She’s no Slaughterback, but who is? | John moore
At first glance, former Lumineers cellist Neyla Pekarek and pioneering Colorado frontierswoman Kate McHale Slaughterback seem about as alike as a cello bow and a rifle.
Slaughterback was a fiercely self-reliant woman who made her way a century ago farming her own land east of Fort Lupton. Who had a short-attention span for men — six of whom she divorced. Who worked many odd jobs over the years, including taxidermist, midwife, bootlegger and World War II nurse.
Pekarek was a shy theater kid who came alive belting out Liza Minnelli showtunes in her Aurora bedroom when she was 12. Who was typecast into playing the Tomato Plant Girl in a children’s theater production because, yes, she’s just that sweet. Who sings competitive barbershop music as a member of Sweet Adelines International. Who’s happily married — and only once!
Slaughterback became forever known as Rattlesnake Kate in 1925, when she came upon a sudden snake migration while out hunting near her farm. With her was a trusty pony named Brownie, who was carrying Kate’s 3-year-old adopted son. Naturally, Slaughterback proceeded to wipe out all 140 rattlesnakes.
“At first she killed them with her rifle, but she ran out of bullets,” Pekarek said. “So then she plucked a ‘No Hunting’ sign from the ground and she just started bludgeoning snakes to death.” The ordeal lasted for two hours.
The next day, Slaughterback went back to the scene of the massacre, which must have been a horrific sight. But Kate wanted proof that this had really happened. So she gathered all the snakeskins she could and fashioned them into a flapper-style gown that she wore to parties.
Pekarek would be the first to admit that she’s no Slaughterback when it comes to forcefulness. But then again … who is?
“I am a people-pleaser to a fault,” Pekarek said. “I really do not like to ruffle feathers. It’s really hard for me to advocate for myself.”
And yet, these century-crossed Colorado trailblazers have more in common than meets the muzzle.
Slaughterback, who was 31 when she slew those serpents, then experienced a fleeting taste of international celebrity that she would chase for the rest of her life. Pekarek caught a shooting star as the founding cellist in the Grammy nominated folk-rock band The Lumineers. Pekarek had just graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 2010 when she answered a Craigslist ad from a local band that was looking for a cellist. “It started out with two guys in their basement asking me if I wanted to get into a minivan and play shows,” she said with a laugh.
The Lumineers’ first record reached triple-platinum status with sales of more than 3 million records. Before long, they were opening for U2. They played Paris and Madison Square Garden — ironic, given that Pekarek’s biggest little-girl dream was to perform across town on a Broadway stage. But being a Lumineer was never Pekarek’s greatest creative ambition.
“I’m very fortunate that I stumbled into this monster machine that became The Lumineers,” Pekarek said. “But there were a lot of times I felt quite voiceless in a band of all men. There were times when I felt like I was living someone else’s dream.” So in 2018, like Kate leaving 140 dead rattlesnakes behind, she walked away in search of her own artistic identity.
“Both Kate and Neyla had this ‘shot-out-of-a-cannon’ experience with fame as a young person, and then they had to reinvent themselves,” said Brooklyn playwright Karen Hartman. “After the glory comes the question: ‘What now?’ Kate’s life didn’t end after the rattlesnake attack happened. She had 44 more years of ‘What now?’ to go.”
Pekarek’s life didn’t end after the Lumineers, either. Both women were confronted with the need — and the opportunity — to reinvent themselves at a very young age.
Pekarek remembered having stumbled across Kate’s snakeskin dress, which has been preserved in an airtight container at the Greeley History Museum, way back in 2007, when she was a student at UNC. Kate’s story, now nearly a century old, struck her anew.
“I could not stop thinking about her,” Pekarek said. “I could not stop talking about her. Everything reminded me of her. She really became all-consuming. I was so enamored by this woman who lived her life exactly as she wanted to. She didn’t really care what other people thought about her. She pushed the boundaries of what it meant to be feminine and what it meant to be a woman. She really didn’t take a lot of crap from anybody. She said what was on her mind. And so all these things came together like a creative lightning-bolt strike in my brain.”
In Slaughterback, Pekarek discovered both a kindred spirit — and her muse. She began weaving Slaughterback’s biography into a 2018 concept album called “Rattlesnake.” DCPA Theatre Company Artistic Director Chris Coleman then commissioned Pekarek, with Hartman’s playwriting help, to transform the album into a fully fleshed stage musical that finally opens Friday at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ Wolf Theatre (with Pekarek appearing in the cast).
“The reason Neyla became obsessed with Kate is because she is not Kate,” Coleman said. ”In some ways, this process has been about Neyla finding some of the strength and fortitude that Kate has and integrating it into her own life. I think that’s a beautiful metaphor for what we hope others take away from it.”
The old Pekarek often found herself “in awe and also a bit horrified” whenever she saw someone like Kate putting their foot down and asking for exactly what they needed. “I am more like a, ‘Don’t make anyone mad!’ kind of person,” she said. “But sometimes, especially in this business, you have to do that. I grapple with this question: ‘Do I have to be (a jerk) to be successful?’ I hope that the answer is no. But through this experience, I have felt a lot more power in being more authentically myself, regardless of the consequences.”
At a workshop rehearsal back in 2019, one of the actors teared up. “She started talking about how Kate’s story spoke to her as a young woman,” Pekarek said. “And in that moment, I thought, ‘That’s exactly why I wanted to write this.’ I found my voice in Kate’s story, and I found a little more bravery inside me. I hope other people who have ever felt marginalized can as well.”
And with that, Pekarek found where she was meant to be in this next chapter of her creative life.
“I feel at home in the theater,” she said. “I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be.”
This column was compiled from several interviews John Moore has conducted with Neyla Pekarek from 2018 through last month.
• Presented by the DCPA Theatre Company
• Feb. 4 through March 13
• Wolf Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex
• Tickets start at $30 • 303-893-4100 or denvercenter.org
“She pushed the boundaries of what it meant to be feminine and what it meant to be a woman,” Pekarek says.
Former Lumineer Neyla Pekarek, who wrote the music and lyrics for “Rattlesnake Kate,” which earned 16 Colorado Theatre Guild Henry Award nominations, won three awards Monday for her writing and acting.