The View From Here
As Elsie prepares to leave the planet, she’s visited by two young people who are also, in their own ways, death-adjacent. Can the three of them
help each other fix the terrible, lonely tilting of their lives before Ed arrives?
E. M. Lewis is an award-winning playwright and opera librettist whose work has been produced around the world, and published by Samuel French. She received the Steinberg Award for How the Light Gets In and Song of Extinction and the Primus Prize for Heads from the American Theater Critics Association, the Ted Schmitt Award from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, playwriting fellowships from New Jersey and Oregon arts commissions, and an Edgerton Award for Magellanica. Other plays include: The Frankenstein Project, Strange Birds, Apple Season, The Gun Show, True Story, and Dorothy’s Dictionary. Her play Apple Hunters! received its world premiere in April at Artists Repertory Theater in Portland. Lewis is currently playwright-in-residence at Artists Rep through the Mellon Foundation’s National Playwright Residency Program, and is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild. She lives on her family’s farm in Oregon.
DANA SCHWARTZ is an award winning Los Angeles theater artist. She has directed plays across the country, most recently the critically acclaimed “Tune In” at Theatre of NOTE and “here comes the night” at Moving Arts, as well as at The Road Theater, Topanga Arts Center, Lyric Hyperion, Fierce Backbone, Long Beach Shakespeare, and the Victory Theater. Her play “Meet the Maker” was in workshop with Circle X in Los Angeles. “The Bomb” will be part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2026. “@Playaz” was an O’Neill Finalist and had its World Premiere in 2021. “Early Birds” premiered in 2019. “Presto!”, an O’Neill Semi-Finalist, was developed with Workshop Theater New York, and was in the Hudson Valley Theater Festival. “The Grotto” was part of the Valdez Theater Conference in Alaska, “First Time” was in the Lanford Wilson New Play Festival, and “The April & Mr. Bigglesworth Super Special Funtime Show” was produced by Thrown Stone in Ct. She has also had plays at Morgan Wixon, Surfside Theater, Nomad Theatre, Parish Players, Eclectic Theater, Echo Theatre, Theatre of NOTE, LeftEdge, Sky Pilot, REDcat LA, Disney Hall, Segerstrom Center, La Jolla Playhouse, Curtis Theater and LACMA. As an actress she has performed around the world, most recently in “Paper Walls” at the Inkwell. Dana is the Program Director of the MADLab New Play Development Program at Moving Arts.
“The View From Here”
Elsie – Alexis Genya*
Cheyenne – Leah Jarvik*
Dylan – Paolo Portillo
Ed/Stage Directions – Tom Knickerbocker*
*Road Company Member
Talkback Moderator: Gloria Ines*