Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble's GIANT ARC Opens March 4

The critically acclaimed Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble continues its commitment to producing new and daring plays with the world premiere of A Giant Arc in the Skyspace of Directions at the Powerhouse Theatre. Written by award-winning playwright Michael Vukadinovich, the show boasts a talented creative team led by multi-faceted director Efrain Schunior.

Vukadinovich's work, already produced across Los Angeles and New York, will see two back-to-back world premieres at The Powerhouse Theatre, as the Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble presents Giant Arc and Vukadinovich's Trog and Clay, an Imagined History of the Electric Chair. Trog and Clay premieres at the end of April. The cast of Giant Arc includes Ensemble members Coco Kleppinger and Dee Amerio Sudik as well as a talented group of newcomers in Ryan Bergmann, Kevin Broberg, Eric Martig, Kaitlin Morgan, and Natalie Lopez.

Immediately following the March 4th performance, the audience is invited to join the company at the Opening Night Reception on the Deck at the Powerhouse.

The Thursday night performance on March 11th is Pay-What-You-Can Night. Seats may be reserved for Pay-What-You-Can Night at www.latensemble.com.

A Giant Arc in the Skyspace of Directions is a play about the impossibility of miracles and the loss of wonder in a world of science. We are taken into an epoch when society has crumbled due to the
absence of time. There are only two clocks left and they never keep the same time, so all concept of minutes, days, years, and "age" has completely dissolved. In this world, we encounter Sarah, a woman who believes having a child will save not just her, but the world around her; Eamon, a struggling priest who no longer knows what kind of God he can believe in; Abe, an inventor whose eclectic genius is matched only by his naiveté; Rebecca, a blind woman who sees much more than she appears to and Jacob, a warrior who is haunted by the past as he marches towards the future.

Based imaginatively on stories from the book of Genesis, and told through the eyes of children, Michael Vukadinovich's searingly vivid language comes to life in a poetic world crafted by Efrain Schunior's poetic direction, spinning a story that will delight, astound, and haunt you for days after you've experienced it. 

"I had the story of Abraham and Sarah in my mind for a long time," says playwright Michael Vukadinovich. "I went back and read Genesis again and found that the stories are so different than they are taught to kids. They're really dark and the world described is so incredibly magical and wicked. It feels much more like how we think of the end of the world than the beginning. You have floods, cities destroyed by angels, giants walking the earth, and time moving in strange ways. I started to think about how we use stories to explain the world and the value of narrative. The flood story is incredible, but then you get to the end and you're like wait a minute, was this whole story just to explain the rainbow? When Descartes first explained the rainbow scientifically people felt a loss of wonder and were actually angry because the rainbow was seen as such a magical thing that was now reduced to scientific principals. Sometimes the narrative has a greater meaning than the facts, which is easy to forget in this world of immediate answers and ready explanations. But all aspects of life are magical if looked at from the right perspective.

Michael Vukadinovich received the Reverie Productions Next Generation Playwriting Award, the Tim Robbins Playwriting Award for Plays of Social Significance, the Gloria Peter Playwright Award for Historical Plays, the Wichita University Playwriting Contest, and the Samuel Goldwyn Screenwriting Award. His work has been produced or developed with Reverie Productions (NY), Overlap Productions (NY), Playwright's Arena (LA), The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum (LA), the Ensemble Studio Theatre (LA), Fusion Theatre Company (Albuquerque), the Orlando Shakespeare Theater and internationally at the Serbian National Theatre, PLUS Teatar and Edinburgh Fringe Festival, among others. He is also a founding member of Red Tie Productions, which has produced work in New York and Edinburgh. Other plays include Billboard; Gilbert, or Death by Obituary; Trog and Clay, an Imagined History of the Electric Chair; The Magician and the Memory; and Terrarium. His work is published by Samuel French and Smith & Krauss. He is currently writing a play based off a photograph of his great-great-grandfather in Montenegro which will be produced in Novi Sad, Serbia later this year, as well as developing a television series for Starz. He lives in LA and received his MFA in playwriting from UCLA. www.michaelvukadinovich.com

Efrain Schunior recently earned his MFA in Directing from UCLA's school of Theatre, Film, & Television. While at UCLA he directed Caryl Churchill's A Mouthful of Birds and Jose Rivera's Marisol along with numerous new plays in various developmental stages. More recent directing credits include Trafficking in Broken Hearts (Celebration Theatre) and America's Next Top Bottom: Cycle 5! (NY International Fringe Festival). He is also the co-creator of America's Next Top Bottom and the upcoming webisode telenovela, Stallions...de Amor. His work will next be seen at the Son of Semele in April.

The Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble is dedicated to staging theatre works of high artistic integrity while endeavoring to remain broadly accessible and genuinely entertaining. The ensemble holds fast in its commitment to strike a balance between providing a venue for emerging artists and veteran artists; between the works of new playwrights, and revisiting timely and important classics.

The Powerhouse Theatre is housed, appropriately enough, in the Powerhouse, a historical building
originally erected in 1910 for the Southern California Edison Electrical Plant for the city of Santa Monica.

Committed to nurturing innovative new work, the Powerhouse has introduced Los Angeles audiences to critically-acclaimed world premieres such as the multiple award-winning The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World; the scathingly funny The Family Room by Aron Coleite; Golden Prospects: A Los Angeles Melodrama by Colin Campbell; and A Series of Comedic Lectures with John Lehr.
Tom Burmester, founder and Producing Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble and
Managing Artistic Director of the Powerhouse Theatre, has produced many productions for the stage including Wounded and Survived by Tom Burmester, Kindred by Daniel Keleher, I Gelosi and The Heretic Mysteries by David Bridel, Monkey Madness by Daisuke Tsuji, Quixotic and Adeline's Play by Kit Steinkellner and The Water Engine by David Mamet. Tom earned his MFA in Directing from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Tickets are $15.00 when purchased in advance at www.latensemble.com and $20.00 at the door.
The Powerhouse Theatre is located at 3116 2nd Street in south Santa Monica, just off Main Street
between Rose and Marine. Guests in wheelchairs should call in advance to make arrangements. For
information, the public should visit www.latensemble.com or call the Powerhouse Theatre box office at

A Giant Arc in the Skypace of Directions

Written by Michael Vukadinovich
Directed by Efrain Schunior
Scenic Design by Marika Stephens
Lighting Design by Sohail Najafi
Sound Design by Michael Cooper
Costume Design by Priscilla Watson
Prop Design / Prop Master Jim Sudik
Puppet Design Lucas Lilieholm
Stage Management by Sasha Sobolevsky
Featuring Coco Kleppinger, Dee Amerio Sudik, Ryan Bergmann, Kevin Broberg, Eric Martig, Kaitlin
Morgan, and Natalie Lopez

Produced by Tom Burmester and Danika Sudik

Presented by the Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble at The Powerhouse Theatre
March 4th through March 27th
Thursdays at 8 pm: March 4th, 11th, 18th, 25th
Fridays at 8 pm: March 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th
Saturdays at 8 pm: March 6th, 13th, 20th, 27th

Santa Monica CA 90405 (one block east of Main, between Rose & Marine)
www.powerhousetheatre.com

 

 

 

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