Loft Ensemble is offering six shows to celebrate its sixth season including three world premieres, Pulitzer and Kennedy Center Award dramas, and a modern red versus blue politically bent version of Shakespeare’s timeless classic Romeo and Juliet.
Aug 12 – Sept 17, 2017
A Soldier’s Play
Written by Charles Fuller
Directed by Mitch Rosander & Tor Brown
Winner! 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
In a Louisiana army camp in 1944 Capt. Taylor, the white C.O., has a problem. He commands a black company whose sergeant has been murdered. He is worried the murderer may be a white officer or the local Klan. A black captain, Richard Davenport, is assigned to investigate.
Sept 30 – Nov 12, 2017
West Coast Premiere
Social Darwinism
Written by Angela Gant
Directed by Adam Chambers
Winner! 2006 Paula Vogel Kennedy Center Award
Social Darwinism is a socio-political absurdist comedy that follows a familial group: an Alpha Male, Alpha Female, Second Banana (Subordinate Male), Subordinate Female, Adolescent Male, Adolescent Female, Outside Male, and Outside Female as they move through several different social classes as viewed by a Field Scientist and his Assistant.
“To anyone who has ever gotten a beat down for looking like a woman, being a woman, looking like a queer, being a queer, not being manly enough, being too manly, or having the audacity to be any race other than a straight Caucasian man, here’s the last laugh!”
Dec 2, 2017 – Jan 28, 2018
World Premiere
Now or Neverland
Written by April Morrow
Directed by Bree Pavey
The line between fantasy and reality gets blurred when Nora, a troubled girl haunted by the death of her brother, tries to find her voice through the adventure of a lifetime. Bullied and betrayed, isolated and losing her ability to believe in anything, Nora must make a choice to save herself or get lost in the fantasy forever.
Feb 10 – Mar 25, 2018
Romeo & Juliet
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Stephen Rockwell
Romeo & Juliet is a powerful story of love conquering hate, and the tremendous loss that occurs when people become deaf and blind to the feelings of others. Setting the play in contemporary times with the political divide that separates our country as the backdrop for the story, director Stephen Rockwell interprets the wealthy Capulets, led by the stern patriarch, as staunch conservatives, and the Montagues, embodied in the figure of Mercutio, as avid liberals: the “red” and the “blue” at odds in every way, while idealistic young people try to sustain love in a society where people are unwilling to listen to each other.
Apr 7 – May 20, 2018
The Columbine Project
Written by Paul Storiale
Directed by Bree Pavey
Lighting & Video by Award Winning Designer, Matt Richter
An atemporal retelling of the events leading up to, during, and following, the April 20, 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, The Columbine Project challenges what we think we know about the victims, families, teachers and the shooters themselves. The Columbine Project was created from direct correspondence with people involved in and affected by the event.
June 2 – Jul 15, 2018
World Premiere
Patron Saint of the Suburbs
Written by Max Marsh
Directed by Adam Chambers
Andy Foggs has returned to the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago for the funeral of his best friend from high school. Surrounded by familiar faces from the past, Andy comes face to face with just how far from home his life has taken him. At a late night, makeshift wake in a park, Andy and his friends visit with ghosts from their past to learn as much as they can about the inevitability of their futures.
