PRESENT THE WORLD PREMIERE OF
WRITTEN BY INDA CRAIG-GALVÁN
DIRECTED BY JON LAWRENCE RIVERA
SET DESIGN: JAN MUNROE
LIGHTING DESIGN: MATT RICHTER
SOUND DESIGN: HOWARD HO
COSTUME DESIGN: MYLETTE NORA
PROPS: LILY BARTENSTEIN
PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER:CRYSTAL HUI
REHEARSAL STAGE MANAGER: BEN ALTMAN
CASTING: RAUL CLAYTON STAGGS
SENSITIVITY SPECIALIST: ANN JAMES
PUBLICIST: JUDITH BORNE
GRAPHIC DESIGN: GUILLERMO PEREZ
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: CEDES SIFUENTES, REBECCA TESSIER
PRODUCERS: GARY GROSSMAN, JON LAWRENCE RIVERA
OPENING NIGHT: NOVEMBER 6, 2021
"A HIT DOG WILL HOLLER” was developed in workshop with the Humanitas Prize
Original painting in the production by Gabrielle Galván
How do I objectively document the fight when I am, myself, fighting? How do I create my safe space within this country – my home – when this nation’s policies strip Black people of our safety? How do we support and lift each other when we’ve lost our way? I don’t have answers. I wish I did. I wrote this play to explore these questions, to explore these two very different Black women, and to holler back at that roar.
INDA CRAIG GALVÁN – Playwright
GINA .................CHERI VANDENHEUVEL
DRU ...........DONNA SIMONE JOHNSON*
KACIE ROGERS*
*Shared Role
Time: February 2020. During the Rona.
Place: Gina's home office aka her living room, on a quiet street in the Hyde Park neighborhood of
Chicago.
“A HIT DOG WILL HOLLER" is performed without intermission.
Actors employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association.
DONNA SIMONE JOHNSON (Dru–Shared Role) is an award-winning actor, director, choreographer, producer and Co-Artistic Director of Watts Village Theater Company. Credits include: I Go Somewhere Else (Playwrights' Arena), Bring Down The House (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Broken Fences (NAACP Award, Best Lead Actress, Road Theatre), Dracula (Actors Theatre Louisville), The Bluest Eye (Virginia Stage), Bloodbound (The Guthrie), Joe Turners...(NY Resident Acting Co), The Cherry Orchard (Theatricum Botanicum) as well as Son of Semele, Rubicon, Antaeus, Shakespeare Center LA amongst others. TV & Film: The Inspectors; 9-1-1; Teachers; Agent X; NETFLIX'S “Super Drags" (recurring) and most recently HBOMax's "Bertie The Brilliant." MA, Dance: New York University, MFA, Acting: CalArts.
KACIE ROGERS (Dru–Shared Role) Two-time NAACP Award winning actress, Kacie Rogers, received her classical training at AMDA College and Conservatory of the Performing Arts. You can find Kacie on screen in her leading role in the feature film, LowLow available on Amazon Prime and iTunes. She's also had the opportunity of working with several prestigious theatre companies in the Los Angeles area including The Robey Theatre Co., Brimmer Street Theatre Co., The Road Theatre Co., Circle X, Theatre40, the Bootleg Theatre, Theatricum Botanicum, Greenway Court, The Getty Villa, Sacred Fools Theatre Co., The Skylight Theatre, IAMA, Inkwell Theatre Company, Fountain Theatre Company, and is thrilled to be making her Playwrights' Arena debut!
CHERI VANDENHEUVEL (Gina) won Best Actress in the L.A. Stage Raw Awards playing Reda in I Go Somewhere Else at Playwrights' Arena. She is an alumnus of The Second City-Detroit Mainstage where she taught, wrote, and performed sketch comedy. Los Angeles credits include Alice in Low Hanging Fruit at the Zephyr Theater and Sophie in Flyin' West at International City Theatre. Regional credits include the Alabama Shakespeare Festival; King Lear, Around the World in 80 Days, To Kill A Mockingbird, Macbeth, Merry Wives of Windsor and The Trojan Women, 16th St. Theatre in Chicago and Idaho Shakespeare Festival. She has her B.F.A. from The University of Detroit and M.F.A. from The University of Missouri-Kansas City.
