A reading of Song of Extinction close to home!

Save the date, Oregon friends!  At 2pm on Sunday, June 14th, there will be a reading of my play "Song of Extinction," produced by Theater 33 at my old alma mater, Willamette University.  My theater professor, Christopher Harris, whose class I LOVED, is directing.  I'm so pleased that this is happening!  (And to be in the same reading series as my friends and colleagues Aleks Merilo and Andrea Stolowitz is a special bonus.)

"Song of Extinction" is a play about a musically gifted boy who is falling off the edge of the world, and his biology teacher, who reaches out to try to help him.

It won the ATCA/Steinberg Award from the American Theater Critics Association, the Ted Schmidt Award from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, the EcoDrama Festival at University of Oregon, the Ashland New Plays Festival, and was production of the year at the LA Weekly Awards.  The play is published by Samuel French.

I'd love to see you there!  Join us!  More details on the Theater 33 website.

Now Playing in Santa Barbara, CA: Dance Me to the End of Love

A wonderful theater troupe in Santa Barbara, California is producing an evening of my short plays, entitled Dance Me to the End of Love.

I met Bonnie Lewis and Ken Gilbert a couple years ago, when we were all participating in the first annual PlayFest Santa Barbara.  They were delightful theater-makers!  So I was very pleased when Bonnie called me up and asked if her company, the DramaDogs, could read some of my short plays.  They were looking to put an evening together.  What they've ended up doing is far beyond what I could have imagined!  Not only did they select some of my very favorite short plays…  they have woven them together with live music and tango dancing, taking advantage of their movement-based company's fabulous physicality.  Several of the plays reference one of my favorite singer songwriters -- the inimitable Leonard Cohen -- so after a lot of thought, they ended up titling the evening after one of his songs.

The show runs from September 26 through October 5.  I hope you'll check it out if you're in the area!

For tickets and more information:  www.dramadogs.org

A nice preview on Broadway World:  A Theatrical Mixtape

A nice review in the Santa Barbara Independent:  Short & Sweet!

"The Edge of Ross Island" at Mary Baldwin College

From May 8-11, "The Edge of Ross Island" was part of a student-directed one-act play festival at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia.  The play is about a cop who tries to talk a jumper down from the Ross Island Bridge in Portland, Oregon, but later finds herself understanding his lostness all too well.  

I'm glad to be having so many college productions lately!

For more about the production, click here.

Who am I? What am I doing here?

My name is Ellen Lewis, and I write plays. I'm from Oregon, but have been living, working and writing in Los Angeles, California for about twelve years now.

This is an exciting time. "Song of Extinction" -- my latest full-length play -- is going to have its world premiere here in Los Angeles this fall. Preparations have already begun. It will be produced by Moving Arts (my home theater company) at [Inside] the Ford -- a beautiful 87-seat theater just off the 101. Heidi Helen Davis is directing. Kim Glann is producing, with Cece Tio and Steve Lozier. We are hoping to finalize casting tonight. We run from November 7th through December 14th.

Above is a picture of the empty stage, which we will be working to fill over the next few months. Our design team visited the theater the other day, for our first look at the space in which we'll be working.

So! The adventures of a girl playwright in the big city, trying to put on a show with lots of help from her friends. I'll try to keep you posted on our progress.

The Ford Amphitheater & [Inside] the Ford.