Rattlesnake Kate

Music and lyrics by Neyla Pekarek
Book by Karen Hartman
DCPA Theatre Company Commission

Around 100 years ago near Greeley, Colorado, Kate Slaughterback came upon a migration of rattlesnakes while on her horse with her young son. To protect her child and herself, she shot as many snakes as she could with the ammo at hand and decapitated the rest of them with a no-trespassing sign. Neyla Pekarek (former cellist and vocalist of folk-rock band The Lumineers) has woven Kate’s biography — including six husbands and one decades-long romance through letters — into an enthralling song cycle. Playwright Karen Hartman joins forces with Pekarek to transform this material into a fully-fleshed musical that delivers Western lore through a modern lens. Join us for this one-night-only event during the Festival Weekend featuring a performance accompanied by a live band.

Neyla Pekarek began playing cello at age 9 in her native city of Denver, Colorado. She studied Musical Theatre and earned a degree in Music Education at UNC in Greeley, CO. In 2010, she joined the Denver folk-rock group The Lumineers as a cellist and vocalist, playing on their GRAMMY-nominated self-titled debut and follow-up albums, selling out Madison Square Garden, and touring with U2.

Karen Hartman‘s Good Faith premieres at Yale Repertory Theater in 2019, directed by Kenny Leon. Hartman is the recipient of a McKnight Residency, a Fulbright Scholarship, a Hodder Fellowship, a Jerome Fellowship, and is a New Dramatists alumna. In spring 2018, Hartman’s The Book of Joseph became the highest grossing play in Everyman Theatre’s history. Joseph and two other recent plays Roz and Ray (Edgerton New Play Prize) and Project Dawn (NEA Grant, NNPN Rolling World Premiere) had ten productions in the 2016-18 seasons. A Senior Artist in Residence at University of Washington, Seattle, Hartman nonetheless lives in Brooklyn with her family. Visit her portfolio