INDA CRAIG-GALVÁN (Playwright) is a Chicagoan who lives in Los Angeles, where it's warm. Her plays include Black Super Hero Magic Mama (Blue Ink Prize, Kennedy Center Rosa Parks Award, Princess Grace runner up, Geffen Playhouse world premiere), I Go Somewhere Else (Playwrights’ Arena world premiere), Welcome to Matteson! (Kesselring Prize), and The Great Jheri Curl Debate (developed in the East West Players Writers Group). Her work has been developed at the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Ashland New Play Festival, Ojai Playwrights Conference, OSF's Black Swan Lab, Orlando Shakes, Geffen Writers Room, and a few others that won't fit here. Inda is also a TV writer on Demimonde, the upcoming HBO series created by JJ Abrams. MFA in Dramatic Writing, University of Southern California. Thank you Robert, Gabrielle, and Matthew. J-$. Shem Bitterman and My USC circle. #fuckyourstatues
JON LAWRENCE RIVERA (Director/Producer, Artistic Director - Playwrights' Arena) is the recipient of the first Career Achievement Award from Stage Raw. Directing credits include the following world premieres for Playwrights' Arena: March: A Parking Lot Play (co-produced with the Los Angeles LGBT Center), Southernmost by Mary Lyon Kamitaki, Baby Eyes by Donald Jolly, I Go Somewhere Else by Inda Craig-Galván, Bloodletting by Boni B. Alvarez (also at Kirk Douglas Theatre), The End Times by Jesse Mu-En Shao, Little Women by Velina Hasu Houston, The Hotel Play written by Paula Cizmar, Velina Hasu Houston, Jennifer Maisel, Nahal Navidar, Julie Oni, Janine Salinas Schoenberg and Laurie Woolery (performed in an actual hotel), @TheSpeedofJake by Jennifer Maisel, Circus Ugly by Gabriel Rivas Gomez, Painting In Red by Luis Alfaro, Cinnamon Girl by Velina Hasu Houston and Nathan Wang (also at the 2nd Beijing University International Musical Theater Festival 2014), Dallas Non-Stop by Boni B. Alvarez, The Anatomy of Gazellas by Janine Salinas Schoenberg, Girl Most Likely To by Michael Premrirat, Bonded by Donald Jolly and Euripides' Helen by Nick Salamone (at the Getty Villa). Other recent work includes: Anna In The Tropics by Nilo Cruz at Open Fist Theater, America Adjacent by Boni B. Alvarez, and Obama-ology by Aurin Squire at Skylight Theatre; The Joy Luck Club by Susan Kim, The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown, and Criers for Hire by Giovanni Ortega at East West Players; Honeymoon in Vegas by Jason Robert Brown and A Class Act by Ed Kleban for Musical Theatre Guild; Bingo Hall by Dillon Chitto, Fairly Traceable by Mary Kathryn Nagle, and Stand-Off At HWY #37 by Vickie Ramirez for Native Voices at the Autry (also at the University of South Dakota) and the landmark Los Angeles Premiere of Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn at SIPA and Kirk Douglas Theatre. Rivera is the recipient of a NY Fringe Festival Award for directing Hillary Agonistes, an LA Weekly Award for directing Sea Change, and 5 Ovation Award nominations.
