Review: B*tchcraft, a Musical Play Conjures Radical Lesbian Joy

While Broadway serves its audience a steady diet of jukebox musicals celebrating major recording artists (this season it’s Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin), off-off-Broadway (almost to Avenue B) at the Wild Project, audiences can enjoy a musical memoir of the queer singer-songwriter Bitch in B*tchcraft, a Musical Play. A 90-minute solo(ish) show starring the artist herself, it’s a stroll down memory lane for old fans and an excellent introduction for new ones, as I have become.

I was not familiar with Bitch’s music going into the show, which is just as well, because it’s really no fun wading through hours of a self-serving memoir just for the chance to “bah bah bah” to “Sweet Caroline” (for the record, B*tchcraft is a zippy 80 minutes). Instead, I was able to experience Bitch’s music for the first time in the context of her biography, which will feel quite familiar to LGBT viewers or anyone whose square peg didn’t fit into the round hole that had been crafted for them to inhabit.

“I was a quiet child,” she sings in the show’s opening number. The daughter of British immigrants in Michigan, she spent an awful lot of time in her bedroom hiding from her father’s rage and mother’s disappointment (Mom had dreams of being a Broadway star, but had to settle for running a basement tap-dance studio). Bitch, whose given name is “Karen Mould,” retreated into fantasy and music, dreaming about flying away on her broomstick with her best friend, a stuffed beaver (the very eager Francesca).

A new world cracked open for her in college when she discovered feminism and a remarkably confident nonbinary individual named Danny, who would go on to become her partner (bandmate and more). For nearly a decade they crisscrossed America as Bitch and Animal, playing Pride events and living out of a bus christened Camp Twat (for “tenacious women and transfolk”). Those scenes conjure a very satisfying and irreverent kind of Gen-X lesbian joy as we witness Bitch discovering her voice.

Bitch’s story is fascinating for the way it reflects the recent trajectory of individualism in liberal societies: New ideas and technologies have made it easier than ever to abandon the tribes of our birth and craft our own bespoke identities. But in doing so, we mostly end up forming new tribes (or “communities”), and that’s when the narcissism of small differences sets in. Bitch’s devotion to the now-defunct Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival (an event that excluded trans women and was frequently protested for it) and her unguarded observation to a reporter that “people who were raised as men, who therefore carry male entitlement, are driving this whole fucking thing,” nearly ended her career.

You never realize how silly our recent age of cultural backbiting was until you hear about the “cancellation” of an artist you were only vaguely aware of, for saying something that is indisputably true. The inquisitors who sought to torch Bitch for heresy aren’t a new feature of human society, but in 2025 their power is not undergirded by any stable church or state. They control the culture only as far as we’re willing to listen and obey. I’m certainly glad that we’re not doing that as credulously as we once were.

As Bitch proves in her irrepressible performance, she is an artist who is not easily silenced. Bitchcraft is a chance to hear her sing the synth-pop banger “You’re the Man” just feet away from you. She saws on her electric fiddle, inviting us to her futuristic hoedown (and pointing out several hos in the audience). She sweeps us up in the call-and-response section of “The Pussy Manifesto,” radiating charisma like she’s playing Madison Square Garden.

Director Margie Zohn, who co-wrote the show with Bitch, has shrewdly crafted the production around her. Two actors (the aforementioned Francesca and Cary Curran as “The Crone”) occasionally appear (mostly as stagehands), but for the bulk of the production, Bitch stands alone.

Brian Pacelli’s vibrant projections act as a force multiplier, with dancers reflected on the walls of the theater. He makes excellent use of Samantha Tutasi’s austere and versatile set, which acts as a blank canvas for an explosion of Lisa Frank color. I especially enjoyed the chalk drawings in the first scene, which could make for an excellent graphic novel.

Andrea Lauer costumes Bitch like a fabulous children’s television host—Blue’s Clues for young lesbians. Amina Alexander delivers arena concert lighting with the limited grid space at the Wild Project. And sound designer Sean Hagerty not only facilitates perfect balance (the sound engineer is Gregory Kostroff) but pipes in voices from Bitch’s life that inevitably take up residence in her head during her moment of doubt.

It all adds up to an exceedingly well-produced chamber musical about an artist you should get to know. They tried to cancel her, but Bitch is back.