Bandit Queen

Sami Horneff
Amanda D'Archangelis

When 28-year-old Pearl Hart dressed as a man and robbed a stagecoach in Globe, Arizona in 1899, she became a nation-wide sensation. She was sent to Yuma, the Old West’s most infamous prison, as its first female prisoner, all the while becoming a feminist cultural icon of her day. But the true story of Pearl’s troubled upbringing, the pact she made with her siblings to fight for a better life, and her spirit of survival against all odds is, perhaps, even more wild than the legend.

Bandit Queen traces this tale, centering on the nearly fantastical lives of Lillie Davy - the woman who would become known as Pearl Hart - and her younger sister, Katy, who had an equally inconceivable history, becoming the madam of a brothel, a death-defying balloon ascentionist, and eventually, the lead actor in “The Arizona Female Bandit,” a play she wrote about her own sister’s exploits. But at tonight’s performance of “The Arizona Female Bandit,” Katy gets the shock of a lifetime when Lillie, just released from prison, interrupts the show from the back of the theatre. How dare her sister tell a story about her without her? Well tonight - for one night only - Lillie Davy will be telling her own damn story. As the sisters step into their own roles, replaying the events that led them here, they must come to terms with the past - both their own and each other’s - in order to move forward into the future.

Bandit Queen employs a versatile cast of nine actors and actor-musicians, and can be presented with minimal sets and period costumes (think, low-budget 19th century Wild West show). The folk-inspired score with lyrics by Sami Horneff and music by Amanda D’Archangelis celebrates the rich storytelling of the Old West while embracing a contemporary pop musical theatre sound. Though Bandit Queen contains moments of ‘good old-fashioned fun,’ it also explores darker themes like sexual abuse, drug addiction, prostitution, and violent crime. And, with a unique mode of storytelling that incorporates action both within and outside of the play-within-the-play, it begs its audience to question the reliability of the stories we are told in the moments when fact and folklore collide.