Roger Q. Mason's HIDE AND HIDE to Play 2023 LAX Festival at L.A. Dance Project

Acclaimed Black Filipinx playwright and Kilroys List honoree Roger Q. Mason (Lavender Men with Skylight Theatre/Playwrights’ Arena) will present a reading of their play Hide and Hide with Los Angeles Performance Practice as part of their 2023 Live Arts Exchange [LAX] Festival on Friday, October 20 at 8pm. The play, directed by Jessica Hanna (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert with Celebration Theatre; Hungry Ghost at Skylight Theatre) will be presented at the L.A. Dance Project (2245 E Washington Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90021). Tickets ($14-$29) may be purchased in advance at https://performancepractice.la/portfolio/roger-q-mason/. The performance will run approximately 90 minutes, with no intermission. 

Along the Golden Coast of California, two souls collide while chasing freedom. Set in the last days of disco, Billy, a queer rent-boy, is on-the-run from the Texas police; Constanza, a filipina immigrant, has a visa that’s about to expire. Together they enter a sham marriage to achieve their own American Dream. Full of sex, harm, and violence, Hide and Hidetakes audiences on a Homeric Odyssey that disrupts and rebuilds The American Fantasy. 

“Hide and Hide tributes my mother and the American dreams she held when she came to the United States from the Philippines in 1980,” said playwright Roger Q. Mason. “How did reality hold up to the promise the States exported to her and others like her abroad? And how does the pursuit of that dream change people as they grasp to attain it?” 

The cast will feature August Gray Gall (The Inheritance with Geffen Playhouse; David, My Goliath at REDCAT) as Billy and Amielynn Abellera (King Charles III at Pasadena Playhouse; Walking To Buchenwald with Open Fist Theatre) as Constanza with Movement Dramaturgy by Jay Carlon (fold, unfold, refold at REDCAT NOW Festival; Out of Bounds with Annenberg Community Beach House). This project was originally developed by Page 73 and Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival.

Roger Q. Mason (Playwright) (they/them) is a writer and performer who uses the lens of history to disrupt the biases that divide rather than unite us. Their playwriting has been seen on Broadway (Circle in the Square Reading Series); Off and Off-Off-Broadway; and regionally. Mason's World Premiere of Lavender Men was lauded by the Los Angeles Times as "evoking the mingled visions of Suzan-Lori Parks, Jeremy O. Harris and Michael R. Jackson." As a filmmaker, Mason has been recognized by the British Film Institute, Lonely Wolf International Film Festival, SCAD Film Festival, AT&T Film Award and Atlanta International Film Festival. Their films have screened in the US, UK, Poland, Brazil, and Asia. Mason holds degrees from Princeton University, Middlebury College, and Northwestern University. They are a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and Ma-Yi’s Writing Lab, as well as an alum of Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Group and Primary Stages Writing Cohort. Mason has co-hosted the podcast Sister Roger’s Gayborhood and hosted This Way Out Radio's Queerly Yours: Portraits in Courage. They are a lead mentor of The Marsha P. Johnson Institute’s Starship Fellowship, the New Visions Fellowship and the Shay Foundation Fellowship. Instagram: @rogerq.mason

Jessica Hanna (Director)  is a Los Angeles based Director & Producer & Space Maker. She is Producing Artistic Director of Outside In Theatre, a new non-profit theatre company working at the intersection of Theatre and Digital, based in Highland Park, CA. A graduate of The Theatre School at DePaul University, she is a member of The Kilroys, Chair of Siti Company’s Board of Directors and she co-founded & ran Bootleg Theater for 12 years. Her focus as a director has been on new work development. Last year she directed Justin Elizabeth Sayre’s LOTTIE PLACHETT TOOK A HATCHET at The Cavern Club and Assembly Roxy Upstairs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2022, as well as the premiere of their THREE LITTLE GIRLS DOWN A WELL at The Public Theatre’s Under The Radar Festival 2023 in NYC. In Los Angeles she has directed at Circle X (world premiere of DEATHPLAY, written & performed by Lisa Sanaye Dring), Celebration Theatre (Ovation Award winning PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT, 2018), Bootleg Theater, Inkwell Theatre, UCLA, CalState University Long Beach, Occidental College, CalArts and CalPoly Pomona. As well as teaching Viewpoints at CalState LA’s Theatre Dept. In Santa Fe, NM: HOSTAGE by Michelle Kholos Brooks (Adobe Rose Theatre) and Kristin Goodman’s #UNDERTHEINFLUENCE (Santa Fe Playhouse). Opera: AS ONE (Orlando Opera). Most recently she directed Lisa Sanaye Dring’s HUNGRY GHOST at Skylight Theatre. Currently: LOTTIE PLACHETT TOOK A HATCHET at the Los Angeles LGBT Center through Oct. 30, 2023. www.JessQueen.com for more info.

Since its inception in 2013, the LAX Festival has illuminated the creative spirit of Los Angeles, highlighting the city’s most innovative artists and independent companies. Over the years, the festival has fostered a powerful platform for ongoing artistic exchange and collaboration. Each edition encourages artists, curators, and organizations to partake in performance presentations, thought-provoking dialogues, and creative encounters aimed at nurturing mutual exploration and long-lasting connections. The Live Arts Exchange (LAX) Festival, Vol. 10, takes place from September through November 2023 across cultural institutions and venues in DTLA.  The festival features electrifying new work in contemporary dance, theater, music, and cross-genre performance at Los Angeles venues including Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT), Automata, L.A. Dance Project (LADP), and The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). 

Photo credit Bronwen Sharp