SheNYC Arts Will Present Four New Shows At The 2025 SheLA Theater Festival
Events will run from July 8-13, 2025 at the Zephyr Theatre in West Hollywood with both an in-person audience and select digital performances.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Apr. 29, 2025
SheNYC Arts has revealed their selected shows for the 2025 SheLA Summer Theater Festival. The Festival, which annually features the works of West Coast-based women, trans, & non-binary playwrights, will run from July 8-13, 2025 at the Zephyr Theatre in West Hollywood with both an in-person audience and select digital performances.
The 2025 SheLA Summer Theater Festival will present three new full-length plays: The Great Tikka Tour by Aditi Pradhan, ÉLÉPHANT by Eva MeiLing Pollitt and directed by Akia Squitieri, and BACCHANALIA by Regan Lavin. It will also feature one full-length original musical: The Tears of La Llorona (Las Lágrimas de La Llorona) - book, music, and lyrics by Celeste Moreno, musical arrangements by Bethany Brinton.
The SheLA shows were selected after a rigorous, blind, months-long selection process out of over 400 submissions. Select performances will be filmed and made available online through digital tickets.
"Selecting this year's SheLA shows was one of the hardest decisions we've made. The four pieces we've gotten are truly outstanding," says SheLA Executive Producer Emily Rellis. "They represent the best women & femme writing talent from the West Coast, and have a beautiful range of stories that we know our audience will fall in love with this summer."
Tickets to the performances will be available beginning on June 2, and you can learn more about each show at www.SheNYCArts.org/She-LA.
The Great Tikka Tour
By Aditi Pradhan
Perpetually single Roshini is helping her older sister, Divya, plan her wedding when she's visited by an unexpected guest: the ghost of her recently deceased mother, dishing out dating advice. Roshini realizes that in order to release the ghost, she must find the perfect tikka masala for Divya's wedding. The sisters traverse the streets of Los Angeles on their mission, while Roshini lets her fear of intimacy get in the way of her relationships and Divya questions whether she wants her arranged marriage at all. While both sisters try to figure out their romantic lives, they learn that perhaps the greatest love story of all was between their mother and her two daughters.
The Tears of La Llorona
(Las Lágrimas de La Llorona)
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Celeste Moreno; Arrangements by Bethany Brinton
Set 100 years ago along the US/Mexico border, "The Tears of La Llorona" retells the Mexican myth of the Weeping Woman. Llorona has become infamous for stealing children in the night, but the Calaveras -- a band of mariachi women -- guide us through a reimagining of her origin story. Resurrected from the dead, she seeks vengeance on her murderer. But fate creates uncertainty within Llorona after chance encounters with her husband, a girl she finds kinship with, her lover, a white boy exploring Mexico for the first time, and an old Abuelo who is her connection between the living and spirit worlds.
ÉLÉPHANT
By Eva MeiLing Pollitt
Directed by Akia Squitieri
Set in a 19th-century Parisian brothel, ÉLÉPHANT follows 13-year-old Clérèse as she comes of age under the care of her mother, Magdith, a sex worker desperate to shield her from a brutal world. When a visitor arrives, Clérèse's body begins to change, and a fantastical journey unfolds. Developed with Rising Sun Performance Company over several years, this dreamlike, allegorical tale explores puberty, trauma, and transformation. Inspired by Toulouse-Lautrec, global documentaries, and lived experience, ÉLÉPHANT offers an intimate, raw, and visually striking exploration of girlhood, womanhood, and the cost of survival.
BACCHANALIA
By Regan Lavin
In a remote forest, Agave and Sage welcome four young artists to an off-the-grid retreat. What begins as a creative escape devolves into something far darker as Agave introduces disturbing exercises, covertly doses the group with psychedelics, and casts Owen as the reincarnation of Dionysus. Under her influence, alliances fracture, reality blurs, and the artists spiral into chaotic psychosis. As identities dissolve and the group transforms into a modern Greek Chorus, the retreat hurtles toward a violent, mythic finale-echoing the tragic ecstasy of The Bacchae. A haunting exploration of power, community, and the thin line between art, humanity, and madness.
Los Angeles Awards - Live Stats
Best Musical - Top 3
1.
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (Hollywood Bowl)
9.4% of votes
2.
ORIGINALS (The Gardenia Club)
9% of votes
3.
HAIR (Conundrum Theatre)
4.5% of votes
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