GARY GROSSMAN (Producer, Producing Artistic Director - Skylight Theatre Company) is the recipient of Stage Raw's 2016 Career Achievement Award and the inaugural Henry Ong Award for Leadership in the Los Angeles Theatre Community. His career began in New York, owning two theaters and a theatrical lighting company by the age of 23. Gary worked at the Public Theatre, Café La Mama, and Sheraton Square Playhouse before joining Los Angeles’ emerging theatre movement in the 70's. Producing over 300 stage plays and more than 65 world premieres, some of his celebrated productions are Rotterdam (3 LADCC Awards including Best Production and 2 Stage Raw Awards- performed at CTG’s Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2019), World Premieres of Church & State (Off-Broadway 2017, over 50 national productions), The Wrong Man (Off-Broadway 2019, 14 New York Award nominations, 3 Ovation Awards), Bronco Billy – The Musical (2 Ovation Awards), Dontrell Who Kissed the Sea (Steinberg/National Theatre Critics Citation with Lower Depth Ensemble), El Grande CIRCUS de Coca- Cola, Obama-ology, Pray To Ball (Ovation Award), Years to the Day, Hermetically Sealed, Bullrusher, Mad Women (LA Weekly Award), AIDS/ US Portraits In Courage, America Adjacent, The Madres, Hostage, Never Is Now, and the 2020 L.A. Times Critics Choice West Adams.
TYREE MARSHALL (Associate Producer, Beyond Conversation Coordinator) is an Actor and Producer originally from New Jersey. Tyree had studied dance for 16 years when she discovered acting when she was in high school. She would then go on to study at California Institute of The Arts where she earned her BFA in Acting and a certificate from the British American Dramatic Academy in Oxford with Yale School of Drama. Tyree has since been pursuing in an acting career in Los Angeles with her latest theater credits including Love Is Another Country(Coin&Ghost), Gone(Inkwell), and #Becklandiscancelled (IAMA). As a producer, Tyree is currently an Artistic Associate of Play Development at Skylight Theatre Company. She will also be making her television debut in 2022.
SKYLIGHT THEATRE COMPANY is recognized as a“powerhouse of new play development” by Dramatist Magazine and as “a leader in play development" by the L.A. Times. In just the last four years, two plays originating at Skylight have been performed Off Broadway, The Wrong Man (14 New York Award nominations), and Church & State (50+ productions in 31 states). In 2017, Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea (a co-production with Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble) received the prestigious Steinberg American Theatre Critics Association Citation. In 2019, Center Theatre Group remounted their multiple award-winning production of Rotterdam at the Kirk Douglas Theatre as a part of Block Party. The production won the 2018 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Production, and awards for Writing and Lead Actress. It also received top honors at the 2018 Stage Raw Awards, winning Production of the Year and Leading Actress awards. More at www.skylighttheatre.org
PLAYWRIGHTS' ARENA is dedicated to discovering, nurturing and producing bold new works for the stage written exclusively by Los Angeles playwrights. It develops new materials through several series of readings, workshops and round table discussions. Local playwrights are encouraged to create original, adventurous, daring materials with the intent of challenging the mind, touching the heart and provoking the spirit. Playwrights' Arena was founded in 1992 by Jon Lawrence Rivera and Steve Tyler. For more information, script submission policy and production history go to www.playwrightsarena.org
BEN ALTMAN (Rehearsal Stage Manager) is a L.A. based stage manager, magician, stop motion artist and graduate of USC’s School of Dramatic Arts. Ben has stage managed productions at The Skylight Theatre, at the Boston Court Theatre, at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, for Antaeus Theatre Company and has held several backstage roles in the USC Opera Department.
LILY BARTENSTEIN (Properties Design) is a multidisciplinary designer for theatre and live performance based in Los Angeles. In addition to props, her work includes scenic, video and lighting design. Recent work includes: Lizastrata (props, Troubadour Theatre Company), Sweat (scenic design, Long Beach City College), Zorro x2 (video coordination and editing, Cal Poly Pomona), Red Ink (scenic and video design, Playwrights' Arena), and The Tale of Turandot (video design, The Imagine Project).
