Sherwood alums collaborate on a new Los Angeles play where the city is the star
Sherwood alums collaborate on a new Los Angeles play where the city is the star
According to Alice Tuan, Los Angeles is what you make of it as you connect the dots of your experience between the many sprawling communities that make up the United States' second largest metropolitan area.
As a girl who grew up in Southern California and then spent a good chunk of time (nearly six years!) living in the nation’s largest city (New York, in case you were wondering), becoming CTG’s 2013 Sherwood Intern was an amazing opportunity to become reacquainted with Los Angeles’ incredibly vibrant theatre scene. Through the internship, and through my employment as general manager of the Ojai Playwrights Conference, I connected with Alice over our mutual love for plays that aim to fuse theatricality into humanity and was invited to join her quest to produce Hit, an early work that began as a commission of the Public Theatre in New York.
Tuan’s Hit does just that, exploring the complexity of human relationships, musing upon the correlation of fate and choice. Hit harkens back to Greek tragedy, examining the expansiveness of a woman’s rage at finally recognizing the vast betrayal surrounding her. It is a scathing commentary on America’s fascination with consumerism and our rapidly disintegrating freedom, all while questioning our inherent human responsibility to each other and searching for that illusive thing we call “love.” Zankou Chicken, karaoke and freeways all collide to form a truly unforgettable theatre experience.
Hit played at the Los Angeles Theatre Center through June 8. As associate producer, I have been tasked with organizing a number of audience engagement events, allowing me to pull from my experiences working at the Kirk Douglas Theatre to create a memorable event that extends beyond the performance. I run karaoke in the lobby after our Friday night shows, and I am organizing a panel about the past, present, and future of Los Angeles Theatre that will take place before our closing performance. Working on Hit has, in fact, become a final exam of sorts, allowing me to use all of the skills I have acquired while on the journey to my MBA/MFA in the theatre management at California State University, Long Beach. And it is certainly one that I will never forget!