2024 Year End Letter!
Dear Road friends and family:
As we come to the end of 2024, we want to take the opportunity to thank all of you for your continued support. Because of your generosity and curiosity, along with the dedication and hard work of our wonderful company, we can look back on a year filled with the development and production of exciting work new to Los Angeles, and in some cases, new to the country and even the world.
This year has been an extraordinary year of growth and transformation for our theatre. As one of the first of the small theatres in Los Angeles we were able to offer performances for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing community with our newly installed captioning technology. Watching our audiences connect—without barriers—is a profound reminder of the power of the arts to unite us. None of this would have been possible without the incredible support of the Ahmanson Foundation, whose generous grant has enabled us to embark on a full-scale overhaul of our stage to make our theatre even more inclusive and accessible. Our work is not just about removing barriers—it’s about creating a space where everyone can experience the joy and inspiration of live performance.
Here are more highlights of 2024:
—A wildly successful sold-out, award-winning production of Steve Yockey’s “Mercury,” directed by Ann Hearn Tobolowsky, started our year off with a bang in a story of suspicion, superstition, the Devil and a large and terrifying debut of…… a bear. As a result of this one-of-a-kind tale by Mr. Yockey, we are now in rehearsal for a THIRD Steve Yockey experience, opening in January 2025: “Sleeping Giant.” In addition, “Yockeyites” loved coming back to get another peek at the Road’s pandemic hybrid version of Yockey’s “Reykjavik,” fully staged and filmed and winning Festivals across the world.
—The Word Reading series, free to the public, presented 31 new play readings on Monday nights, and the successful and innovative development program, Under Construction 4, led by Board member Carlyle King and her dramaturges, produced UC4 Slamfest, presenting 17 new plays from inception to staged readings both in LA and in New York City. Plays from these readings often move to the Road Main Stage season in full productions, and Laura Stribling’s “Singularities or the Computers of Venus” did just that this past season.
—A continuing relationship with Plays With People, the Road brought a co-production of Shem Bitterman’s “Civil Twilight” to Hollywood’s Broadwater Theatre. Directed by Ann Hearn Tobolowsky and starring Taylor Gilbert and Elvis Miller, this up to the moment thriller opened in October of 2024 and just extended for a second time through January, 2025.
—The 15th presentation of the Road’s Summer Playwrights Festival, the largest new works festival of its kind in the country, going live again post-pandemic, presented staged readings of 18 new plays from around the country. For the second year in a row, two of the festival entries were by Peter Ritt, and Marlow Wyatt’s “Robbin, from the Hood,” adding two more world premieres to the Road’s canon.
—The Road continued to broaden its programming this year with its very own “Shorts” Film Festival. Created by members Billy Baker, David Gianopoulos and Taylor Nichols, the festival screened films by and including Road Theatre Company filmmakers and actors. These films are now traveling the festival circuits from West to East Coast in the U.S.
—”Guardian Angels” began its development in the Road’s Common Ground Project, and the 10-minute autobiographical piece grew into a full length production and had two successful incarnations at the Road this year. A call-to-action piece about PTSD and suicide issues of our veterans, this solo piece was written and performed by member Brian Delate, developed at the Actors Studio of Los Angeles and the Road, played as a fundraiser and returned to the Road stage for two subsequent performances. It has also run at the Actors Studio in New York City and across the country.
—Common Ground, which spawned “Guardian Angels”, presented another successful collection of solo pieces in its seventh year. Developed by Allan Wasserman and produced by Avery Clyde, the production showcases Road members and others creating and performing their own autobiographical pieces. All of this explains why a major critic from the Los Angeles Times said this about the Road: “The people at the Road Theatre, bless them. remain firmly committed to plays no one has seen before. and to playwrights you may never have heard of. This has always been the most meaningful and the most dangerous of theatre missions, and the mission is never clearer than when the Road stages a new play.”
We remain committed to our mission for years to come, and we simply could not continue without your support and your trust. We look forward to seeing you, our ever- growing family of supporters for more dangerous adventures and we welcome the reactions and discussions and debates. If you haven’t donated yet this year, or if you have but have help to spare, there is still time. Please consider the Road and please share this with your friends and family. Happy Holidays and we look forward to seeing you in the New Year back at the Road.
Taylor Gilbert, Founder/Artistic Director
Sam Anderson, Artistic Director