Babes with Blades GOOD FIGHT cast

Once more into the Good Fight

I’m just back from Chicago, where I went to attend the first table read of the Babes with Blades production of The Good Fight. It’s a tremendously sharp team, and I can’t wait to see what they create.

I’ve done some rewrites on the script since Theatre Unbound produced it in 2012, largely based on feedback from its presentation at the Great Plains Theatre Conference in 2014, guided by dramaturg Heather Helinsky. Most notably, the show no longer opens with Mrs. Pankhurst’s speech from the dock.

Now it starts with Grace Roe bidding goodbye to Christabel Pankhurst, who is leaving London to go into hiding in France. Director Elizabeth Lovelady and I agreed that after this fairly brisk scene, Mrs. P’s speech presented a speed bump, so I spent some of Tuesday morning shaving about 100 words off it. Which felt enormously presumptuous, since most of the words are the real Mrs. Pankhurst’s.

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