BANDIT QUEEN
When 28-year-old Pearl Hart dressed as a man and robbed a stagecoach in Globe, Arizona in 1899, she became a nation-wide sensation. She was sent to Yuma, the Old West’s most infamous prison, as its first female prisoner, all the while becoming a feminist cultural icon of her day (she famously said, “I shall never consent to be tried under the law that neither I nor my sex had a voice in making”). But the true story of Pearl’s troubled upbringing, the pact she made with her siblings to fight for a better life, and her spirit of survival against all odds is, perhaps, even more wild than the legend.
Bandit Queen traces this tale, centering on the nearly fantastical lives of Lillie Davy - the woman who would become known as Pearl Hart - and her younger sister, Katy, who had an equally inconceivable history, becoming the madam of a brothel, a death-defying balloon ascentionist, and eventually, the lead actor in “The Arizona Female Bandit,” a play she wrote about her own sister’s exploits. But at tonight’s performance of “The Arizona Female Bandit,” Katy gets the shock of a lifetime when Lillie, just released from prison, interrupts the show from the back of the theatre. How dare her sister tell a story about her without her? Well tonight - for one night only - Lillie Davy will be telling her own damn story. As the sisters step into their own roles, replaying the events that led them here, they must come to terms with the past - both their own and each other’s - in order to move forward into the future.
Music by Amanda D’Archangelis, Lyrics by Sami Horneff, Book by Amanda D’Archangelis and Sami Horneff
AUDIO AND VIDEO
THE BALLAD OF THE DAVY CLAN
Performed by Amanda D’Archangelis at “In the Works” at 54 Below (2022)
I WILL GO
Performed by Kimberlie Pagan and Katie O’Shields at 54 Below with the Christopher Newport University New Musicals Lab (2024)
NO ADVENTURE
Performed by John Byrd at 54 Below with the Christopher Newport University New Musicals Lab (2024)
ABOUT THE WRITERS
Amanda D'Archangelis (Music & Book) and Sami Horneff (Lyrics & Book) met in the world-renowned BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. After being paired for the final project of their first year course, D'Archangelis and Horneff quickly realized they had found a life-long partnership.
That class assignment later developed into their first full-length musical together (and their Off-Broadway debut as a team). Single Rider ran at the Players Theatre in Greenwich Village for five weeks in the summer of 2018 and was subsequently presented in a workshop at the University of Alabama. Single Rider had it’s high school premiere in 2024 at The Altamont School in Birmingham, AL. This production won the top prize at both the regional and national-level Trumbauer Theatre competitions and was presented as the first-ever Studio entry at the 2025 Southeastern Theatre Conference.
Amanda and Sami's other recent work includes The Radium Girls (in collaboration with Lisa Mongillo), which was a 2022 NAMT semi-finalist, a five-time winner at The 2021 National Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival after a virtual production at Western Connecticut State University, and most recently had its first NYC industry presentation directed by Tony Winner Marissa Jaret Winokur and starring Tony Nominees Andy Karl and Orfeh; The Break, which had its premiere reading in 2018 through the Omaha Creative Institute and has since been showcased at Lied Center for Performing Arts; and Coming Attraction, a new musical about the life of Hollywood icon Greta Garbo, which premiered at the Wilbury Theatre Group in Providence, RI. They are currently developing Bandit Queen, a small-cast pop-country musical centering on Pearl Hart, the Wild West’s most notorious female bandit, as well as Pandora in Blue Jeans with book by Adam Fox Morrison, which explores the life of controversial “Peyton Place” author Grace Metalious.
Their work has also been performed at famed concert venues across New York City, including The Green Room 42, The Duplex, Prohibition NYC, Lincoln Center, Rockwood Music Hall, The Bitter End, The Metropolitan Room, and Feinstein's/54 Below. D'Archangelis and Horneff also wrote two songs for the feature film A Ring for Christmas, which played on the UPtv network throughout the 2020 holiday season and is now available on Prime Video. In 2019, they were named York Theatre Company’s New/Emerging/Outstanding (NEO) Writers, and in 2023, they were Artists in Residence at The Legacy Theatre in Branford, CT. In 2024, their work was also highlighted as part of Playbill’s Songwriter Series. They are 2025 Finalists for the Rhinebeck Writer’s Retreat, Artists in Residence at Drama Club Camp, and Grand Prize Winners of the Write Out Loud Songwriting Contest.
To learn more, follow Amanda and Sami on instagram at @darchangelisandhorneff or visit their websites: www.amandadarchangelis.com and www.samihorneff.com