By Ashley Peterson

Scrolling Facebook this spring, I found my dear friend, Cascadia, asking for volunteers to help with hair and makeup for a production called Unsettled by Dangerous Women. I landed myself in the dressing room with a bag full of makeup and hair supplies with next to zero idea what I was doing. What I found walking in was the warmest welcome from a diverse, enthusiastic, and extremely kind group of women. They immediately accepted my help and lack of expertise, although I am not too sure they knew how inexperienced I was based on their enthusiasm to have me. Or they are seriously just that warm and welcoming. After spending some time with the group, I found they, in fact, are that wonderful.

Over the few days I spent with them backstage, I got to witness a lot of conversations between the director, Rhona Baron, and her crew. Many came to her with general guidance on improving their scenes or simply seeking reassurance that they were ready. Rhona gave great insight and advice to each and every woman as she sat in the chair getting painted all shades of gold and silver for her role as the moon. The grace and insight she gave to these actresses was beautiful, and I started to realize that these women had largely written their own scenes with Rhona’s assistance to bring them to life and onto the stage. If you’ve been in theater, you know that this is not particularly common in the industry. This collaborative process was so intriguing to me. While I was painting up Rhona to be this beautiful, ethereal moon (if you know her, it truly suited her), we got to talking about my experience with burlesque and why I do it. After a while, she asked if I was interested in joining Dangerous Women for their next production, to which I thought, “HELL YES!” although I am sure I said that in a more tactful way at the time. The feeling remained; I was jazzed and got invited to the first brainstorming session.

Dangerous Women was started at Faith Lutheran Church in Leavenworth, WA, by Susan Butruille and Mandi Wickline. It was Women’s History Month, and they presented skits of different women who made a mark in history. Susan had asked Rhona if she would like to join them multiple times, but Rhona had taken a decade-long hiatus from the arts. She experienced burnout, something I know as a creative is a very real feeling and extremely hard to move through. After a few years, Rhona finally said yes and joined them as they shifted from the church to the Snowy Owl Theater, also located in Leavenworth, WA. Re-entering the art world, Rhona did not want to do the cutesy nice stuff any longer. She had worked with youth through the Salmon Festival, as well as many other art-based education in the valley. Rhona has a degree in painting and drawing, with a minor in environmental science. She has blended the two to create her method of edutainment. She came back with more edge and anger and needed to express this. She called her good friend out east, Ari Gabinet, to help her write her scene. She chose Jane Addams, performing a gritty rhyme inspired by hip-hop. Rhona describes her as being a “sassier woman than she is,” and although he is a man, they work wonderfully together to write the narrative parts of the Dangerous Women productions, as well as her own personal scenes in the show.

Angie Ploch, Susan Heminger, Rhona Baron, Mandi Wickline, Sally Knipfer, Holly Blue, Karen Francis-McWhite

Originally, the Dangerous Women shows had no theme; rather, it was individual women bringing the scenes they had created together to make a presentation. During the second year at the Snowy Owl Theater, Rhona suggested they go with a theme and a one-word title. They landed with “Spellbound.” This show started with a group number written by Rhona and her friend Ari, blending rap and Gregorian chant. In the third year at Snowy Owl, they themed the show “Victorious,” highlighting the women who helped win their right to vote. During our interview, Rhona recited a piece from the show:

“Wash the clothes and stir the pot,

Fix the dinner he wants it hot.

Brine the bacon, churn the butter,

Pretend my heart is all a flutter.

Knit the booties, scrub the diaper,

Pick the fruit that’s getting riper.

Plow the fields and plant the grain,

We don’t need a brain.

We are not your housemaids,

And we won’t eat your dust.

Women are your equals; less is not enough.

We’ll fight ‘til we’re counted, ‘til we emerge.

Victorious.”

This show was the first time I had heard of the Dangerous Women, though I did not get the opportunity to see it. Damn, did I miss out! Hearing Rhona recite those words felt empowering. It was during the next show that Rhona became director. The show was called Unsettled, touching on the women who came as pioneers settling in our valley, the Indigenous world during those times, as well as their continuing struggles, the land back movement, true histories, the Latina population, and the story of the bracero program bringing families here, overall expanding on our region and its roots.

The brainstorming process I witnessed this summer, meeting with the group of Dangerous Women in Rhona’s backyard, was fascinating. Rhona had created somewhat of a vision board with loose ideas of what she was thinking for the next show. Alongside this was a giant blank notepad that Rhona stood by and wrote down all of our key points as we spitballed and conversed over many views of difficult conversations. It was fantastic to be around a group of women ranging in ages, ethnicities, and life experiences. We were able to navigate through tough topics with empathy, understanding, and ease to ask clarifying questions. It was invigorating, to say the least. There was both laughter and tears shared with one another, talking about things that we have experienced, our ancestors have experienced, and our current fears and struggles with the world at the moment.

The process I witnessed was not always this way. She believes in this process, however, and sees how we as Americans are losing the ability to hear each other and fully collaborate due to our political climate and its polarization. She expressed that she believes life exists in the gray and we get better results if we moderate, build with, and listen to each other. It was not so collaborative at first, even for Spellbound. Now that they have four cultures involved, they have to be even better at listening to each other. Rhona introduces a theme and asks, “What do you think about this? How do you feel about this?” Sometimes she is not sure it will even end up being the theme she chose, as she builds the show around the feelings of the hearts and spirits of the women and what we most want to manifest, as well as what is happening in the world and what the audience wants to hear. She remains flexible through this process so that she can excitedly work with the energy that flows from these sessions with the women. Her role is the facilitator and editor, while she allows this group of fierce women to create freely.

