Mission

Founded in New York City in 2001 by Shannon Woolley Allison and Trina Fischer, both Louisville natives, along with Jennifer Thalman Kepler of Fairfax VA, LFL relocated to Louisville, KY in 2006.

Inspired by her experiences while at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Shannon turned a dream into forming Looking for Lilith Theatre Company. Working with other women at SMU, they created 1968, Vietnam, based on historical research and written collaboratively. There she realized THAT was the kind of theatre she wanted to be doing!

Fast forward to 2001 in NYC, when LFL created and premiered our first devised production, Crossing Mountains. Told through the words of founders, teachers, students, and community members, this powerful story is about the beginnings and development of the first hundred years of the Hindman Settlement School in Eastern Kentucky. 

The story of Lilith represents to us an instance where a strong woman's voice was quieted, and her story lost. Inspired by her, we seek to empower women who have traditionally been under-represented to voice their experiences, ideas and opinions. We seek to use women’s personal narratives as the basis for theatre performances that we share with community audiences, in a format that is at once compelling, informative, and thought provoking. LFL is committed to collaboratively creating original theatre based on women’s history, both oral and written, both past history and history in the making.

In addition to producing existing work, LFL creates original devised plays, which refers to a variety of group collaborative playwrighting activities. LFL has developed their devising process through training in Educational Theatre, Youth Theatre Devising, Composition Exercises, Viewpoints, and Theatre of the Oppressed. We seek to use the creation and performance of these original plays as a vehicle for opening dialogue between communities, and individual community members, who have disparate opinions.

LFL has a strong commitment to education and our community. Through our outreach programs, we guide participants in dramatic play, devising, and theatrically sharing their discoveries in a way that gives voice to members of our society who have historically been underrepresented. Through these programs as well as our productions, we help show the value of multiple perspectives on history and today

 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 has also been recognized by the International Centre for Women 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.

In 2015, we launched a Racial Justice Initiative examining racial (in)justice and the intersection of race and gender within our own company, the commonwealth, and the nation.

We believe this is timely, radical, and urgent, as we strive to bring our best selves as feminist artists to the struggle for equity and solidarity. We know that healing the racial divides in our society is complicated. Through bravely addressing this topic, we see the importance of the arts & and our roles as artists in dismantling racism and oppression, raising awareness and beginning community conversations to work toward justice and reconciliation.

Through partial funding and our longtime membership in Alternate Roots, LFL received training for this initiate through Race Peace (a project of Mondo Bizarro and M.U.G.A.B.E.E. - Men Under Guidance Acting Before Early Extinction), and are proud share story circle methodology learned from our theatre elders at JuneBug Productions and Roadside Theatre.

Lilith's story represents to us an instance where a strong woman's voice was quieted, and her story lost. Inspired by her, we seek to use women's histories-- both oral and written, to create multi-disciplinary performance pieces that will bring women's voices to a wider audience. In early Rabbinical myth, Lilith is Adam's first wife and the first woman mentioned in the Bible. When one looks at the first few chapters of Genesis today, Lilith's presence can still be detected, as there are two different tellings of the creation story. In Genesis 1:26-28, God creates man and woman together out of the dust (male and female he created them, in his image) and he gives them dominion over the plants and animals, but not over one another. As legend has it, Adam soon went to God with the complaint that Lilith was demanding and bossy, and God banished her from the garden. Time passed, and Adam returned to God and cried out, "Bring her back! She was beautiful and kind, and I miss her!," and God did. Days went by, and again Adam said, "God, this woman is driving me crazy! Banish her!" God told Adam that because he could neither live with Lilith, nor without her, God would end the situation once and for all. God put Adam to sleep and created Eve from his rib, so that there would be a natural subservience and she would be his "help-mate." This second story is also reflected, in Genesis 2:18-24.