LA TI DO Changes Programming To Support Black Lives Matter
LA TI DO Productions (LTD) decided to delay its launch of LA TI DOnline to create space for the communities its connected to in support of focusing on Black Lives Matter protests resulting from the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade, and all killed by systematic racism and police brutality.
"Our company is about supporting the communities we're in, and we need to be sensitive to a part of our community that is suffering," explained Don Michael Mendoza, Executive Artistic Director of LTD, "and part of that is making space for focus on their trauma and the solutions needed to aid them by forgoing our own programming to contribute to that."
In light of recent events, LTD is busy to create a LA TI DOnline Juneteenth Solidarity Concert and Panel Discussion to go live on Friday, June 19 at 7PM to support Black Lives Matter and to spread more awareness of the topic of systematic racism and solutions its communities can contribute to in order to make change.
Additionally, LTD rescheduled the launch of the company's "LA TI DO - Pittsburgh Virtual Premiere" to Tuesday, July 7 at 7PM via a Zoom Webinar. The online event will feature local talent and bring in special guests from each of the company's flagship cities including Broadway's Natalie Weiss and Steven Cutts, and Joanna Chilcoat-Fellows from the musical movie cult classic CAMP that Cutts also appeared in.
Subsequent June LA TI DOnline broadcasts from LTD's Washington, DC franchise featuring an Instagram LIVE concert session with actor Holly Kelly is postponed indefinitely, and a Zoom Webinar concert with composer Neal Learner will be presented on Monday, June 22 at 7PM.
"As much as we want to get back to business, we acknowledge that focusing on the topic at hand, which is the liberation of our Black brothers and sisters from their systematic oppression is more important. A show can be replaced and rescheduled, but innocent lives lost cannot ever be recovered," said Mendoza.
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CrazySexyCool – The TLC Musical Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater (6/12-8/09) |
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Macbeth - Academy Summer Repertory Shakespeare Theatre Company (7/16-7/25) |
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Pete the Cat: A Live Rock Musical Imagination Stage (6/17-7/26) |
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Twelfth Night - Academy Summer Repertory Shakespeare Theatre Company (7/15-7/25) |
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Little Shop of Horrors 40th Anniversary Tour with Ellen Greene (the Original Audrey) Lincoln Theatre (9/25-9/25) |
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Misery Aldie Mill Historic Park (8/20-8/30) |
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Josh Groban Wolf Trap (8/22-8/22) |
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Somewhere over the Border Mosaic Theater Company (9/10-10/04) |
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No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre ARTfactory (9/11-9/20) |
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Pippin Signature Theatre (5/12-7/26) |