MENSTRUATION: A PERIOD PIECE Comes to the LA LGBT Center's Davidson/Valentini Theatre

Big Little Theater Company in association with the Los Angeles LGBT Center with support from We the Women has announced its world premiere production of Menstruation: A Period Piece by Miranda Rose Hall. Produced by Camille Jenkins and under the direction of Katie Lindsay with music by Tova Katz, previews begin on March 16 with opening set for Friday, March 24, at 8pm. The cast will feature (in alphabetical order) Kaci Hamilton, Audra Isadora, Kate Lý Johnston, Jane Hae Kim, Jo Lampert, Bibi Mama, and Marnina Schon. Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission.

This world premiere will immerse you ... inside the uterus! Menstruation: A Period Piece is an ensemble-driven, bold musical that theatricalizes the menstrual cycle with a queer love story at its center and told through the cells of the body. Claire is desperate to figure out if a lesbian period is the ultimate lesbian tragedy. Emily, a hormone inside her body, decides to take matters into her own hands. In a comedic, musical, and poetic rendering of the menstrual cycle, Claire and Emily leap between the living room, the uterus, the ovaries, and the fallopian tubes to test the limits of love, the limits of the body, and the limits of what any single organism can accomplish alone.

At a time when governments are cutting funding for sex education, rolling back reproductive rights, and surveilling teenagers' menstrual data, projects like Menstruation: A Period Piece, which centers the lived experiences of menstruating people, are more important than ever. It's time to break the cycle of silence and shame around periods.

Throughout the run, a Menstruation Interactive Exhibit entitled Ode to Ova, created by Yeu Q. Nguyen, will be on display in the Advocate and Gochis Galleries next door to the theatre. There will be audience talkbacks following select performances. Details on both will be announced shortly.

Set design is by Yuki Izumihara, lighting design is by R.S. Buck, costume design is by Lena Sands, sound design is by Andrea Almond, projection design is by Nicholas Santiago, and prop design is by Yuki Izumihara and Connor Hayes. Music director is Tova Katz, vocal and band director and conductor is Elizabeth Curtin, orchestrations/arrangements are by Alexandra Kalinowski and Michael O'Konis, and movement director is Keva Walker. Stage manager is Abby Weston-Mark and technical director is Connor Hayes. Casting is by Gina Young, and associate producers are Misha Riley and Ricky Abilez.

Miranda Rose Hall (Playwright) has premiered her work at Lincoln Center, Magic Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, and throughout Europe. Her play A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction will open this spring at the Barbican in London, directed by Katie Mitchell. She has written for ABC and Showtime and is in development with Composition 8 and FX. She runs LubDub Theatre Company.

Katie Lindsay (Director) is a writer, director, producer, and Artistic Director of Big Little Theater Company. She has directed at Geffen Playhouse, IAMA, Getty Villa, Celebration, and Williamstown, among others. During the pandemic, she created A Walk in My Neighborhood, a guided audio walk in Atwater Village, which LAist called, "genius." Along with Tova Katz and Alexandra Kalinowski, she is writing a new musical about drag kings in the 1940s, called Beneath the Bowtie. It was developed in the 2022 Geffen Writers' Room.

Tova Katz (Composer & Music Director) is an award-winning queer composer-lyricist, writer, and performer. Their work has been featured at La Mama, 54 Below, and Joe's Pub. She is developing the new drag king musical Beneath the Bowtie with collaborators Alexandra Kalinowski and Katie Lindsay in the 2022 Geffen Writers' Room. She is collaborating with Lane Michael Stanley on Jack & Aiden, a new trans musical about grief, addiction, sex, and love, premiering at Ground Floor Theatre in Austin, TX in December. She recently performed her solo musical See You at the Funeral!, directed/choreographed by Diana Wyenn at LAPP's LAX Festival.

Camille Jenkins (Producer) is a producer, director, writer, and teaching artist. Select producing and directing credits include King Lear starring Joe Morton (The Wallis) associate director; Unmasked: A Theatrical Celebration of Black Women's Liberation (The Wallis and Black Rebirth Collective) co-director and producer; The Goddesses Guide: Adura for the Women of African Diaspora (Hollywood Fringe Festival) writer, director, producer; Spoken Perceptions: Interactive Poetry Showcase (Non-Fiction Gallery) producer and director; and Mama Metal (IAMA Theatre Company) associate producer. She earned a BFA in Performing Arts and a MA in Arts Administration at Savannah College of Art and Design. She is currently the Programming Manager at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills.

Big Little Theater Company (Katie Lindsay, Artistic Director) produces theatrical events that are "epically intimate" - ambitious, theatrical, and close to the heart. The company creates imaginative, bold, boundary-pushing theater and is committed to building well-resourced productions and paying artists a competitive wage. Previous productions include pandemic audio experience A Walk in My Neighborhood ("Genius," said LAist) and the world premiere musical Red Emma & The Mad Monk in partnership with The Tank in New York City (NY Times Critic's Pick). The company also produces MeetCute, a series co-founded by Katie Lindsay and Hannah Wolf, that pairs writers and directors for an evening of short plays and community building in Los Angeles.

Tickets are $25 for previews and $35 for regular performances, and may be purchased online at www.lalgbtcenter.org/tickets. Previews are Thursday 3/16, Friday 3/17, Saturday 3/18, Sunday 3/19, Wednesday 3/22, and Thursday 3/23, at 8pm. Opening is on Friday 3/24 at 8pm, and the engagement runs through April 16 only. The regular playing schedule is Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Monday at 8pm, and Sunday at 2pm.

The LGBT Center's Davidson/Valentini Theatre is located at 1125 N. McCadden Place (one block east of Highland, just north of Santa Monica Boulevard), in Hollywood, 90038.

 

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