[Inside] the Ford 2008-09 Season

L.A.’s most surprising small theatre lives deep in a County park, is embedded in a 1929 structure echoing Jerusalem, boasts state-of-the-art tech and comfy seats and has a decades-long history of nurturing the new in theatre. The 2008-09 Season is the next phase in the life of this hidden gem. Three of the L.A. region’s most adventurous theatre companies stage three world premiere productions at the 87-seat indoor theatre in the Ford Theatres complex.

Song of Extinction
By E.M. Lewis
Presented by Moving Arts
November 7 – December 14

A World Premiere play by the winner of the 2008 Francesca Primus Prize. Song of Extinction is about the science of life and loss, the relationships between fathers and sons, Cambodian fields, Bolivian rainforests and redemption. Max Forrestal, a musically gifted high school student, is falling off the edge of the world, and his biology teacher, Khim Phan, is the only one who’s noticed. His attempts to help the boy, however, push Khim into a magical journey of his own – from the Cambodia of his youth into the undiscovered country beyond.

Battle Hymn
By Jim Leonard
Presented by Circle X Theatre Company
January 17 – February 21

The award-winning creative teams behind [Inside] hits The Shaggs, The Brothers Karamazov and Eurydice stage the world premiere of the latest from Jim Leonard (The Diviners). On the eve of The Civil War, sixteen-year-old Martha finds herself pregnant and ostracized. As Martha travels through and fights in the Civil War, she settles on one incontrovertible fact: She will not raise her baby in a blood-soaked, violent country. Martha stays pregnant for over a century, until she arrives in San Francisco in 1967. For a moment Martha thinks she’s landed in heaven, but before she knows it half the world is at war once again. “How can she bring her child into a world like this?”

Home Siege Home
Part 1 Clytemnestra & Part 2 Electra & Orestes (performed together)
Conceived and Directed by Katharine Noon and Developed in Workshop by the Ensemble
Presented by The Ghost Road Company
March 26 – May 3

A trilogy more than 10 years in the making becomes complete on the [Inside] stage. Inspired in part by The Oresteia, this highly theatrical, multi-media piece explores the intimate lives of one powerful family and their ill-fated decisions born out of vengeance for past wrongs. The drama is played out against the backdrop of an unpopular war overseas and the social, political and emotional impact of such a war on those left at home.