival, Ireland.
- 2006, Maine Association of Community Theatre State Conference, Bath. (Cauldron & Labrys Production).
- Fresh Fruit Festival, NYC.
- Winner, Boston Theatre Slam, Boston Playwrights Theatre.
- Provincetown Fringe Festival, Women’s Week, Provincetown, MA.
- Winner, Festival of Ten, State University of New York, Brockport.
- Reviewed in Lesbian Review of Books, Altadena, CA.
- Winner, New Voices Competition Portland State Univ., OR.
- Featured at Sisters on Stage Lesbian Theatre Conference, NYC.
Reviews and Synopsis:
Theatre Ventoux Production
“… lyric prose lines to die for...” --The Lesbian Review of Books, Altadena, CA.
“… wondrous… ” --Asbury Park Press, NJ.
"Calamity Jane Delivers A Message to Her Daughter was one of the best acting performances of this [Dublin International Gay Theatre] Festival. Carolyn Gage was mesmeric as the aging infamous female cowboy recalling happier times. Both writing and performance were of the highest standards and it was a riveting piece of comic theatre… you could almost smell the booze!” --Gordon Farrell, Queer ID, Dublin.
This work is based on the real Calamity Jane. Vulgar, debauched, and raunchy, Jane is considered a freak by women and a laughing stock by men. Without the strictures of compulsory heterosexuality, she might have had the freedom to live the life of a roughrider without having to pass as a man. She might have been given the place in history which was accorded to her sidekick, James Butler Hickok. And she might have found a way to satisfy her frustrated desire for acceptance by women.
Jane is a butch woman who had the misfortune to be born in an era before lesbian culture. She is a feisty woman with a keen sense of humor, who has kept herself going with a number of destructive myths which are familiar to all of us.
One woman
15 minutes
Single set
“… wondrous… ” --Asbury Park Press, NJ.
"Calamity Jane Delivers A Message to Her Daughter was one of the best acting performances of this [Dublin International Gay Theatre] Festival. Carolyn Gage was mesmeric as the aging infamous female cowboy recalling happier times. Both writing and performance were of the highest standards and it was a riveting piece of comic theatre… you could almost smell the booze!” --Gordon Farrell, Queer ID, Dublin.
This work is based on the real Calamity Jane. Vulgar, debauched, and raunchy, Jane is considered a freak by women and a laughing stock by men. Without the strictures of compulsory heterosexuality, she might have had the freedom to live the life of a roughrider without having to pass as a man. She might have been given the place in history which was accorded to her sidekick, James Butler Hickok. And she might have found a way to satisfy her frustrated desire for acceptance by women.
Jane is a butch woman who had the misfortune to be born in an era before lesbian culture. She is a feisty woman with a keen sense of humor, who has kept herself going with a number of destructive myths which are familiar to all of us.
One woman
15 minutes
Single set
