Sword fights, pistol fire, threats of execution; talks of pregnancy and miscarriage, and a staged death from illness. Acme Theatre Company’s summer show — “The Pirate’s Wife” — opens tonight, Friday, Jan. 24, and runs this weekend and next.
Acme marketing coordinator and actor Nico Novick explains that on its surface, “The Pirate’s Wife” dramatizes the story of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, who sailed with Captain Calico Jack’s pirate crew and stood trial in Jamaica in 1720.
Novick, who plays Read, explains that underneath the surface, The Pirate’s Wife” is “about who gets to perform what gender in public, and who gets to decide.” Novick adds that the play also engages directly with contemporary legislation restricting drag performance and gender expression.
Read and Bonny were captured, tried and convicted of piracy that November. Read died of fever in prison before she could be executed. Bonny disappeared from the historical record after her father reportedly bribed officials for her release.
The trial that frames the play uses language drawn from Texas SB 12 “drag ban,” which passed in April 2023 and was intended to ban drag shows in public.
Novick explains that Acme alumnus Briandaniel Oglesby wrote the script in response to the legislation and weaves Mary and Anne’s story together “with the contemporary moment in a way that is more structural than rhetorical.”
“The court charges Anne and Mary not only with piracy but with ‘the grievous crime of behaving unladylike,’ and reads from a statute that prohibits ‘a male exhibiting as a female, or a female exhibiting as a male.’ The historical record meets the legislative record. The audience is left to draw their own conclusions.”
Novick points out that the trial scene, which opens and closes the play, further makes the connection explicit. “The court charges Anne and Mary with piracy and robbery, and then adds, on top of those, ‘the grievous crime of behaving unladylike.’ The governor reads from a statute, called SB 12 in the play, that prohibits ‘a male exhibiting as a female, or a female exhibiting as a male, who uses clothing, makeup, or other similar physical markers and who sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs before an audience.’ That language is lifted, nearly verbatim, from the Texas SB 12 ban which passed in April of 2023, the first state-level anti-drag bill in the United States.”
Novick says that because this play functions “as insights in a trial, almost all actors play multiple parts, and switch between being ‘enemies’ and ‘friends.’ Anne Bonny (Mattias Waggoner) and Mary Read (Nico Novick), the titular characters of the play, are the ones being put on trial, along with their fellow pirates, Calico Jack (Vivienne Jacobs), Tom Dean (Hyacinth Mailhot), Gibby (Jack Huitt), and Dan Danny Danielson (Kavita Boon-Long). They are tried by Governor Rogers (Jasper Jorjorian-Miller), and his court (Tess Udwary, Zoë Hull, Norah Ecklund, Oliver Brummer, Evan Welliver-Thomas, Saanvi Divate, and Katherine Sagae). Anne and Mary spend the whole play telling their story in hopes that they can either 1) buy enough time to get free, or 2) gain the sympathy of the court and be set free that way.”
Novick says the characters’ desperation and hunger for life make the story appear. “What makes the play work, and what makes it right for Acme, is that it doesn’t argue. It dramatizes. The teens playing Anne and Mary aren’t delivering a lecture. They’re playing two complicated, funny, brave, sometimes cruel women who fall in love on a pirate ship and die for it. The politics are in the structure, not the dialogue.”
Novick highlights Act II “Statues Scene,” as “an intimate moment between Anne and Mary is juxtaposed by another actor performing Katharine’s 5.2 monologue from The Taming of the Shrew in the background. Katharine’s 5.2 monologue talks about women’s roles in regards to men, and the expectation that women are subservient.
“This moment of queer love that is highlighted with the monologue in the background serves as a representation of the play as a whole. It says, despite it all, we are here. We are our own unique, autonomous beings, and we are here. Our love matters; we matter. It is a truly powerful moment.”
Every aspect of Acme’s (a youth-run nonprofit founded in 1980) operations (casting, sets, costumes, sound, lights, publicity and finance) is led by current high school students, with mentorship from a small group of adults with relevant professional experience.
Hope Raymond directs the 2026 production. The cast features 14 high school-age students from the Davis area. The production runs July 24 through Aug. 2 at the Wyatt Pavilion Theatre on the UC Davis campus.
