Swords clash and guns blast as one gunslinger and a samurai team up in All Queer Shakespeare’s execution of Qui Nguyen’s Six Rounds of Vengeance. According to the Artistic Director and founder, Monica Sampson, this season focuses on collaborating with theatre companies throughout Arizona.
“It’s really about a season of showing that the values of inclusion and diversity aren’t just limited to a queer company,” Sampson said.
The play centers around Jess December, a one-armed, lesbian gunslinger who partners with a samurai, Malcolm, to avenge her sister, Gabby, who is believed to have been killed by a Devil. The story is a queer, Wild Western fight show set in a post-apocalyptic “Lost Vegas” where vampire-like monsters known as Long Tooths exist.
For this play All Queer Shakespeare collabed with the Ronin Theatre Company located at the Irish Cultural Center. Ric Alpers, the director of the play, approached Rachelle Dart, who goes by Dart for the role of Jess December.
“I was really drawn to Jess’s determination,” Dart said. “She just has that tenacity and fortitude that I just found really inspiring.”
As the show begins, the audience is immediately shown an altercation between Jess and a side character named Dingo, played by Andy Gongora. What started out as a small quarrel for information on the whereabouts of Gabby quickly escalated into Jess on the floor with her gun pointed at his torso, injuring him.
Combats such as those continued throughout the show, each one engrossing the audience, drawing gasps with action unfolding across the stage in every direction.
“Being an actor combatant, getting to fight, getting to choreograph fights, is something that’s very near and dear to my artist’s heart,” Dart said.
Weapons such as various guns, knives and swords were used. The show also utilized several visual elements such as a screen to display shadows and side characters like a bartender were portrayed through puppets, which filled the room with laughter during each use.
Throughout, audience interaction was consistent. One scene featured Jess and an audience member sharing a shot, and another was when an antagonist, in their glory or during a monologue, would shout while looking at a person, sometimes scaring them.
The audience also witnesses various backstories and character developments, one example is when Ricardo Leon’s character, Don Diego, a Spanish swordsman, trains Jess. Another is during Malcolm’s monologue, where it is revealed that he also lost his lover to the devils.
The play finishes with a major plot twist accompanied by a giant skeletal-faced ox figure animated by about five people, this represented the being that allegedly killed Gabby. In this scene, Jess is forced to fight this monster by herself as Malcolm was knocked out.
Dart was also the fight director in addition to her role onstage. She, along with two of her castmates, Marshall Vosler, who plays Lucky, and Courtney Kenyon, who plays Gabby, co-founded Pantheon Movement Arts, a company that specializes in stage combat.
“I never pre-choreograph, it’s always in the moment thinking about, ‘Ok, what makes sense to this character in this moment living through the actor with the influence of the director’s vision and the script,’” Dart said.
All Queer Shakespeare is a queer theatre company founded and led by Sampson, who established the company on June 1, 2024. Sampson describes the company as her brainchild because she wanted to represent all untold stories, including those who work behind the stage.
“It was really important for me as a plus-size Jewish bisexual woman that those stories got represented,” Sampson said. “All Queer Shakespeare really, to me, serves not just as a theater but as a community space.”
Before All Queer Shakespeare, Sampson graduated from Arizona State University in 2018 with a double major in broadcast journalism and theater. Shortly after, she was selected to train and study as a West End actor in London through a Shakespeare’s Globe Theater program.
This collaborative project aired at the Irish Cultural Center in Downtown Phoenix between Sept. 11-14 and moved to Scottsdale Neighborhood Arts Place from Sept. 18-28.
The show runs about two hours with a 15-minute intermission and offers both general admission and student tickets.
“It’s been an amazing cast to work with and our creative team is extraordinary,” Dart said. “There’s this sense of excitement to share what they have done and be like ‘Look at what they created’ and so it’s awesome.”