Hero Theatre (Los Angeles) announced that their 2018/2019 season will include a special pairing of Blade to the Heat by Oliver Mayer and a live performance of Sundance Film Festival Award-Winner, Girlfight.

“Blade to the Heat and Girlfight are both about boxers. Blade gives us a complex look into the male-dominated world of boxing and Girlfight was the definitive film that brought female boxers into the limelight. I love that both are about athletes of color. Girlfight came out 18 years ago, Blade to the Heat came out in the early 90’s. Both should very well be considered classics,” said Hero Theatre artistic director Elisa Bocanegra.

The cast of Girlfight will include cast members from the film, which won the Grand Jury Prize for ‘Best Film’ and ‘Best Director’ at the Sundance Film Festival in 2000. Girlfight writer and original director Karyn Kusama will direct.

Blade to the Heat and Girlfight will be presented as staged readings as part of Hero Theatre’s Future Classics Reading Series.

More plays in the series include:

• Tea by Los Angeles-based playwright Velina Hasu Houston. Tea recounts the experiences of four Japanese war brides living in the United States after WWII. Featuring an all-female ensemble, it will be directed by Rebecca Wear.
• A modern verse translation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth by Puerto Rican playwright Migdalia Cruz will also be featured in the series. Cruz was one of the playwrights commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to create a modern-English translation of a Shakespearean play as part of Play On! 36 Playwrights Translate Shakespeare, which was made possible by a grant from the Hitz Foundation. This will be the first time the translation is heard in Los Angeles.
• Wrapping up the reading series will be a marathon presentation of Eduardo Machado’s four-play cycle The Floating Island Plays.The tetralogy captures the story of four generations of a Cuban family, starting in the 1920s and ending during Fidel Castro’s regime. The Floating Island Plays are titled The Modern Ladies of Guanabacoa, Fabiola, In the Eye of the Hurricane, and Broken Eggs.

Next Spring, Hero Theatre will present a world-premiere cabaret titled The Hero Song Cycle. Featuring live music and a book written by Julia Stier, The Hero Song Cycle will be directed by Gabe Figueroa.