Josiah Blount's FLAYED Returns to the Los Angeles LGBT Center in 2025

Flayed, a 2023 Hollywood Fringe Festival (HFF) favorite and multiple award-winner, written and performed by Josiah Blount, directed by David Bridel, has repeatedly sold out in the Los Angeles LGBT Center's Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Program Artist Residency. Two new performance dates have been announced for the new year — Friday, February 7, 2025, at 8pm, in the Davidson/Valentini Theatre, and Saturday, March 22, 2025, at 8pm, in the larger Renberg Theatre. Both are located at 1125 N. McCadden Place in Hollywood, 90038. 

In the 2023 HFF, Flayed won the Soaring Solo Social Impact Award and a Best of Broadwater Award. It was nominated for The Fringe First Award (Best World Premiere), the 2Cents Immersive Worlds Award, and the San Diego International Fringe Festival Exchange Award. Its entire run was sold out. Flayed also won the Solofest 2024 Best of Fest Award. Earlier this summer, the show premiered at the 2024 Queerly Festival with Frigid New York. 

Flayed is the story of a man on the verge of a breakdown, or maybe, spiritual enlightenment. Joshua is fresh out of pastor's college and delivering his first sermon to a conservative church in Southwest Virginia. This trial run sermon will determine if he joins the church staff as an Associate Pastor, something he's longed for his whole life. However, Joshua is queer, deeply closeted, and on the precipice of a mental breakdown. As his sermon progresses, his pristine public self begins to falter and his messy, complex, internal world is revealed. His mind is a fantasy landscape full of eclectic characters who express all his sinful rage, lust, and violence. Will he be able to hide the hell fire within? Or will his whole identity go up in flames? Featuring Lake Bell as the Voice of God.

Taubert Nadalini is associate director and sound designer, and Taylor Sieve is choreographer.

Josiah Blount is an LA-based actor and writer. Film credits include Ted 2 (Universal) and The Gambler (Paramount). TV credits include Modern Family (ABC), The Mentalist (CBS), Suburgatory (ABC), and Happyland (MTV). As a writer, his pilot script Abomination was a quarterfinalist in the 2023 Screencraft TV Pilot Script Competition. He was recently invited to the Sunday Company at The Groundlings and will begin performing there in the coming months. He is a graduate of The Clown School and performs throughout Los Angeles.

David Bridel is the Founding Artistic Director of The Clown School and The Clown School Company. He is an artist, scholar, author, and educator whose work has been seen in theatres, opera houses, and at festivals all over the world. His plays I Gelosi, Lunatics & Actors, and Sublimity are all published by Original Works Press. His books Clowns: In Conversation and Send in the Clowns: Humanitarian Clowning in Crisis Zones are published by Routledge UK.

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