Cultural Arts: Stages

LIT! (Lesbians In Theater)

LIT! (Lesbians In Theater) was an initiative started by former Producing Artistic Director Sue Hamilton that uniquely served the lesbian audience. Founded to address the hunger to see themselves on stage, not just as a subplot, but as the main characters,” LIT! produced solo shows, staged readings of new works in development, a music concert, and fully staged plays during its three-year run (2004-2006).

Very few of the more than 1,200 annual theater productions in Los Angeles at that time included lesbian protagonists or subject matter. LIT! addressed that disparity. The program produced three solo shows, 12 staged readings of new works-in-development, a concert of women’s music, the revival of the hit comedy Oh Sister, My Sister!, written by and starring Jane Lynch (Glee, A Mighty Wind), the official 25th Anniversary West Coast Production of Jane Chambers’ classic lesbian drama, Last Summer at Bluefish Cove (nominated for a GLAAD Award – Best L.A. Theater), and the world premiere of The Break Up Notebook, by Patricia Cotter. Stories ran the gamut from crazy family chronicles and an uncompromising voyage into a woman’s sexual history, to a musical exploration of an interracial lesbian affair in the 1920s, and a rare, in-depth drama about lesbians in the Holocaust.