Photo Flash: Independent Shakespeare Company Presents ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

Independent Shakespeare Co. (ISC), presenters of the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival announce the debut production in ISC's new and larger performance home, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, directed by Melissa Chalsma. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL will begin previews on Thursday, March 22, opens Saturday, March 24 at 7:30pm and performs through Sunday, April 22 at the ISC Studio in the Atwater Crossing Arts + Innovation Complex, 3191 Casitas Ave., #130 in Atwater Village.

Additionally, 2018 also marks the 15th anniversary of ISC presenting free Shakespeare in Los Angeles City parks and at the end of this year's Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival, the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks will break ground on the $4 million Griffith Park Performing Arts Stage Project at ISC's performance site at the Old Zoo.

Shakespeare's rarely performed play, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL features an extraordinary heroine. Helena is a young woman brought up by her father to be a physician. She falls in terrible, unrequited love with Bertram, the son of the Countess her father served. When Bertram leaves to seek his fortune, she sets out in a pursuit both daring and foolhardy. It is a journey that requires all her intelligence, spirit, and more than a little subterfuge. Featuring live music played by the cast.

Comments Artistic Director Melissa Chalsma, "This is a phenomenal moment for ISC and a turning point in our history. We are moving in to such a unique and remarkable new space on the eve of our 15th anniversary of free Shakespeare in the park, at the end of which the City of L.A. will be break ground on the new performance stage at our Griffith Park site -- how many theaters achieve two new performance spaces in as many years? Both of these theaters are being considered from the point-of-view of how to create a singular experience for an audience. We don't look at this like an ending point, rather it's a new chapter in our ability to serve our community and create art."

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL is the first opportunity for audiences to be welcomed at the new ISC Studio. Our expanded indoor theater and lounge space is where we extend the good vibes from the summer Festival all yearlong. In six years, the ISC Studio has grown out of a charming theatrical closet (where audiences sat next to costumes hanging along the walls) to an airy space with soaring, vaulted ceilings. We have moved down the hall at the Atwater Arts + Innovation Complex (ATX), a converted radio factory where old mechanisms that hauled materials from the railroad cars still remain (look up when you enter our venue). For the last six years we have evolved the ISC Studio through experimentation into a space where we develop new works, explore performance techniques for classical plays, teach classes, and create the productions of the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival. The ISC Studio will continue to be a space that is active and unpredictable, serving as a multi-purpose and multi-disciplinary laboratory.

ISC Co-founder and Managing Director David Melville comments, "The ISC Studio promotes a culture of possibility. We've consciously created an environment that is joyful and sustaining in its entirety - for the artists backstage and on stage, for our staff and for audience members. We are creating a very welcoming and homey feeling, one that captures the warmth and connected atmosphere we have at the Festival in the park. We have designed the new space for artists to feel respected, loved and cared for so they can do their best work. Because of the physical constraints in our previous space, the performances were primarily about the acting, but now we can build on that by adding greater technical capability; our designers can now be more ambitious. There's more space, not just in the performance area, but more space provides new ways for the audience members to interact with ISC. We've always wanted to make a theater where the theater is the star, not just the individuals on stage, and now that includes the architectural space."

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM AND CAST

Melissa Chalsma (Director) is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Independent Shakespeare Co. (ISC). Under her leadership, along with co-founder David Melville, ISC created the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival, which has grown into what The Huffington Post calls "one of Los Angeles' best cultural events." In 2015, ISC received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle's highest honor, the Margaret Harford Award for sustained excellence in theater. Melissa directs and acts in many ISC productions: roles include Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Rosalind in As You Like It, Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream (as well as directing), Hermione in The Winter's Tale and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. As director: Richard III, Measure for Measure, Romeo & Juliet, Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, Hamlet, The Comedy of Errors, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Two Gentleman of Verona. She has performed in theaters across the country, on Broadway (including the American premiere of Harold Pinter's Moonlight with Jason Robards, Blythe Danner, and Live Schreiber), and in the UK.

In her ten years as a college faculty member she taught at Moorpark College, Pepperdine University, and California State University, Northridge. Drawing on her experience as an educator, she has guided the company in the development of educational programming for schools, as well as workshops directed toward families that take place before performances in Griffith Park.

The cast of ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL will feature: April Fritz as Helena, Kendell Byrd, Melissa Chalsma, Ata Farhadi, Daniel Jimenez, Evan Lewis Smith, Rene Thornton, and Kalean Ung.

Lighting Design is by Bosco Flanagan. Costume Design is by Ruoxuan Li. Musical Direction is by Dave Beukers. Stage Manager is Jenny Jihee Park.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL will begin previews Thursday, March 22 and will open on Saturday, March 24. It performs through Sunday, April 22 at the ISC Studio, 3191 Casitas Ave., #130 (between Fletcher Drive and Glendale Blvd.) at the Atwater Crossing Arts + Innovation Complex, Los Angeles, CA 90039. Free, ample lot and street parking. Generous Admission - $35. Support ISC's programs. General Admission - $25. ISC's affordable ticket price.

For tickets, please call (818) 710-6306 or buy online at www.iscla.org

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