For Release:

Women Pilot Men on Boats
Port Townsend, WA -

Key City Public Theatre's 2019 season opening production of Men on Boats begins its river run April 11 with an unusual and exciting development: the cast and creative team are composed entirely of women.

It started with the Playwright, Jaclyn Backhaus, who dictates that her play about the 1869 expedition of John Wesley Powell to chart the Colorado and Green Rivers through the Grand Canyon be played by women. As she created these characters, based on Powell's journals, she found them to be so fascinating and rich, she wanted to play them too.

Playwright Backhaus took the idea of male conquest and gave it to people who usually don't have that right. She wondered what new perspectives could be gained when the story was told this way.

In addition to ten (10!) actresses, the following creative and design roles are held by women: Playwright, Artistic Director, Director, along with Set, Lighting, Costume, and Sound Designers.

Men on Boats features many of this region's finest actresses. Cast in the expedition river crew are Consuelo Aduviso, Karen Anderson, Maggie Jo Bulkley, Rosaletta Curry, Michelle Hensel, Christa Holbrook, Bry Kifolo, Erin Lamb, Bonnie Obremski and Ciel Pope.

At the helm is Executive Artistic Director Denise Winter who discovered the script when researching today's emerging playwrights. "The script compelled me from the first pages and I knew we had the talent to showcase in telling this adventurous tale.

Traditionally a large cast show opens the season and in balance with the numerous plumb roles for men in Shakespeare each year, it was exciting to find material with equally juicy roles for a cast of ten women. Next up was the selection of the director and creative team, so why not continue to showcase the women of KCPT and our community?"

Navigating the directorial white water is Genevieve E. Barlow, KCPT's Artistic Apprentice. Barlow most recently directed Krapp's Last Tape in late fall along with Love Bites Dinner Theater and several one-act scripts in this year's Playfest 23. Winter notes "Showing a deep sensitivity to the creative process, and the desire and ability to nurture an acting ensemble, and the aptitude for the dramaturgical research necessary to work on an historically based play, Genevieve is the obvious choice to lead us on this journey."

On board for set design is Margie MacDonald, KCPT's featured visual artist this season. McDonald is a founding artist for the Port Townsend Wearable Art Show. She blends her ability to reuse material, focusing on textiles, to create sculptural forms by way of traditional techniques. Kelly Doran provides lighting; Libby Wennstrom designs the costumes; and Camelia Jade adds the sound. Stage Managers steering the course will be Britni Alleman-DeLorenzi and Emily Stines, with student intern, Zoe Cook.

Of leading this creative team director Barlow says, "I deeply relish being able to create something together with such a strong and artistically driven group of women. It is such a rare gift and we have taken full advantage of that unusual freedom to explore our own perceptions of masculinity and adventure, of humor and expression of emotion. The playwright has specifically written the play for ten women so much of the humor lies within that convention, we perceive these robust and dashing historical explorers though a different lens because they are being performed by women. We aren't seeking to trick the audience into believing they are actually men either, there won't be a grand reveal in which facial hair is ripped off and hats are thrown down and we all gasp, instead we oscillate between the idea of masculinity and the identity of femininity, at times there are ten women on a stage and at others there are men sitting around a campfire, but they are always explorers on boats.”

Grab your kayak, stand up paddleboard or canoe and paddle on over to see this adventurous production. Life vests optional.