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Plays
Pirate Queens
In this relatively true story, we follow the 18th-century tale of Mary Read, a woman dressed as a boy since childhood. The day she is captured by pirates, she meets Anne Bonny. The two share a unique, piratey love story until their end.
In Pirate Queens, three players perform the entire play on a four-foot-by-three foot old, wooden crate. Using only their bodies in this small space, they mime all of the props, set pieces and effects and each play many characters.
Pirate Queens was presented at Cannonball's Miniball Festival in March 2024 as a part of the Cannonball Crash series. In the days leading up to that event, Brooke Shilling was announced as a semi-finalist for the Terrence McNally Award for Philadelphia playwrights after sharing this play with the awarding committee. Pirate Queens then premiered at the 2024 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, featuring Brooke Shilling, Elena Nahrmann and Connor Hogan.
It was a 2024 Week Two Philly Fringies Frontrunner.
Honarable Mention in The Philadelphia Inquirer:
here
"Pirate Queens is a smart, tightly conceived and performed show about a fun slice of queer history and gender performance."
-Matthew Sekellick, Plays Unpleasant
Read Brooke’s plays on New Play Exchange: here
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Sinky The Pirate
During COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, I looked over at the kitchen sink in my studio apartment and thought, that could be a boat. From there, I dreamt up Sinky The Stinky Pirate. I made short, silly videos alone in my home and, all the while, dreamt of bringing the idea of Sinky not only to a little screen in your pocket but to a communal, collective, theatrical space where we can now examine what that means as we return to one another. The live performance of Sinky The Pirate premiered at the Cannonball Festival as a part of the Philadelphia FringeArts Festival in 2023.
View the whole performance here
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Pirate Queens
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