A Feminist Comedy “The Revolutionists” Comes to Bradley

Bradley University Theatre continues its spring season with “The Revolutionists,” Lauren Gunderson’s surreal comedy set in 1793 Paris during the Reign of Terror. This fever dream of a play is about violence and legacy, art and activism, feminism and terrorism, compatriots and chosen sisters, as well as how we change the world.

The play creates a counterfactual quartet of formidable women: Olympe de Gouges, a playwright and author of the provocative “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen”; Charlotte Corday, an infamous young assassin; Marie Antoinette, a deposed queen; and Marianne Angelle, a free black woman and operative in the Haitian Revolution. Thrown together in a feverish conclave, these brilliant women hang out, find solidarity and create their own destinies.

Bradley’s cast includes:

• Sarah Dove, a senior playing Olympe
• Mery Drilling-Coren, a sophomore playing Charlotte
• Samantha Macauley, a first-year student playing Marie
• Ieshah Edwards, guest artist, actress and singer playing Marianne
• Emma O’Mahoney, a senior and the director
• Chad Lowell, an associate professor and the scene and lighting designer
• Lauren Lowell, guest costume designer
• Thomas Dixon, guest sound designer

The Bradley Theatre repertoire has increasingly featured women’s issues and the work of America’s female playwrights, notes Bradley Theatre Arts chair Scott Kanoff. He says, “[This play] is really like no other recent play that I know of.”

Performances of “The Revolutionists” at Bradey’s Hartmann Center are at 7:30 p.m. on April 20, 21, 22 and 23, and 2 p.m. on April 24. Tickets can be purchased by clicking here or calling the box office at 309.677.2650.