here comes the night Produced by SheLA Arts

Written by Lisa Kenner Grissom, Directed by Hailey McAfee

Award-winning playwright Lisa Kenner Grissom’s riveting dark comedy, here comes the night produced by SheLA Arts, offers a fresh take on the topic of reproductive rights, and explores female friendship in the digital age. Co-Produced by The Inkwell Theater, the play stars Erika Soto and Madelynn Fattibene. here comes the night will have two performances at the SheLA Festival, JULY 16th @ 7:30 pm and JULY 20th @ 2:30 pm at The Zephyr Theatre. Tickets at SheLA website HERE.

What happens when a woman’s right to choose becomes a litmus test for all of her life choices?

here comes the night is a beautifully written two character play set in a Los Angeles canyon near the winter solstice. Olivia, a middle aged musician’s wife and climate science advocate invites Maggie, an old friend turned social media influencer, to spend the weekend while she has an at-home medical abortion. Surrounded by mountains recently scorched by a wildfire these women, a generation apart are about to alter each other’s lives beyond what either expected or imagined. 

Playwright

Lisa Kenner Grissom is an LA- based award-winning writer whose work explores social issues through complex relationships, often through a female lens. Her multi-layered characters mine humor in darkness and find moments of levity in discomfort.

Director

Director Hailey McAfee is an actor, director and Associate Artist of the Attic Collective with a BA in Theatre Arts from UC Santa Cruz. Her directing credits include Six Men Dressed Like Joseph Stalin,  Hedda Gabler, 2023 Hollywood Fringe Best Drama Nominee, the award winning, Iphigenia in Splott at the Hollywood Fringe. Other credits include I Decided I’m Fine: A Roach Play, Prefers Bright Indirect Light, and Desert Weeds.

Cast

Maggie is played by Houston native, Erika Soto (she/her.)  Her LA theatre work includes: A Noise Within Theatre (Resident Artist): Hypatia Tarleton, Misalliance, Hermia, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Beatrice, Much Ado About Nothing; Eurydice, and others, Metamorphoses; Helen, All’s Well That Ends Well; Ensemble, Sonnets for an Old Century (NoiseNow audio play), Alice, Alice in Wonderland; Elizabeth/Female Creature, Frankenstein; Poppy Norton-Taylor, Noises Off; Laura Wingfield, The Glass Menagerie; Katherine/Boy, Henry V; Vivie Warren, Mrs. Warren’s Profession; Cordelia, King Lear; Thomasina Coverly, Arcadia; Dolly Clandon, You Never Can Tell. Elsewhere: Boston Court Pasadena: Jessica, Everything That Never Happened; Independent Shakespeare Co.: Julia, The Two Gentlemen of Verona; Miranda, The Tempest; Juliet, Romeo and Juliet; Bianca, The Taming of the Shrew; Constance Neville, She Stoops to Conquer; Mopsa, The Winter’s Tale; Mary Moore, Red Barn (Premiere); Ingenue, Strange Eventful History (Premiere). TV: ERIC (Netflix), Vida (STARZ), Side Hustle (Nickelodeon), Ultra Violet and Black Scorpion (Disney). Erika is a graduate of University of Southern California, School of Dramatic Arts, B.A. and the British American Drama Academy, London, UK.

Olivia is played by Madelynn Fattibene (she/her.) The VS Theatre Company member appeared in the 2022 Inkwell Theater reading of here comes the night and recently appeared with The Attic Collective in Hedda Gabler (Best Drama nominee and Los Angeles Magazine top of list, Hollywood Fringe Festival 2023) Other credits include The Car Plays at Segerstrom Center for the Arts; Anita Bryant Died For Your Sins and Epic Proportions with West Coast Ensemble; A Good Smoke with The Production Company; Enchanted April (U/S) at The Pasadena Playhouse; the short films Grimshaw and Daryl from OnCar; and the storytelling show Iron Skirt Stories with Gladiolus 

SheLA Arts

SheLA Arts is part of SheNYC Arts an organization devoted to producing plays, musicals, and adaptations by writers of marginalized genders. They produce annual summer theatre festivals in both New York, Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles. This year’s Los Angeles festival runs July 15th through 21st at the Zephyr Theatre in West Hollywood.

The Inkwell Theater

Artistic Director Elliot Shoenman founded The Inkwell Theater in 2004 as a writer’s theatre company. The Inkwell Theater company focuses exclusively on new works by developing and cultivating new plays and playwrights in the Los Angeles Community. The Inkwell Development LAB has developed more than 53 new plays with many going on to full production on both stage and film. Company Website: InkwellTheatre.com