Theatre UAB will present “The Revolutionists,” an irreverent comedy about four beautiful, badass women who lose their heads in 1790s Paris, from Feb. 26-March 2.

Theatre UAB is the performance company of the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Theatre at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.  

Performances will be at 7:30 p.m. nightly Feb. 26-March 1, with a 2 p.m. matinee Sunday, March 2, in UAB’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center. Directed by Jack Cannon, this play contains strong language and adult themes. Tickets are $15; $10 for UAB students. Purchase tickets at AlysStephens.org or call 205-975-2787.

This girl-powered play’s central character, Olympe de Gouges, is the only female playwright during the French Revolution’s “Reign of Terror.” Fearful of insulting the revolutionary authorities and being sentenced to the guillotine, Olympe struggles to find her artistic voice — and keep her head — while writing her latest play. Enter three other 18th-century women in need of the playwright’s help and words: a freedom fighter, a queen and a young assassin.

Although none of these women ever truly met, playwright Lauren Gunderson intertwines their stories into one of bravery and sisterhood, says student dramaturg Lauren Parrish.

On July 20, 1793, the day real-life playwright Olympe de Gouges was arrested, French authorities confiscated her unfinished play, “La France Sauvée ou le Tyran Détrôné (France Preserved or the Tyrant Dethroned).” It was based on a fictional meeting between Gouges and Queen Marie Antoinette, in which the playwright lectures the queen about her lack of duty to her people. This play was used as evidence against Gouges, and she was subsequently put to death for “attempting to overthrow the Revolutionary government.” Centuries later, Gunderson finished the play, Parrish says.

While the central action of “The Revolutionists” is dark and foreboding, “the brilliance of Gunderson’s play is that it is a laugh-a-minute comedy,” Cannon said. “With humor, irony, sarcasm, intelligence, wit and an enlightened optimism, the four women face their lives of subjugation while demanding the right of equality, freedom, liberty — the very sovereignty of their own lives.”

“‘The Revolutionists’ gives its audience the ability to laugh as we continue our collective optimism in the forever march forward toward perfecting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all,” Cannon said.

The cast includes Isabelle Johnson of Pensacola, Florida, as Olympe De Gouge; Deztonie Cunningham of Mobile, Alabama, as Marianne Angelle; Alexandria Stone of Hoover, Alabama, as Marie Antoinette; Norah Trench of Vestavia Hills, Alabama, as Charlotte Corday; with understudies SG Kimery of Atlanta, Georgia, in the role of Olympe De Gouge; Trinity Anderson of Vestavia Hills, Alabama, in the role of Marianne Angelle; Celia Knox of Mobile, Alabama, in the role of Marie Antoinette; and Bethany Sartain of Hayden, Alabama, in the role of Charlotte Corday. Stage management by Kat Graves of Talladega, Alabama, with assistant stage managers Vivian Hogeland of Birmingham, Alabama, and Amy Potts of Gardendale, Alabama.