Extinction threatens. In the tradition of Beckett and set in the specific landscape of the western plains, we find three mannish women performing as freaks of nature in a seedy circus, doing acts whose entertainment value is questionable at best. During the day, the women perform their circus acts and at night they plot escape. As they prepare to break-out, they are sidetracked by fantasy, alcohol and gambling, by their need to compete with one another and by the ringmaster, who needs the women in order for the circus to survive. The ringmaster, a consummate producer, sees the circus failing and eventually decides he must shut it down. When the dissolution of the circus is revealed, the women captives discover they may not be prepared for their desired freedom after all. Absurdist comedy, cabaret and circus collide in a play that attempts to save rare beasts from extinction and to question our human ability to deal with freedom should it be delivered to us. Queer stories that have emerged in the last forty years tend to magnify the heroic qualities of the marginalized deviants of our pre-Stonewall past. Buffalo Girls Reload uses a queer story as a metaphor for all of humanity. Alternately fueled by our ideals and our fear, we are all freaks, bordering on extinction, preferring the comfort of empty spectacle and captivity to the chill of truth. Meanwhile, the circus is failing, the dust bowl encroaching. Based on actual women from BC history, Buffalo Girls Re-mix was selected to be developed with dramaturg Heidi Taylor at the Playwright’s Theatre Centre in Vancouver in November 2009 as part of the PTC Playwright’s Colony. The script is available for production. Please contact nicola@twinfishtheatre.ca for information.