Novick points out that the Wyatt Pavilion used to be a cattle auction house. He explains that it has a three-quarter thrust stage, and the way the production is blocked, the audience becomes a part of the performance.
“The audience is the audience to the play, but they are also the audience to the trial and are part of the deciding body when it comes to Mary and Anne’s fate. We even have a verdict board, in which audience final decisions are posted. Because of the history of the theatre, there is interesting commentary on Mary and Anne being judged similarly to cattle in the old days, which is fascinating, and definitely plays into the themes of the play.”
“The Pirate’s Wife’ is the shortened title of the play — “Anne Bonny and Mary Read, Late of the Island of Providence, Spinsters and Enemies of All Nations, are Charged with Piracies, Robberies, and Felonies, OR The Pirate’s Wife.” It is recommended for ages 10-plus.
Novick says the play is a historical fiction, but it is more about the “now” than the “then.”
“It was developed in Texas while SB 12 was being passed, with a group of young queer people who were being targeted by that legislation. Acme picked The Pirate’s Wife because we believe in telling stories that matter, that are relevant, and that highlight the issues of our time. Because the play deals so heavily with the idea of gender, conformity, and who really ‘belongs,’ the idea of adding a drag performance came pretty naturally.”
Novick says “theater is drag. Just look at Shakespeare’s time, when all roles were played by men. Shakespearean acting absolutely qualifies as ‘a male exhibiting as a female, or a female exhibiting as a male, who uses clothing, makeup, or other similar physical markers and who sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs before an audience.’ All theater, not just this play, asks actors to play someone not themselves. Where the lines blur between that and a ‘drag performance’ is ambiguous.
“That is part of what makes criminalizing drag so dangerous; it is never just about ‘drag ’; it is always about the policing of people’s bodies. Theatre gives people the space to explore gender in a nuanced way, and allows audience members to take a step back and really observe what their relationship with gender is like. Even in plays that don’t explicitly deal with themes of gender identity, there are often cases of people cross-dressing, or playing roles across the gender spectrum, simply because of the fluid nature of theater.”
The Friday, July 31, 7 p.m. show has a special name: “The Enemies of All Nations Night,” which will include a preshow drag performance with the UCD Drag Club and post-show panel with members of “Dykes on Bikes.”
The event encourages dressing in drag: “If you come in drag, tickets are two for one!” This production is supported in part by a grant from the City of Davis Arts and Cultural Affairs program.
Last Monday after business hours, Acme held a staged reading of two pivotal scenes in the play at the Avid Reader: the “Crows Nest”, which Novick calls the romantic heart of the play, and the “Tom Dress Scene,” an exploration of gender identity.
Scenes were performed by Novick (Mary Read), Mattias Waggoner (Anne Bonny), and Hyacinth Mailhot (Thomas Dean). The event moved into a panel featuring Hope Raymond (director), Thomas Joo (UCD law professor), Ellen L. Hartigan-O’Connor (UCD history and gender professor), and the aforementioned cast members. It was moderated by Anoosh Jorjorian (chair of the Davis Phoenix Coalition). Questions ranged from the history of women pirates to the legality of anti-drag legislation. At the end, the audience asked their own questions.
The Pirate’s Wife contains stage violence including sword fights and pistol fire; references to and depictions of sexual content (no nudity); period-appropriate profanity; depictions of imprisonment and the threat of execution; discussion of pregnancy and miscarriage; and a stage death from illness. The play also engages directly with contemporary legislation restricting drag performance and gender expression. Recommended for ages 10 plus.
The content warning on the website, states: “Our swashbuckling pirates occasionally consume alcohol, romantically carouse at a PG-level, and fight with guns and swords, which leads to depictions of onstage injuries and death. The play also includes depictions of misogynistic and transphobic nastiness, and mentions suicidal ideation.”
Tickets are pay-what-you-can with a suggested donation of $15 for students/seniors and $20 for general admission.
Friday, July 24 at 7 p.m.
Sunday, July 26 at 2 p.m.*
Saturday, July 25 at 7 p.m.
Friday, July 31 at 7 p.m. — “Enemies of All Nations Night”
Saturday, Aug. 1 at 7 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 2 at 2 p.m.*
*At these shows, masks are required.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.davisenterprise.com ’