HOWARD HO (Sound Design) is a sound designer, playwright, and Youtuber. Twice nominated for the Ovation Award in sound design, he has designed shows for Artists At Play, Theatreworks Silicon Valley, Center Theatre Group, Deaf West, East West Players, and Playwrights' Arena among others. He teaches sound design at the California School of the Arts San Gabriel Valley. His play Various Emporia was a 2017 O'Neill Playwrights Finalist. His playwriting is published by Theatre Now New York. His Youtube channel has earned millions of views and has been recognized by Lin-Manuel Miranda. He holds degrees from UCLA & USC.
CRYSTAL HUI (Production Stage Manager) is thrilled to be back in a theater working on this show after the Pandemic shut down. She graduated from CSU, Fullerton with their Theater program; after that, she has been stage managing with The Victory Theatre before the Pandemic. Live performance is always her way of being parts of people's lives and stories. Step by step, cue by cue, she will make a show happen. —“Baby Steps, moving forward”.
ANN JAMES (Sensitivity Specialist) has an extensive career in international stage direction and theatre education spanning over three decades. James recently made her debut as the first Black Intimacy Coordinator of Broadway for Antoinette Nwandu’s Pass Over. James is an expert in the burgeoning industry of intimacy direction and institutional consent culture for national arts organizations. In addition to her Broadway credit, she served as Intimacy Director and Sensitivity Specialist for the provocative Off-Broadway productions of Moises Kaufman’s Seven Deadly Sins by Tectonic Theatre Project and Seize the King produced by Classical Theatre of Harlem. On the West Coast, James provides consultation and intimacy coordination for the television and film industry most recently working with Rashida Jones, Mark Wahlberg, Issa Rae, Will Ferrell and Cynthia Enrivo. Her intimacy work has featured James as an expert voice for Theatre Communications Group, HowlRound, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation, and Lincoln Center’s Directors Lab West. Her company, Intimacy Coordinators of Color, has partnerships with ArtsEquity, Actors Equity, The Broadway League and A.R.T./New York.
JAN MUNROE (Scenic Designer) is an actor, director, writer and designer. A founding member of the Mystic Knights Of The Oingo-Boingo, he is a recipient of many theatrical awards including 2 NEA Theatre Fellowships, a Rockefeller Playwrights fellowship, a CAC "New Genre" fellowship, 11 L.A. Weekly and Drama-Logue Awards and an Ovation Award. As an actor, he has appeared in all mediums but was most recently in John O'Keefe's Ghosts with the Open Fist Company for whom he also designed and directed O'Keefe's All Night Long.
MYLETTE NORA (Costume Design) is an Ovation Award and NAACP Theatre Award recipient for best costumes, listed in the honors edition of The Cambridge Registry of Who’s Who Among Executive and Professional Women, works world wide consists of television, film, video and stage, and was seen nightly on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and now You Bet Your Life with Jay Leno and Kevin Eubanks, and weekly on Jay Leno's Garage. The famed artist Synthia St. James noted Mylette as being the inspiration for her world renowned painting Ensemble which graced the cover of the best selling novel Waiting To Exhale by Terry McMillan. Mylette's designer lines are, doggie wear, FromTheHeartDoggieWear.com, heirloom dolls, My Mind's Eye, and now face mask by, Mylette!
MATT RICHTER (Lighting Design) is an award-winning designer based in Los Angeles. He is the resident designer for the LA LGBT Center, where he also works full time. Designs for the Center include Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe; Revisited (Ovation nomination), and Hit The Wall (Ovation Nomination, LADCC Award). Matt is thrilled to be again working with the Skylight Theatre. For more information, please visit mattrichter.net
NICHOLAS SANTIAGO (Projection Design) has worked for numerous universities and theatre companies around Los Angeles including the Pasadena Playhouse (Ham), Skylight Theatre (Forever House, Church & State, Obama Ology), Rogue Machine (A Permanent Image, Oppenheimer, Honky), USC (Trojan Women, On the Town), Theatre Planners (PEMDAS, The Red Dress L.O.V.E.R.), the Chance Theatre (Tribes, Middletown, Big Fish), The Road Theatre (Nowhere on the Border, A Delicate Ship), LA LGBT Center (The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life Revisited), and the Fountain Theatre (Arrival & Departure, The Cost of Living). He recently designed Cesar Millan's new one man show Unleashed that opened at the David Copperfield Theatre at the MGM in Las Vegas. He has received numerous award nominations including an Ovation nomination and a LA Drama Critic’s Circle award for his work on Rogue Machine’s A Permanent Image and an ovation win for his work on The Fountain Theatre's production of The Cost of Living. nsantiagodesign.com
RAUL CLAYTON STAGGS (Casting Director) is a freelance casting director thrilled to be working in live theatre again! Previous Playwrights’ Arena projects include Las Mujeres Del Mar, The End Of Beauty, and I Go Somewhere Else. Previous Skylight Theatre Company projects include West Adams, Never Is Now, America Adjacent and Rotterdam. Raul is a 2018 Recipient of Playwrights’ Arena’s Lee Melville Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Los Angeles Theatre Community.
