Helen Hayes Award-Winning Factory 449 presents LELA & CO.

Playwright Cordelia Lynn's is well aware of the intense, yet important journey examined in LELA & CO. "I knew that the play could be horrifying and shocking and upsetting - and all those things you can get out of visual violence, without actually showing it," says Lynn. "I want the audience to leave and think there are things happening that I don't see -- maybe because I don't want to see".

Thursdays through Saturdays at 8pm. Sundays at 3pm. Additional Industry Night performance Monday, September 25 at 8pm. All tickets are $22 available online at lelaandco.brownpapertickets.com. More information available at www.factory449.org or by calling 202.355.9449

Mature Audiences - Not suitable for children. Contains violence, explicit language and sexual content.

When 14-year-old Lela marries and is relocated to an unnamed country in the throes of civil war, she finds herself isolated, locked up, and eventually enslaved. Based on a true story, LELA & CO. unravels a story of war, oppression and sex trafficking through language that vacillates from girlish innocence to pointed satire.

LELA & CO. is a harrowing journey which ultimately explores the power of hope and the strength of the human spirit, brought to life by Factory 449 company member Felicia Curry, and directed by Factory 449 company member and Helen Hayes Award-winner Rick Hammerly.

Cordelia Lynn has taken part in the Royal Court Young Writers Program and is a member of the Soho Theatre Young Writers Company. Her plays include Lela & Co. (Royal Court Theatre, 2015); Believers Anonymous (Rosemary Branch Theatre, 2012); and After the War, which has been performed in venues around the UK and abroad. She was the recipient of the 2017 Pinter Commission for a new play at The Royal Court Theatre.

Rick Hammerly (Director) most recently helmed the critically acclaimed productions of Junie B. Jones Is Not a Crook (Adventure Theatre MTC), Driving Miss Daisy (Riverside Center for the Performing Arts) featuring Karen Grassle (TV's "Little House on the Prairie"), and the Helen Hayes recommended Closet Land (Factory 449). He also directed The Brontes (New York Musical Theatre Festival & Capital Fringe), Lake Untersee (Source Festival), an award-winning production of Dead Man Walking (American University) and a concert reading of the musical YANK! for Rainbow Theatre Project. Locally, he has also directed productions for SCENA Theatre, Actor's Theatre of Washington and Fourth Wall Productions. His Assistant Director credits include: The Laramie Project, Driving Miss Daisy, The Glass Menagerie and the upcoming Jefferson's Garden, all at Ford's Theatre. His acting credits include a Helen Hayes Award winning performance as Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Signature Theatre) and Helen Hayes Award nominations for Angels in America (Signature Theatre), Me and Jezebel (MetroStage), and OLIVER! (Adventure Theatre MTC).

The Production and Design team includes: Helen Hayes Award nominee Greg Stevens (Set design),

Linda Lombardi (Dramaturg), Gillian Shelly (Producer), and Rick Hammerly (Producer), all Factory 449

company members, as well as Helen Hayes Award-winner William D'Eugenio (Lighting Design),

Scott Hammar (Costume design), and Tosin Olufolabi (Sound design).

CAST

Felicia Curry (Lela) is a Factory 449 company member, seen earlier this summer in Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company's remount of An Octoroon. Other local credits include Ragtime, A Christmas Carol, Civil War and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Ford's Theatre), Disgraced (Arena Stage), Laugh and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Studio Theatre), Collective Rage (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company), OLIVERio, Chasing George Washington and Beehive (John F. Kennedy Center), This and Caroline, or Change (Round House

Theatre), Home (Rep Stage), as well as productions with Adventure Theatre MTC, Imagination Stage,

MetroStage, Toby's Dinner Theatre and Olney Theatre Center for the Performing Arts. Her regional credits include The Mountaintop and Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Gulfshore Playhouse), Sister Act (Riverside Center for the Performing Arts), and The Color Purple and Dreamgirls (Virginia Repertory Theatre). She has received 5 Helen Hayes Award nominations, an RTCC Supporting Actress nomination (Lorrell, Dreamgirls) and a RTC Best Actress Award (Celie, The Color Purple). She will next appear in Jefferson's Garden (Ford's Theatre) and Nina Simone: Four Women (Arena Stage).

Renaldo McClinton (Man) is a M.F.A. candidate at The George Washington University. He is a Lousiana State University alum where he studied Theatre Performance with an emphasis in Meyerhold Bio-mechanics. Previous credits include Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Victor in Our Lady of 121st Street, Hart Payne in Spring Awakening, and Tartuffe in Moliere's Tartuffe, among others. In 2006 Renaldo participated in the Edingburgh, Scotland Fringe Festival where he presented "M," a movement based piece that showcased voodoo and the various cultures in the bayous of Louisiana.

Formed in April of 2009, Factory 449: a theatre collective is the resident theatre at Anacostia Arts Center.

Challenge. Stimulate. Celebrate. Contemporary theatre for a changing culture.

Factory 449 produces contemporary theatre that challenges the intellect, stimulates the imagination and celebrates the human condition. In developing innovative, intimate and affordable experiences for our audiences, Factory 449 engages an ensemble of artists and professionals dedicated to the collaborative process of creating theatre that best represents the vibrancy and diversity of Washington, DC and our ever-changing culture.

Factory 449: a theatre collective is Jesse Achtenberg, Sara Barker, Oscar Ceville, Felicia Curry, Chris Dinolfo, Rick Hammerly, Brian Hemmingsen, Nanna Ingvarsson, Lisa Hodsoll, Linda Lombardi, Amy McWilliams, Jennifer Phillips, Karin Rosnizeck, Gillian Shelly, Greg Stevens, Tom Story, and David Lamont Wilson.

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