It is common practice for the Dangerous Women to write their own scenes. They do not purchase scripts, as per the custom of the industry. They move from getting the theme into creating their characters and their message. This process looks a little different for each woman. For Karen Francis-McWhite, it was an invite to play a character that Susan Butruille had chosen. Mary Posey, a Black woman who settled in Posey Canyon in Leavenworth, WA. Writing her scene was a reflection for her, thinking about what it meant for the first generation of antebellum Black Americans to settle anywhere, but especially out west. She learned the painful history that Mary was left holding a mortgage and two young children after her husband was murdered. “What does it mean to choose to stay and settle someplace that had taken so much?” she wrote in an email response to my questions about the show. She channeled the memory of the elder women she grew up learning about, especially her grandmother Janie Mar and her grandmother who raised her after her daughter died young. Her scene came along pretty quick, but she workshopped with Rhona, Susan, and Mandi Wickline. Rhona stepped in to refine the scene for the stage. This scene was magnificent to watch, with a cheeky note to Mary making a divine pie and taking her children to teach them how to make the pie and ignore the snide remarks made to Mary from neighboring white settlers who gave her a poor attempt at their own pie.

I was able to contact a couple of the Indigenous Dangerous Women to get a view of their writing process. Mary Big Bull-Lewis was invited by her auntie Bernadine Phillips. Mary watched the show and knew that she wanted to join the following year. Cascadia Weaver was invited by Corky Broaddus and Holly Blue. After understanding that local Wenatchi and P’squosa women were involved in the writing, editing, and consultation, she was on board. Mary’s scene was a collaboration with Bernadine Phillips and the Colville Language Department, specifically Ernie Brooks. When she told Rhona that she wanted to join the production, she needed the scene to be scripted. Ernie shared the story of the Four Food Chiefs. During their brainstorming sessions, she wanted it to reflect her personally, and they adjusted the script to flow. Through coaching and recommendation, Mary became included in the final drumming portion of her scene, honored to play her drum alongside Featherae from the Golden Eaglettes. Cascadia’s wailing scene was created over concerns of the pain and fear of the children being stolen and not coming across more subtle or with abstract ideas. Having her mother and uncle be stolen children to the boarding schools, it was very important to convey what so many have experienced. She brainstormed her ideas with Mary, Julie Edwards, Stacy Coronado, and Bernadine Phillips to capture the native history from the experts. She particularly loved the scene with Marile Kunkel telling the story of her great-great-grandfather’s moccasins, given to him by an Indigenous woman who saw his mother alone in her cabin with her baby boy. Cascadia is Nooksack and Haida. She was honored to help the P’squosa with the presence and presentation of their history. Rhona came in to edit only to make sure it fit the show. She did not edit the stories but helped the actresses stage the scenes and make it work for theater, as well as place them in accurate places in the show. When she was told by the Indigenous people that pow-wows were held in the summer, she made sure that the scene was featured in the summer portion of the show.

Rhona sat down with Norma from Danzas Multiculturales over a cup of tea and listened to her stories of the braceros, the Day of the Dead, and what that meant to her. She channeled Norma’s feelings and spirit, writing a script from the hour-long meeting, collaborating with Norma to bring it to the stage. With Norma’s dancers, Rhona only made sure that they were scheduled in the correct place in the show. It is important to Rhona that the actresses have the ability to show their culture and share their stories as they want to, and she only comes in to refine so that it goes with the flow of the show.

Rhona does work on the final edit in every scene. It can be scattered, so she comes through and helps with blending the show to make it cohesive, to help the actresses have good length in their scenes, or to take views from different angles. Rhona only really edits the actresses’ scenes. Ari and Rhona stick to writing the narration or Rhona’s individual scenes. She will make what the actresses want in the show happen unless it truly does not fit in with the theme. It’s rare that it does not fit, but she will find a place for all of the women involved to be in the show. Some actresses don’t write anything, and Rhona finds a spot for them.

The women, their talents, where their hearts are - that’s the palette she paints the story with. She thinks of the individual women as jewels that they are going to set in a magnificent piece. Does she have too many of one? How does she showcase a gem that doesn’t know they are a gem? How does she find jewels that pop out that weren’t there before? Are there gems missing? When we learn to paint, we sketch, throwing stuff out that doesn’t work, highlighting pieces that have not been thought about before. This is Rhona’s process in bringing the show together—naming the show and identifying how it’s going to feel. Spellbound was mystical and began with Gregorian chant, Victorious jazzy, and had 1920s-inspired swing music, Unsettled had the mysterious moon who guided them through the seasons. For the next one… she doesn’t know, but it has to have a deep artistic basis that people don’t even know they are seeing to glue these diverse pieces from all of the women together.

Dangerous Women has a non-profit status with a unique vision and powerful inclusion. Rhona wants to continue to sense where there is the most enthusiasm and energy in the Dangerous Women group and the world, to try and add fuel to that and build around it for future shows. She can see this show growing to be in bigger theaters with a larger production and more spin-off events, such as the Unsettled Indigenous scenes being brought to Pioneer Middle School this month to educate the students on local history. She would like to include more youth and organizations. To get involved with the Dangerous Women, visit Dangerous-women.org.