Los Angeles Women's Theatre Festival: LAWTF ANNOUNCES LINE-UP FOR FESTIVAL 2016

Greetings, friends! Exciting news: LAWTF is delighted to announce that we will again return to the Electric Lodge located at 1416 Electric Avenue, Venice, CA 90291 23^rd Annual Festival March 24-27, 2016. for our This will mark our 6^th year as loyal community partners.

Our exciting line up for our 2016 "Telling Our Truths" theme include:

Thursday, March 24 at 8:00 pm
"A TOAST TO GREATNESS"

Hosted by: Starletta DuPois (The Notebook)

and Shabaka Henley (Black-ish)

Starletta DuPois

Shabaka Henley

Raissa Simpson, Study on a Butterfly. This dance piece showcases points of transformation a midst limitations of movement. From sources of her struggle with degenerative joint disease, Raisssa Simpson draws on her experience to develop metamorphic movement.

Eloise Laws. A member of a distinguished jazz family, award-winning international vocalist Eloise Laws will celebrate women through song.

Friday, March 25 at 8:00 p.m.

"Fathers and Daughters"

Hosted by: Joyce Guy (How to Get Away With Murder)

and Lula Washington (Lula Washington Dance Company)

Alina Cenal in Words From a Cuban Father. Alina's strong presence of her father guides her through a world of mambo, revolution, Fidel, hotdogs, Miami, the circus, and Hollywood, as she is yanked from her native Cuba as a child to explore a new life that challenges her roots.

Vicki Dello Joio in What's Wrong With a Mouse? Coming from Oakland, Vicki chronicles her journey of healing a rift with her father during his last days. He had disowned her for being queer 20 years earlier.

Ciera Payton in Michael's Daughter. One woman's paper trail relationship with her incarcerated father.

Saturday, March 26 at 3:00 p.m.

"Culturally Speaking"

Hosted by: Iona Morris (The Soul Man)

and Adleane Hunter (Director/Producer)

Andreea Kindryd in "The Hair War." Shirley Temple curls to dreadlocs, 50 years of battling mental shackles, and driving my mother crazy is the focus of this storytelling piece that comes to us from Australia.

Dina Morrone in The Italian in Me. Dina shares her Italian/Canadian family upbringing, as well as her roller coaster ride to her ancestral Italy.

Vivian Nesbitt in The Bark and the Tree, Set in Ireland and coming here from New Mexico, this personal story of connection and transformation bends time and space to discover the true legacy of Vivian's legendary ancestor, the poet Eva of the Nation.

Saturday, March 26 at 8:00 p.m.

"Identity Revealed"

Hosted by: Rosie Lee Hooks (Sweet Honey in the Rock)

and Eloise Laws (Can't Let Myself, Hurt Myself)

Aurora Lagattuta in Inside the Whale. This multi-media piece of dance, poetry, song and video projections from San Diego explores a fantastical journey of a woman swallowed by a whale, learning how to live in her own skin.

Amy Milano in Dancing With Crazies. This is one woman's search for a place to call home after being uprooted from place to place as a child.

Cheray O'Neal in Journey This. This piece follows one's path from despair to healing. After the death of her last living relative, Journey is left with a choice- suffer or forgive.

Sunday, March 27 at 3:00 p.m.

"Striving for Balance"

Hosted by: Ingrid Graham (Dancer/Choreographer/Producer)
and Sky Palkowitz (Calling America: Don't Hang Up!)

Sharon Abreu in The Climate Monologues. Through interviews across the country and with original songs, this piece from Washington brings to life the voices of those who speak on climate change and energy and how it has personally affected them.

Debra DeLiso in Beautiful, Terrifying Love. A personal, poetic whirlwind of Debra DeLiso's dangerously true stories that she comically navigates from a nightmarish childhood, Hollywood horror film career, and a traumatic motherhood with her beautiful, talented and bi-polar daughter.

Rhonda Khan in Food. A rhythmic tale from New York of one woman's addiction to food a midst societal pressures to be thin. Family, therapists, healers and gurus weigh in and diagnose her as she spits her truth about weight loss, gain, and healing.