LOFT ENSEMBLE ANNOUNCES ITS 12TH SEASON

Loft Ensemble (Adam Chambers, Artistic Director) in North Hollywood has announced its 12th anniversary season. The slate of plays was chosen by the company’s member-elected artistic committee. The season will feature four world premieres, and four of the shows will be presented in Sawyer’s Playhouse, the company’s intimate black box space above the mainstage.

The season will open on September 13 on the mainstage with The Polycule: A Comedy of Manners by Jillian Blevins. In rhyming verse a la Moliere, Fern attends a dinner party to meet her new boyfriend’s family — which consists of his wife and the other members of their polyamorous household. An outsider to their world of consensual non-monogamy and its unfamiliar rules and norms, Fern struggles to keep up and to fit in. The play satirizes the conventions of unconventional relationships. Directed by Sean Alan Mazur.

Next up, opening October 18 in Sawyer’s Playhouse, is the world premiere of summertime, an interlude by anielleo fontano. The hottest day of summer is interrupted when a community leader is rushed to the hospital. As Red fights for his life, the neighborhood bands together to hunt down his wannabe executioner. Through belly laughs, cold beer, and blunt smoke, the truth about the shooting at “Red’s Deli” bleeds out. Relationships are tested, lies are told, questions are answered, confessions are made — and before sundown, the neighborhood loses a piece of its heart forever. Directed by Dayo Ade.

Beginning December 6, Mrs. Dilber’s Christmas Carol by Arthur M. Jolly returns to the mainstage for nine performances only. Mrs. Dilber, Scrooge’s maltreated housekeeper in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, meets Marley and the Spirits of Christmas before they haunt Scrooge, and sets off on a past, present, and future adventure of her own in this subversive and hilarious reimagining of the classic Christmas story. Directed by Michael Houston.

The new year begins…

The new year begins with the world premiere of Something You Don’t Know by Dani True and Kirsten Jones. As a California wildfire inches closer to a family’s cabin, their relationships become scorched by trauma, lies, and shocking secrets. The play examines how a family navigates the ashes left behind after a lifetime of trauma. Directed by Natasha Renae Potts, the production opens January 17, 2025, in Sawyer’s Playhouse. Old Black & White Hollywood by ShaWanna Renee Rivon will follow on the mainstage, opening February 28. Hollywood, 1954. Black comedienne Doris Jean is performing at an after-hours club and catches the eye of producer Samuel Stahr. His TV show featuring a former radio star is floundering; Doris Jean may be just what The Eva Rose Show needs. Doris refuses to play a maid but is cast as one anyway. The two women connect and make a delightful comedy duo. Still, how high can a talented Black woman rise in old black and white Hollywood? Directed by Bree Pavey and Cassandra Carmona. The world premiere of The Impact of Dildos on a Funeral by Emma J. Latimer is next in Sawyer’s Playhouse. Close friends gather for a funeral, trying to honor the deceased’s wishes for it, mostly humorous and made before the deceased knew she was going to die. After the staff goes missing and they find themselves locked in the building with no cell signal, secrets surface, grudges are rehashed, and hard decisions must be made. The play examines unfortunate circumstance vs. deliberate choice and how we handle our pasts to create our futures. What does “the hard choice” mean? Keeping control or gaining community? Honesty or lies? Self-work or self-sabotage? Letting go or dedication to the vendetta? Directed by Madylin Sweeten, opening is set for April 11.

The world premiere of Edith, written by Noah T. Parnes, relights the mainstage on May 23. When a giant pillar of salt crashes into the kitchen, a family is thrown into a chaotic, campy, biblical fantasy that forces them to reckon with their relationship to disobedience, suffering, and deviant sex. From her vantage point as the witness to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Pillar of Salt wishes to upend the traditional center of our current order and force God to turn around — and see the joy in the carnage. Directed by Ignacio Navarro.

Season Finale: Ageless by Bridgette Dutta Portman

Loft’s 12th anniversary season will conclude in Sawyer’s Playhouse with Ageless by Bridgette Dutta Portman. Ninety is the new 30 at the turn of the 22nd century. When Marin refuses to take the anti-aging drug celebrated by the rest of society, she invokes her mother’s ire and risks becoming marginalized in a culture that worships youth, denies death, and treats old age as a malady. As Marin’s choice begins to affect not only her but the people she loves, will she find the strength to hold out, or succumb to social pressure? A musing on the future and aging (and not aging). The play’s central debate: Is it better to age or stay forever young? Opening is set for July 11, 2025.

Admission for Loft Ensemble productions is always Donate What You Want. Reservations may be made at www.loftensemble.org.  Loft is located at 11031 Camarillo Street in North Hollywood, 91602.

Loft Ensemble consistently offers high energy and groundbreaking productions. It has won several Valley Theatre Awards including Best Lighting Design and Artistic Director Achievement (2018) and Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Company Ensemble (2019). The company has won two Ovation Awards (2015), Best Ensemble at the New York International Fringe Festival (2013), and back-to-back Hollywood Fringe Festival Producers’ Encore! Awards (2015 and 2016). Two Loft productions earned a combined five nominations for the 2016 BroadwayWorld Awards as well as 10 nominations in 2017, nine nominations in 2018, and nine nominations in 2019 for the Valley Theatre Awards.

*Press Release courtesy of Ken Werther PR