The Road Theatre Company Unveils 2023-2024 Season of Plays

THE ROAD THEATRE COMPANY has revealed their 2023/2024 season of plays. Opening with the world premiere of the previously announced BISEXUAL SADNESS, written by India Kotis and directed by Carlyle King, with previews beginning on Saturday, September 23; press openings on Thursday, September 28 & Saturday, September 30; and running through Sunday, November 4. In January, 2024, the Road will present the West Coast premiere of MERCURY, written by Steve Yockey (“The Flight Attendant,” Reykjavík) and directed by Ann Hearn Tobolowsky. Closing the season will be two plays in repertory, the world premieres of HIGH MAINTENANCE by Peter Ritt & SINGULARITIES OR THE COMPUTERS OF VENUS, written and directed by Laura Stribling.  Performances for both will begin in April, 2024 at the Road Theatre, located in The NoHo Senior Arts Colony, 10747 Magnolia Blvd. in North Hollywood.   

 

ABOUT THE PLAYS

 

BISEXUAL SADNESS by India Kotis

Faye used to be with Genevieve. Now she’s getting married to Alex, and though she really truly loves him, she’s starting to have questions about what it means for the rest of her life.  How will she be viewed by the queer communities that have always been her home.  BISEXUAL SADNESS is about that specific loneliness of being a bisexual woman in love with a man, staring down the barrel of a lifetime of feeling that way. BISEXUAL SADNESS explores love, commitment, the security blanket of identity, and the inconvenience of fluidity. Is it BS? Or is it...Bisexual Sadness?  WORLD PREMIERE!

 

INDIA KOTIS (Playwright) is a playwright and anthropologist, chiefly interested in how and why the meanings of things change. Plays include Philia (James E. Michael Prize in Playwriting), Sybille Of Harrogate (G45 Productions); The Tangibles (Playscripts, Inc.) and more.  Her work has been taught alongside writers like Aleshea Harris and Martyna Majok at SUNY Purchase and elsewhere.  She has held fellowships with the Museum of the City of New York and the American Museum of Natural History, where she teaches courses on anthropology, archaeology, the natural world and the known universe. 

 

CARLYLE KING (Director) is an award-winning actress, writer, director, and producer in the theatre over the last 40 odd years. Recently she completed shooting all 8 episodes of “Smothered 2” with Mitch Hara and Jason Stuart and wrote and directed the soon to be released short film “Sunny’s Closet” with Irina Maleeva.  Initially brought out here by John Houseman (she holds an MFA from USC), she has studied with Uta Hagen, Kim Stanley, Milton Katselas (to name a few).  She was co-artistic director at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills for 2 years and co-created their highly successful One Act Festival that led to NY productions, an HBO show and publications in Samuel French. She loves one person shows and directed the world premiere of Tracy Silver’s one woman show Motion Cures and the LA revival of Barrymore at the Marilyn Monroe theatre and recently Mitch Hara in Mutant Olive 2.0.  At The Road Theatre she starred in award winning Mud Blue Sky, produced numerous main stage shows and 13 of their Playwrights Festival which is the largest playwright’s festival in the country. She is a member of the Road Theatre Artistic Board and created “Under Construction” which creates plays from the ground up. “Under Construction” playwrights are being produced all over the country, Steppenwolf producing one in the spring.  Over the last thirteen years, Carlyle has created “Kid Shakespeare” an afterschool drama program in the Pasadena. Bringing Shakespeare to Grades 1-6.  She has taught at USC and South Coast Repertory. Coming up she is currently in negotiations to bring Martin Sherman’s Onassis to the United States and filming Mutant Olive 2.0 after it’s sold-out run.

 

MERCURY by Steve Yockey

Three stories cross outside of Portland, OR in a pitch black comedy with an illicit affair, a couple hanging on by a thread, bears at the window, the worst curiosity shop on the west coast, and an adorable missing dog named Mr Bundles. No one's happy, people stop being nice, and blood spills. This mash up of myth, missing empathy, and "good neighbors" explores what happens when the mercury rises.  WEST COAST PREMIERE!

