La Egoista (2023)
Written by Erlina Ortiz
Directed by Daphnie Sicre
West Coast Premiere
Josefina is a stand-up comic on the rise who takes nothing seriously. Her younger sister Betsaida, on the other hand, takes everything seriously. When a sudden diagnosis upends Betsaida's life, they're thrown together to rediscover all the affection, friction, and humor that still fuels their relationship.
La Egoista thrillingly combines stand-up and theater to explore the bonds between sisters, the cost of healthcare, and the hilariously fine line between selfish and selfless.
La Egoista won the 2022 National Latine Playwrights Award
World Premiere produced by Actors Theatre of Louisville. Executive Artistic Director Robert Barry Fleming.
La Egoista was commissioned and developed by Live & In Color, and received a reading at the 2022 Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC) Comedy Carnaval.
SCHEDULE
Skylight Theatre:
Mar 4 - Apr 9
Previews: Feb 25, 26 & Mar 3
Run time: 95 mins; No intermission
Pay It Forward Tickets Share the magic of theater with a stranger.
Promo Code discounts are Advance Sale only.
A limited number of PWYC tickets are available Mar 5 - Apr 2.
Latinx Affinity Perf.: Mar 5
ASL Interpreted Perf.: Mar 19
Los Feliz Community Perf.: Mar 27
Age Advisory: 16+ years old.
Skylight Theatre Company productions are intended for an adult audience; children under 6 years of age will not be admitted.
Theater Is For Everyone.
If you need assistance contact us at Connect@SkylightTheatre.org
Local Box Office: (213) 761-7061
Due to COVID, staff may not be present at all times. Please leave a message.
West Coast Premiere
2022/2023 Season
MASKS REQUIRED FOR SELECT PERFORMANCES
Masks are no longer required – but are encouraged – for audiences in our theater and lobby areas.
Sunday matinee performances have been designated as "Mask Required" to accommodate our immunocompromised patrons who are still at high risk and patrons who feel more comfortable attending with an audience that is fully masked.
LOS FELIZ LIVE AT SKYLIGHT
Join Skylight Theatre Company and the Los Feliz community Monday, March 27th at 7:30pm.
With the generous support of the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council, Skylight is able to provide a number of complimentary tickets to Los Feliz business owners, employees, and residents!
Email tickets@skylighttheatre.org for more information on how to gain access to Los Feliz Live at Skylight.
BEYOND
CONVERSATION
Enhance your experience with a special guest chat. Join us for a free moderated conversation that explores topics suggested by the play.
Follows immediately after selected performances. Guests without day-of performance tickets enter during a break after the play has ended. If you can't be there for the live event, a recording will be made available on our YouTube channel.
Following the Mar 12 Matinee of La Egoista
"It hurts when I go like this..." — Navigating Healthcare While Sick
Housing Works is a non-profit that creates accessible housing and service options that model—with respect and dignity—sustainable, environmentally sensitive, affordable communities with people of limited resources. Join us as we chat with Housing Works participants who are navigating the healthcare system while chronically ill. Learn more about Housing Works and how they support “houseless” communities within Los Angeles County.
Following the Apr 2 Matinee of La Egoista
Puppet Play — A Puppet Demo with Christine Papalexis
Join us for a conversation and demonstration with our puppet designer Christine Papalexis. Learn how puppets are made, create fun characters, and get to play with a puppet of your own! Papalexis has been performing and making puppets and costumes since discovering her love of puppetry at Bob Baker Marionette Theater in Los Angeles. She has since worked with hand puppets, cable puppets, animatronic and hydraulic puppets for movies, television, videos and commercials.
2023
THE ARTISTS OF LA EGOISTA
Erlina Ortiz
playwright
a Dominican-American playwright, performer, and theatre maker from Reading, Pennsylvania. Her heartfelt and humorous plays ranging from topics of gentrification, women's rights, and cultural preservation have been presented with Power Street Theatre where she is proud to be Co-Artistic Director. In 2018, her play Las Mujeres received The Bonaly Award for Creation of Community Joy and in 2019 her play Morir Sonyando was nominated for six Barrymore Awards including Outstanding New Play. Erlina has received the Amtrak Writer’s residency where she traveled across the United States in an Amtrak sleeper car, the Signal Fire Outpost Residency where she lived on the side of a mountain for a week, and in 2019 she gave the Keynote Address at the Delaware Writer’s Conference on the importance of nurturing your artistic community. In 2021 she began serving as secretary of the board for Theatre Philadelphia.
Erlina was a member of NEXUS with New York Stage and Film and is a two time recipient of the Leeway Art and Change Grant and the 2021 Leeway Transformation Award. In Fall 2021, she received her professional Philadelphia premiere with Young Money(Azuka Theatre) which went on to receive the ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award Citation. In 2022, her play La Egoista was selected for the LTC Comedy Carnaval in Denver, Colorado, going on to win the 2022 National Latine Playwriting Award and her new musical Siluetas was selected for the O’Neill National Musical Theatre Conference. She has taught playwriting with the University of the Arts, Power Street Theatre, and Blue Stoop. Erlina believes being an artist is a superpower; she believes in using her powers for good.
