Looking for Lilith Announces 2017-2018 Season!
One brand new LFL Original and Two Regional Premieres
Hot on the heels of the critically lauded UNHEARD [outloud] Festival, which was an outstanding celebration of their 15th Anniversary, Looking for Lilith is excited to be gearing up for an equally dynamic 2017-2018 Season. Two regional premieres, one by Louisville-area playwright Diana Grisanti, and an LFL original which has already begun its collaborative creation process, will make for an entertaining, insightful, stimulating season of productions! Audiences are encouraged to mark their calendars now.
Carefully Taught - October 26-November 4, 2017
Looking for Lilith kicks off its 2017-2018 season with Cheryl L. Davis’ Carefully Taught. A brand new play which debuted in Brooklyn in the fall of 2015, LFL produces a regional premiere which is this script’s second production. The central characters teach at the same school, which their daughters also attend, and a long term friendship is threatened when one is fired, raising issues of racial discrimination on which the local media pounce. Davis has written a searing and smart picking-apart of racial biases, personal and systemic. Reviews of the premiere state, “Carefully Taught challenges us to examine perceptions of “the other” in both our professional and private lives. It leaves us asking questions about loyalty and what fosters prejudice” (Queen’s Gazette). An earlier work by Davis, Color of Justice, was produced by the Juneteenth Festival of New Works here in Louisville.
Directed by Co-Artistic Director Kathi E. B. Ellis, Carefully Taught features LFL company member Ebony Jordan and Co-Artistic Director/Founder Jennifer Thalman Kepler. They are joined by Jay Padilla (last seen on the LFL stage in Becoming Mothers) and Phil Lynch making his LFL debut. Following the fall 2015 original Prevailing Winds, LFL’s commitment to Carefully Taught expands its engagement with issues of racial justice. LFL partners with The Kentucky Center for African American Heritage as its performance venue, October 26-November 4, 2017.
The Patron Saint of Losing Sleep - March 15-24, 2018
LFL Founder and Co-Artistic Director Shannon Woolley Allison will be directing LFL’s 2018 Women’s History Month Production, The Patron Saint of Losing Sleep, by Louisvillian Diana Grisanti. Previously produced in Charlotte and Nashville, LFL’s production marks Patron Saint’sLouisville debut, although audiences will be familiar with Grisanti’s work with Actors Theatre of Louisville and Theatre [502]. Written in an unconventional narrative style that mirrors the disruption of insomnia, the play follows the actions of a sleep-deprived call center rep whose well-meaning interventions in the lives of clients and others snowball out of control. LFL is delighted to be producing a second Louisville-based playwright following its commission of Nancy Gall-Clayton for its 15th Anniversary Festival this summer.
Co-Artistic Director/Founder Trina Fischer and LFL company members Laura Ellis and Karole Spangler are in the cast. They are joined by Sean Childress (last seen in Prevailing Winds),
Ke’Leb Beauchamp (last seen in the staged reading of #WhatHappenedToDavid) and Janelle Renee (last seen in Becoming Mothers). LFL returns to The MeX Theater at The Kentucky Center, March 15-24. 2018.
We. Are. Here. (working title) - June 14-23, 2018
Jennifer Thalman Kepler, Co-Artistic Director/Founder, is the Devising Director in the collaborative creation process of the season’s culminating work, a brand new Lilith original production, We. Are. Here. (working title.) This work will explore our community’s responses to the political and social turmoil that continues to follow the 2016 election. As with LFL’s most recent original work, Defining Infinity, this piece will begin with interviews from a wide range of perspectives about issues such as immigration, health care, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, the environment, education and more. Using LFL’s well-honed devising skills, these interviews will become the building blocks of the collaborative play-making process. This production will premiere at The MeX Theater at The Kentucky Center, June 14-23, 2018.
For MeX Theater performances, LFL will once again offer Audio-described and ASL-interpreted performances for both productions, with advance notice. Patrons should contact The Kentucky Center’s Access Services Hotline at (502) 566-5111 (V) or (502) 566-5140 (TTY) to request this service. All performance dates will have a 7:30 curtain time, and the final date of each run will also have a 2:00 matinee. For ticketing and additional information for the 2017-2018 season go to www.lookingforlilith.org
In addition to these provocative and timely scripts, Looking for Lilith continues its work with students of all ages and adults through its strong year-round community and educational outreach programming, including their work in Guatemala and their touring of CHOICES: An Interactive Play on Cyberbullying and Suicide. For information about after-school programs, summer camps, residencies, touring productions and workshops check out www.lookingforlilith.org.
LFL's 2017-2018 season productions and outreach are sponsored in part by The Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Kentucky Arts Council, Eastern Area Community Ministries, Fund for the Arts ArtsMatch program funded by the Jennifer Lawrence Foundation, Louisville Metro External Agency Fund, Stockhoff's Horseshoes and Supplies, Fauver Law Office, Louisville Public Media and Video Kitchen. LFL’s Racial Justice Initiative, an ongoing examination of racial dynamics within our community, is being funded in part by a Partners in Action grant from Alternate ROOTS, a grant program which receives funding from The Nathan Cummings Foundation, The Ford Foundation, the Surdna Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The mission of Looking for Lilith Theatre Company is to create productions and programming by examining history and today's world through women’s perspectives and lifting up unheard voices. LFL productions and programming serve adults, youth and children locally, nationally and internationally.
The Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, provides operating support to Looking for Lilith with state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
For more info about LFL, visit:
www.lookingforlilith.org
Press Contact: Trina Fischer, Co-Artistic Director
(347) 228-6438 | trina@lookingforlilith.org
2017-2018 SEASON PRESS RELEASE
LOOKING FOR LILITH THEATRE COMPANY is a Louisville, KY based not-for-profit, ensemble theatre company, founded in New York City in 2001 by Shannon Woolley Allison and Trina Fischer, both Louisville natives, along with Jennifer Thalman Kepler of Winchester, VA. The mission of this company is to present plays that re-examine history and question today through women’s perspectives, mainly via the collaborative creation of original theatre based on research. All three of the original founders, along with Kathi E.B. Ellis, are the current Co-Artistic Directors of LFL. The company also includes Holly Stone, Jill Marie Schierbaum, Typh Hainer Merwarth, Sara G. B. Canary, Ebony Jordan, Regina Harris, Karole Spangler, Lindsay Chamberlin, Laura Ellis, Dawn Schulz Cambell and Kelly McNerney. LFL is on the touring rosters of the Kentucky Arts Council, the Kentucky Center for the Arts and Alternate ROOTS. They are members of GLI’s Arts and Cultural Alliance, Kentucky Theatre Association, The American Alliance for Theatre and Education, Alternate ROOTS and the Network of Ensemble Theatres. LFL received the 2010 Karen Willis Award from the Kentucky Theatre Association for artistic excellence and commitment to changing Kentucky through theatre. LFL was also recognized for two consecutive years by the International Center for Women's Playwrights with their 50/50 Award for commitment to producing women playwrights. LFL's original devised script, Prevailing Winds, was the recipient of the 2016 Arts-Louisville/Broadway World Awards for Best Full Length Play.