 

STEVE YOCKEY (Playwright) Golden Globe nominated creator and Executive Producer of the HBO Max series, The Flight Attendant. A Los Angeles based writer with work produced throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. His play Bellwether, Pluto, Afterlife, Octopus, Large Animal Games, Cartoon, Subculture, Very Still & Hard to See, The Fisherman's Wife, Wolves, Disassembly, and Niagara Falls & Other Plays are published and licensed by Samuel French. Other plays include, Blackberry Winter, and The Thrush & The Woodpecker. Steve received an MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

 

Ann Hearn TOBOLOWSKY (Director) Directing credits for The Road, Reykjavík by Steve Yockey, a filmed live play, produced in 2021 in the midst of Covid-19 pandemic.  The film has recently won the award for Best Stage Play at the Swedish International Film Festival and Ediplay International Film Festival. Also at The Road, Jami Brandli’s Through the Eye of a Needle and roughly twenty readings for The Road’s Word series, Summer Playwrights Festivals, and Under Construction.  For Theatre 40:  Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Silent Sky, Good People, As Good As Gold, Bus Stop, Holy Days, Driving Miss Daisy, and Another Part of the Forest.  For Skylight Theatre, play readings of works by Shem Bitterman and Wendy Kout, and two short charming plays by Anna Mathias inspired by the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby (Streamyard).  Plays elsewhere include world premieres of The Favorite by Joe Correll at Avery Schreiber Playhouse, and Forever Bound by Steve Apostolina at Atwater Theatre.  Ann also participated as a director in Center Theatre Group’s 2022 LA Writers’ Workshop at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, directing the reading of Jami Brandli’s newest play, The Magician’s Sister.

 

 

HIGH MAINTENANCE by Peter Ritt

An unfairly disgraced actor makes her comeback in Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” – opposite a robot that may bring about the end of the acting profession. “High Maintenance” raises questions about the relationship between art and AI, and how the status quo can turn both against each other, but really, it’s just funny. After all, a robot built to act is “the product of theatre and big tech, an ego is inevitable.  WORLD PREMIERE!

 

PETER RITT (Playwright) is a Chicago based writer/comedian, and is a graduate of The Second City Conservatory, Improv Olympic, and Annoyance Theatre Training programs; as well as a past ensemble member at The Under The Gun Theatre, and a writer for The Artists’ Lab. He graduated with a double-major in Theatre and English from Marquette University in 2010 and has been writing plays since high school. His one-act, “The Ritual,” was selected for a staged reading at the Southeast Texas Festival of New Plays in 2019. His full-length play, “Spencer: The Seven-Year-Old Boy That Went to Hell” was a finalist for the Garry Marshall Theatre New Works Festival in 2019. His full-length play, “The Convict and The Kids” was a finalist in the Screen Craft 2020 Stage Play Competition, and his full-length play, “High Maintenance” was a semifinalist in the same contest in 2022.

 

SINGULARITIES OR THE COMPUTERS OF VENUS, written and directed by Laura Stribling

 The stars? The past? The future? Our own limits? Set in three different time periods, Singularities or the Computers of Venus, looks at the lives of women astronomers in three different time periods as they grapple with light, love and the infinite. WORLD PREMIERE!

 

LAURA STRIBLING (Playwright/Director) has directed more than one hundred productions, workshops, and readings. Her writing credits include National Zoo, Celestial, Imitation of Falling, Primary Language, If I Fell, and Rivers. Her most recent play, Singularities or the Computers of Venus, was developed as part of the Under Construction Program at the Road Theatre. She has an MFA in Directing from the Yale School of Drama.

 

 

SCHEDULE AND PRICING

 

All four plays will perform at the Road Theatre, located in The NoHo Senior Arts Colony, 10747 Magnolia Blvd. in North Hollywood.                                                                                                                                  

 

Season Flex-Pass for all four Shows $99.00 (Flex-Pass can be used for all four shows or four tickets to any one show, etc.); Single ticket prices are $39.00; Special group rates available for parties of 8 or more. Prices subject to change. For tickets, please call 818-761-8838 or visit www.RoadTheatre.org to purchase tickets online or to view complete schedule.  xa

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