The incredible story of a girl who stays pregnant for 150 years

BATTLE HYMN, a new play by award-winning playwright Jim Leonard, is the story of 16-year-old Martha's epic pregnancy and her incredible search for motherhood, meaning, and love in a war-torn American landscape.

After being abandoned by her father, losing her true love and witnessing the horrors of the Civil War firsthand, Martha settles on one incontrovertible fact: She will not raise her baby in a blood-soaked, violent country. And so, Martha keeps traveling in search of a better world and a safe place to bring forth her child... this is easier said than done.

From the mud and the blood of Fort Sumter to singing cows, San Francisco and the summer of love, Martha's journey embodies the tragedy, humor and hope that have helped shape the last 150 years of U.S. history.

A nation’s spirit is sagging. The economy is tanking. The planet is dying. Where will we find even a scrap of Holiday cheer this season? The Ark Theatre can’t even pretend to heal the world’s woes but will provide a much needed, shiny-object distraction starting Thursday, December 4th with an original music and comedy revue, “The Ark Big, Fat, Funtime, Holiday Spectacular.”The skewed minds of the Ark Theatre Company have created a hilarious blend of music, dance and comic sketches that will surely soothe even the most frazzled Holiday spirit. Audiences are invited to attend an off-kilter Holiday party where Christmas punch is chugged, angry lovers quarrel, and a deluded boss enforces merriment on his quite unwilling employees. The Ark’s singers, dancers and actors cap off a fantastic 2008 season with a frothy celebration of Holiday joy against a most dysfunctional backdrop.

A pixie. A salesman. A magician. A janitor.
-- not your typical shopping mall.
The Giant and the Pixie is a contemporary fairy tale set simultaneously in a magical realm and a shopping mall. The story centers on Arthur – a conscientious Giant who works by day as a janitor – trying to win the heart of Cipriana, a Pixie who also works in the mall. Sebastian – the hotheaded Knight – is not happy with this and wants to get rid of Arthur, but Arthur’s homeless buddy Gregory (the “Troll with a soul”) won’t have anything of it. All the while Cipriana’s father, the Magician, watches from a distance with an agenda of his own.

Note: This play contains adult language.

A boy’s struggle with grief turns into a magical, musical journey for him, his family, and the teacher who tries to save him in the World Premiere production of "Song of Extinction" by E.M. Lewis.

Winner of the 2008 Ashland New Plays Festival, "Song of Extinction" is the story of Max Forrestal, a musically gifted high school student who is going to fail biology if he doesn't complete a 20-page paper on extinction by Tuesday. But Max's mother is dying of cancer, and school is the last thing on his mind. His biologist father, obsessed with saving a rare, threatened Bolivian insect, is incapable of dealing with his wife's impending death, or his son's distress. Max's teacher wants to offer him guidance; but helping his student pushes Khim Phan into a magical journey of his own - from the Cambodian fields of his youth into the undiscovered country beyond.

A meditation on the science of life and loss, the relationships between fathers and sons, Cambodian fields, Bolivian rainforests and redemption, the play integrates original music and elements of magical realism to weave its spell.

Audiences are invited to stay after the 3 pm matinee, or to arrive early prior to the evening performance at 7 pm, for a Talk Back Series on Sundays at 5 pm. Each week, a different aspect of the play will be discussed.

The Actors' Gang invites audiences to witness the development of a new work-in-progress. With its signature take-no-prisoners style, The Gang takes a bold, funny, sad and incendiary look at what it takes to bring America's history of racism out of the shadows and shine a light on how it still envelops us today in " 'I am not a racist, but…'," conceived and directed by founding member Cynthia Ettinger and created by the acting ensemble. Beginning October 18, seventeen workshop performances will be open to the public at the Ivy Substation in Culver City.

" 'I am not a racist, but…' " challenges actors and audience alike to create a conversation about racism in America: its ugly divisiveness, its persistence and its deep rootedness. An ongoing work-in-progress that has been in development for many months, it follows in the footsteps of previous Actors' Gang-created theatrical events like Carnage, Alagazam and Embedded.

"There's a conspiracy of silence in 'white' America that makes voicing our secret, inner prejudices taboo," says Ettinger. "With this new work, we attempt to dismantle our silence - which is, I think, a form of racism in itself - and deconstruct our collective sense of isolation. The action in the piece is immediate and overwhelming, leaving no time to judge, only to experience. We hope it will unhinge some, enlighten others."

Associate artistic director V.J. Foster says, "We are confident that 'I am not a racist' will add to The Gang's history of creating a community dialogue. As we near a presidential election that is rife with racial overtones, it's imperative that we encourage deeper discussion."

The critically acclaimed Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble concludes its 2008 Season with the World Premiere of a new comedy that is both poignant and timely. "Quixotic" by Kit Steinkellner is a modern re-telling of Cervantes' classic novel, Don Quixote.

In a grim American city during an economic downturn, Munsch-Litttleton Insurance is downsizing. Tensions are already running high in the gloomy office when office drone Arthur Quick begins to blur the line between fantasy and reality. Convinced that he is a knight errant, Arthur turns the office upside down in his quest to rid the world of evil.

"This is a story about seeing the magic in the mundane," says director Amanda Glaze. "Not only is Arthur able to break free from the drudgery of a cubicled existence, but he is also able to help the people around him to see the possibilities in their seemingly hopeless lives.”

People don't climb up a hill in the suburbs to die

From the crazed mind of award-winning Los Angles based writer Jacqueline Wright comes her newest collection of madness, dysfunction and hilarity.
The grim reaper is in the driver's seat, femmes fatales get hot and brutal, the crayon drawings of a child come to life and people climb the hills in the suburbs to die. "Spider Bites" explores the nature of both lies and punishment in whimsical, absurd and unexpected ways,. It's a world where beauty looks like death and death looks like beauty and the caller on the telephone wants to know, "What's the dead guy doing on your floor?"