Dr. Daphnie Sicre
director
just finished directing WET: A DACAmented Journey by Alex Alpharaoh (Greenway Court Theatre). Prior to that, she directed Waiting for Godinez by Daniel Olivas (Garry Marshall Theatre), two musical monologues for So Proudly We Hail at the Hollywood Fringe (New Musicals Inc). She’s also directed for Playwrights' Arena, The Road Theatre, San Diego Rep/Latinx New Play Festival, The Robey Theatre, Circle X, Austin Latinx New Play Festival, The Fountain Theatre, FringeNYC, First Foot Productions, the Blindspot Collective, NYU, Columbia University, and LMU, where she currently teaches. Her directing debut at LMU was In the Heights before the pandemic hit, followed by Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins upon returning to campus. She also directed Stranger by Kendra Augustin (Stage Black) in NYC, where she won Best Director and the AUDELCO nominated Not About Eveby Karl O’Brian Williams (Braata Productions). When she is not teaching or directing, she serves as a dramaturg for multiple productions and a culture consultant for Nickelodeon.
Chanel Castañeda
actor
is a professional actor and model who has been featured in Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Elle, ID Magazine and V Magazine as well as editorials for Barneys New York, Nike, Guess and Ralph Lauren. She studied at Los Angeles County High School For The Arts, Siti Company and NYU. Recent credits in theatre include “Jennet Device” in WITCH!, “Mary Shelley” in IT’S ALIVE, “Virginia Clemm” in The Assassination of Edgar Allan Poe (Heritage Square Musuem), Three Sisters (Shakespeare Center Of Los Angeles), and Macbeth (Pico House). She is repped by Eris Talent Agency and managed by Elkins Entertainment for both TV and Film. Catch her with superpowers in Disney’s Villains of Valley View as “Imager”, and “Janice” in an upcoming romantic comedy directed by Brian Hooks. @chanelcastaneda
Lys Perez
actor
Born in Downey, California, and raised in various cities across Los Angeles County, Lys Perez is a Queer, Latine, Actor, Director, and Writer who has never looked back after leaving a full-time, corporate finance career for a fresh start as an artist. Lys performed in the 20th Annual Disney (ABC) Television Discovers Talent Showcase as part of the Los Angeles cast. You can catch her in S.W.A.T. (CBS, Paramount+) and starring in Functional and The Fortnight (Youtube). The Official Latino Film and Arts Festival nominated her for “Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Webisode/Sketch” in her directorial debut of two episodes of Functional. She has starred in riveting theater productions including: Just Like Us (Latino Theater Company), Womxn in Herstoryfrom “Chicanas, Cholas, y Chisme” (Casa 0101 Theater), and Eastside Queer Stories (Q Youth Foundation). Lys's primary goal is to uplift the stories of marginalized people through authentic storytelling and complex representation while having a damn good time doing it.
La Egoista is supported in part by the generous contributions of the Miranda Family Fund, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Michael Kearns Enhancement Fund at Skylight.
DESIGNERS
SCENIC DESIGN: Stephen Gifford
LIGHTING DESIGN: Karyn Lawrence
COSTUME DESIGN: Mylette Nora
SOUND DESIGN: Cristian Amigo
PROP DESIGN: Michael O’Hara
PUPPET DESIGN: Christine Papalexis
PRODUCTION STAFF
STAGE MANAGER: Jennifer Palumbo
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER: Stefanie Nicole Mazariegos
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Tyree Marshall
STAND UP CONSULTANT: Melissa Duprey
CASTING DIRECTOR: Raul Clayton Staggs
PRODUCTION MANAGER: Cedes Sifuentes
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR: Benjamin David Rawls
SCENIC PAINTING: Orlando De Lapaz
PUBLICIST: Judith Borne
MARKETING: Kyle Hall
VIDEOGRAPHER: Seth Dorcey
REVIEWS
"...staging is A FINE SPRINGBOARD for the play’s West Coast premiere. CONVINCING dramatization of a relationship between a performing artist and a dependent sibling...As in “Walter Paisley,” funny puppets emerge"
– Angeles Stage (Don Shirley).
"Artfully directed by Daphnie Sicre…EXTREMELY CHARMING theatre. The FREE-THINKING STAND-UP comedy scenes, presented with buckets of humor, take place against a backdrop of opposition - the seriousness of life; adversity and hardship which are PROFOUNDLY EXPLORED"
– Discover Hollywood (Amalisha HuEck).
"Helmed with compassion and humor, director Daphnie Sicre is not scared off by difficult topics and dives into the story with FEARLESSNESS. Happily, she is gifted with two very talented and experienced actors who keep the sisters’ relationship in the forefront...This play will RESONATE WITH ANYONE WITH SIBLINGS...It is also a story of two people who rediscover a relationship which they thought was lost"
– Splash Magazines (Elaine Mura).
"RECOMMENDED. It’s a PRISTINE TELLING of these two strongly opinionated sisters…Performances are convincing and unforced. The insert of PUPPETRY into the show makes sense and adds something to the plays entertainment value. This show and this writing is down to earth, very GROUNDED. STOOD OUT how CREATIVELY they used the transition from the comedy set to the different locations in the play"
– LA Theatre Bites (Patrick Chavis).
"...set designer Stephen Gifford has done an impressive job" – Stage Raw (Iris Mann).