Moving Arts Presents Sorry. by Melissa R Randel June 20-July 19
4 min read
Sorry. One word. The rest is silence.
Moving Arts production of Sorry. By Melissa R Randel opens Friday, June 20th at Moving Arts Theater in Atwater Village for 12 performances! Sorry. challenges the many ways women defer, adapt, comply, and apologize in a man’s world. Three women from three different time periods find themselves wondering, what if they just couldn’t anymore? When Persephone discovers she can no longer say, “I’m sorry” she ruminates: I knew this day would come. . . Do you think we’ve used them all up? What’s going to happen to us, now?
In the present day, Francine, a lawyer, looks the other way from the harassment of a female colleague. Oh, and then she murders her husband. From the 19th century, Lillian terminates pregnancies with herbs. And she gets institutionalized for being a lesbian. Persephone, of Ancient Greece, fights breast cancer AND domestic violence. Three mythical Furies reflect these women to themselves, championing their power and questioning their participation in their own oppression.
The cast includes: Lea Floden as Lillian, Anna Giannotis as Fury, Jeffrey Johnson as The Men, Denise Leitner as Fury, Melissa R Randel as Persephone, Denise Scheerer as Fury and Jacqueline Wright as Francine.
The production team includes playwright, Melissa R Randel, Co-Director, Larry Biederman, Producer, Dana Schwartz, Set Designer, Justin Huen, Lighting Designer, Brandon Baruch, Sound Designer, Joseph “Sloe” Slawinski, Costume Designer, Rosalida Medina, Stage Manager, Ashley Weaver, Graphics, Michelle Hanzelova, Publicity by Sandra Kuker PR.
Playwright Melissa R Randel
Playwright Melissa R Randel’s aesthetic in theater-making is an amalgam of visual, literary, and performing arts, thanks to her jazz musician father and dancer mother. In fifth grade, her gift for truth surfaced as a nascent playwright, inventing characters who said and did things she was not allowed to express. Women being silenced is a recurring theme in Randel’s work.
Eager to begin a professional career, Randel graduated in three years with a BA in Dance from UC Irvine. After attending an open call for replacement dancers in A Chorus line, Randel worked briefly in Mexico as a magician’s assistant. In six months she went from levitation and disappearing to touring with the National, International, and Bus and Truck companies of A Chorus Line. The next four years were spent on Broadway, giving a total of 2284 performances as Judy Turner. The production team of A Chorus Line, including Michael Bennett and Joseph Papp, left an indelible impression: “It was my true grad school.”
Inspired by Judy Turner’s line, “Don’t you want to do more than just dance in the chorus?” Randel left Broadway, immersing herself in a formal two-year conservatory program at The Studio of Actor’s Space. Randel built a reputation for originating roles in new plays, including Steven Fechter’s Schiele, Molly Newman’s Shooting Stars, Sheila Callaghan’s Roadkill Confidential, and Suzanne Bradbeer’s Confederates.
Accepting an invitation to teach a “movement for actors” class led to Randel’s career shift into the world of academia. Within three months she was co-chairing the Dance Department and working on her masters from California State University Long Beach (MA Dance). In 2007, Randel was hired full-time as Chair/Co-chair of the Theater Department at Glendale College, where she remained for over a decade.
An introduction to Anne Bogart’s SITI Company, renowned for their ground-breaking physical theater, coincided with Randel’s foray into academia. Randel began developing her own work, melding SITI Company’s aesthetics with her own. As part of the avant garde community formed out of SITI Company’s west coast alumni, Randel premiered two original works: The Hat and Asylum. The Hat is a reinvention of Randel’s parent’s tumultuous marriage with a charmingly savvy version of her mother and a jazz musician father who spoke only through his musical instrument. Premiering at the NY International Fringe Festival, The Hat toured internationally. Asylum, a collaboration illuminating atrocities performed on women in asylums, sowed seeds for the character, “Lillian” in Sorry.. Other devised collaborations include: When Skies are Gray, This is NOT a Tree, We are Stardust, and Wonder City.
In 2018, culling personal and witnessed harassment in academia, Randel began writing Sorry.. A play for and about women, Sorry. examines the underlying code of the female apology, beauty, aging, domestic abuse, breast cancer, abortion, and suicide.
PERFORMANCES & VENUE
MOVING ARTS THEATRE is located at 3191 Casitas Ave., Los Angeles, CA. 90039. The show opens June 20th and runs through July 19th, 2025. Performances are on Friday & Saturday 8pm and Sunday 4:00pm (No performances Sat. June 28 & Fri. July 4) NOTE: Sunday, July 6th at 4:00 pm is a special performance for Breast Cancer Survivors and Caregivers. Admission is free for Survivors and Caregivers. For more information go HERE. Tickets on sale on the Moving Arts website.