Birgit Kostenius, Liz Ross and EST/LA, The Humanitas, Shem Bitterman and Cathleen Young. Cal Poly Pomona Department of Theatre and New Dance
This performance is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture
PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER: CRYSTAL HUI
REHEARSAL STAGE MANAGER: BEN ALTMAN
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: TYREE MARSHALL
SENSITIVITY SPECIALIST: ANN JAMES
COVID COMPLIANCE OFFICER:CEDES SIFUENTES
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR: CHRISTOPHER HOFFMAN
SCENIC PAINTING: ORLANDO DE LA PAZ
SCENIC PAINTING ASSISTANT: MARYGOLD MARTINEZ
ASSISTANT LIGHTING DESIGNER: HAYDEN KIRSCHBAUM
GRAPHIC DESIGNER: GUILLERMO PEREZ
PUBLICIST: JUDITH BORNE
SOCIAL MEDIA: REBECCA TESSIER
VIDEOGRAPHER: SETH DORCEY
PLAYWRIGHTS' ARENA STAFF
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: JON LAWRENCE RIVERA
ASSOCIATE LITERARY MANAGER: ZHARIA O'NEA
BUSINESS MANAGER: RAY SIMMONS
GRANT WRITER: GRAFTON REYES DOYLE
STUDENT PROGRAM COORDINATOR: DIANE LEVINE
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
DEBORAH SECAKUKU BAKER, BRETT BATTLES, PROSY DELACRUZ, SCOTT FREEMAN, NARDINA OWENS, NANNETTE PEREZ, JON LAWRENCE RIVERA, RAYNALD SAMOA, RAUL CLAYTON STAGGS
SKYLIGHT THEATRE COMPANY STAFF
PRODUCING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: GARY GROSSMAN
CO-ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: TONY ABATEMARCO
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: SANDEE GROSSMAN
DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR: LAURA JANE SALVATO
SKYLAB DIRECTOR: LEE BLESSING
ARTISTIC ASSOCIATES: MICHAEL KEARNS, CHRISTOPHER HOFFMAN, VICTORIA PEARLMAN, TYREE MARSHALL, SHAINA ROSENTHAL, REBECCA TESSIER
PLAY DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR, PRODUCER SKYLIGHT LIVE: TYREE MARSHALL
COVID COMPLIANCE OFFICERS: SANDEE GROSSMAN, CEDES SIFUENTES
PUBLICIST: JUDITH BORNE
SOCIAL MEDIA: REBECCA TESSIER
GRAPHIC DESIGN: GUILLERMO PEREZ
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR: CHRISTOPHER HOFFMAN
INTERN: CEDES SIFUENTES
FRONT OF HOUSE: JILL ABATEMARCO, MARISA CADDICK, ARIANNE VILLAREAL, CARLEE WILSON
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
BRADFORD BANCROFT, FR. GREGORY GOETHALS, GARY GROSSMAN, DALE RAOUL, MICHAEL KEARNS, WENDY KOUT, JEFF RENO, LEE SHERMAN, WILLIAM SLOCUM
