Skylight Theatre Launches 2015 Season with DISCONNECTION Tonight

Launching their 2015 Season, shortly after garnering the most Ovation Awards of any intimate theater in 2014, Skylight Theatre Company opens with Allen Barton's newest work, DISCONNECTION (2013-Years To The Day was his critically acclaimed world premiere with extended run in LA/NY/Edinburgh).

Based on true events and current headlines, DISCONNECTION is a powerful indictment of contemporary religious intrusions into personal relationships. A successful lawyer, his classical piano mentor, and his estranged daughter all confront the dark side of dedication to a Church whose aged founder faces the end of his life in isolation and regret.

"Disconnection was inspired directly by my experience with Scientology, and its notorious policy of the same name, whereby members must renounce their affiliation with anyone deemed to have gone against tenets of the Church. After watching this odious policy affect the life of one of my mentors, and again experiencing its interference in my own relationship with my cherished piano teacher, I was compelled to write this story. Scientology is just one of many controlled-thought systems that have taken hold throughout history, but the play is designed to be a metaphor for all those systems. It is not just an indictment of Scientology's disconnection policy, but of all of its ancestors, and hopefully, its progeny as well" -- Allen Barton (Playwright)

ALLEN BARTON (Playwright) is a Los Angeles-based writer-director, and classical pianist. Last season's Years To The Day attained international critical acclaim after an extended run at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. Allen has written & directed five short films and his first feature screenplay; REAL MUSIC was a top-three finalist in the CAPE New Writers Award Competition. He is author of several one-act plays and has earned numerous stage, TV, and film credits as an actor. As a pianist, Allen performed Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" at the 25th Annual S.T.A.G.E. fundraiser (Wilshire Theatre), was a prizewinner in the 2002 Los Angeles Liszt Society Competition, and has recorded five CD's (available on iTunes). In 2010 he was made a Steinway Artist. A graduate of Harvard University, his selected directing credits include Speed-The-Plow, Oleanna, The Heidi Chronicles, Engagement (writer), The Interview, The Real Thing, Rabbit Hole, and The Last Five Years.

DISCONNECTION opens at 8pm tonight, January 24th at the Beverly Hills Playhouse 254 South Robertson Blvd. Beverly Hills, CA. 90211 Performances are at 8:30pm Fridays 8pm Saturdays and 7pm Sundays thru March 1st. Tickets are $30-$34. For reservations call 213-761-7061 or online at http://skylighttix.com.

JOEL POLIS (Director) most recently directed Allen Barton's Years To The Day, and Lynn Manning's Sympathy for the Devil for the Skylight Theatre Company. Before that, Joel directed the world premiere of Kathy Graf's highly acclaimed award winning drama Hermetically Sealed (starring Gigi Bermingham) at the Skylight. Selected directing credits include Jerry Lambert's Straight Time at the Odyssey and Joe Bay's Last Fling at the Hayworth. An actor-turned director, Joel has over 100 TV and movie credits as well as scores of plays on his resume, most recently Kathy Graf's The Snake Can at the Odyssey Theatre. He is a graduate of Yale Drama School and USC's School of Theater.

THE SKYLIGHT THEATRE COMPANY develops and produces new, exhilarating works while nurturing and educating the writers who create them. A vibrant and expanding family of artists giving voice to original perspectives of today's world, Skylight won 4 Ovation Awards in 2014 for The Wrong Man and Pray To Ball (the most of any intimate theatre in LA) while last year LA Weekly named their productions of Years To The Day, Open House and Sexsting to their Top Ten Plays list of 2013. Skylight's first year as a company dedicated to developing new plays was 2011, their production of Hermetically Sealed made the LA Times annual list of Top Ten Plays, and Mad Woman moved from Los Angeles to La MaMa in New York. Since then plays developed by Skylight have played Chicago, New York, Edinburgh, Paris and local venues. Twitter: @SkylightThtr, Facebook: Skylight Theatre Company, Instagram: SkylightTheatre

GARY GROSSMAN (Producer/Artistic Director) started his career in New York owning two theaters and a theatrical lighting company by the age of 23. He worked at the Public Theatre, Café La Mama, and Sheraton Square Playhouse before traveling West in the 70's to join up with the emerging theatre moment in Los Angeles. He has produced over 300 stage plays, including more than 50 world premieres. Among his celebrated productions are Years to the Day, Wrong Man, Bulrusher, Hermetically Sealed, Sexsting, Mad Women (Best Solo Performance), Romeo and Juliet directed by Milton Katselas (3 LADCC Awards), Dylan (3 LADCC Awards), Influence, Dream Man, Lone Star, Balm in Gilead, Visions and Lovers, Rabbit Hole, Beautified and La Ronde De Lunch. In addition to his work for Skylight Theatre Company, Gary produced at The Cast Theatre, Director's Theatre and co-produced The Home-Coming, Endgame, and The Seagull for the Matrix Theatre Company. For television he created and co-produced "Sadie and Son" (CBS- MOW) and the sitcom pilot "Man in the Kitchen" (ABC). He is the Executive Producer for award-winning director Chuck Workman's documentary, "The Actor's Life." Gary most recently directed Quarantine for STC's LAbWorks.

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