SkyPilot' Runway Season Takes Flight with HELEN & TROY

The award-winning SkyPilot Theatre Company continues its ever-popular Runway series with its third selection, Helen & Troy, which will be performed Wednesday, July 10 at 8pm at Oh My Ribs! Theater, 6468 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. The production is open to the public with tickets for $5 at the door.

SkyPilot, a well-established greenhouse for the development of new theatrical works, continues Runway, a play reading series that helps to develop new plays in the early drafts stage. The readings are directed by prominent Los Angeles theatre directors in partnership with the playwrights. They are rehearsed, staged, on their feet and performed with scripts-in-hand, immediately followed by a focused feedback session with a moderator, the playwright, and the audience.

Each reading will also be recorded as a podcast, presented in the same style as the staged performance, then made available through iTunes, Google Play and other podcast outlets as well as on SkyPilot's website.

Helen & Troy, written by Amy Tofte and directed by Kristina Lloyd, is a re-telling of the Helen of Troy legend from the point of view of a "plain Jane" Helen and her beautiful best friend Sena. When Sena is mistaken for Helen and seduced away by Paris, she gets a taste of being worshipped and doesn't want to let it go. Helen uses the opportunity to flee the now-started Trojan War - and her overbearing title - to find happiness on her own. But will she?

Tofte, a winner of a Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in 2015, has written several works and has been a semi-finalist for several competitions including the nuVoices Festival, Kitchen Dog Theatre's New Works Festival, Source Festival, The Bridge Initiative and Headwaters New Play Festival. Her play FleshEatingTiger premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was remounted at the Hollywood Fringe where it was named part of the "Best of Fringe" and nominated for Best Play.

SkyPilot will continue its 2019 Runway Series slate this August with Honeymoon Suite by Kelli Bowlden, followed by The Queen's Fool by Kathleen Grotzinge in the fall and A Twisted Christmas Carol by Phil Olson later in the year.

For additional information or for any other inquiries, please email SkyPilotTheatre@gmail.com.