This incredibly challenging season included a 10th Anniversary celebration of CHOICES: an interactive play on cyberbullying and suicide, rehearsal and almost-premiere of Erin Fitzgerald's GOOD GRIEF, devising for THE KENTUCKY SUFFRAGE PROJECT, and half a season of our regular in-school, after-school and summer programming, that shifted to online once Covid-19 hit, when possible. As we all know, this was a rough year all around - and the arts and education sectors were particularly hard-hit. LFL was no exception, but we persevered. In addition to having to pivot on all our programming once the Covid-19 pandemic hit, we had to adjust to the loss of 2 Co-Artistic Directors, with Kathi E.B. Ellis having passed away the previous summer and Trina Fischer preparing to move to Chile in January 2020 with her family. (Though Trina would continue to work with LFL as a company member and part-time staff, the Staff decided that it made the most sense for her to step down from her Co-Artistic Director role while living in Chile.) The resilience, flexibility and steadfastness of existing and new company members made all the difference that season and the next, as we adapted to the realities of maintaining performing arts and arts education programming during a global pandemic.
We started the season celebrating the 10th Anniversary of CHOICES: an interactive play on cyberbullying and suicide, with a gala dinner and performance at the Kentucky Center for the Arts. We prepared to present a new play with music by long-time LFL collaborator Erin Fitzgerald, GOOD GRIEF, which was to open on March 19, 2020 at the Kentucky Center for the Arts, but had to be postponed. It was eventually transformed into a virtual performance in the following season. We also had to postpone our planned premiere of THE KENTUCKY SUFFRAGE PROJECT, which we had planned to tour during 2020 to celebrate the centennial of women's suffrage in the USA. All of our educational and outreach programming, from local schools to trips to Guatemala for the Faith Stories Project, had to be put on hold. We were able to shift some of our after-school, in-school and summer programming into virtual models with the use of Zoom.