Charlie Josephine’s new play Cowbois has opened at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre. The play follows last year’s hit play I, Joan, Charlie’s highly successful retelling of a non-binary Joan of Arc. Once again exploring queered history, Cowbois is a western with a twist.
In a sleepy town in the Wild West, the women drift through their days like tumbleweed. Their husbands, swept up in the goldrush, have been missing for almost a year and show no sign of returning. In fact, the town is almost cut off from outsiders entirely, with only one drunken sheriff for protection. That is until handsome bandit Jack Cannon swaggers up to the town’s saloon, looking for a place to hide from the bounty hunters on his tail. Armed with a wink, and with a gun by their side for good measure, Jack’s explosive arrival inspires a gender revolution, and starts a fire under the petticoat of every one of the town’s repressed inhabitants.
Charlie Josephine co-directs alongside Sean Holmes. While Vinnie Heaven makes their Royal Shakespeare Company debut as Jack, starring alongside Sophie Melville as Miss Lillian. Charlie says, “It’s an exploration of honest desire in bodies free from the male gaze. When you’re given space to stop worrying about being wanted, and connect with what you actually want. That’s when things get really juicy.”
Tickets can be purchased on the Royal Shakespeare Company website.