Theatre Group to Perform Play About Hindman

Looking for Lilith Theatre Company of Louisville, Kentucky will be re-staging their first play, Crossing Mountains: To Teach All We Can and To Learn All We Can, which premiered in 2002 for the centennial of Hindman Settlement School, after debuting in New York City in November, 2001.

The play celebrates 100 years of education and change in the Kentucky Mountains and explores the many obstacles against which an Appalachian mountain community struggled to create exceptional educational and cultural opportunities for youth and adults of the region.

Hindman Settlement School has remained vital by responding to the needs of the community. The play reflects upon its founding by two ladies from the Bluegrass and the cultural clashes and reconciliations that ensued, to the present, as it continues to offer education, cultural heritage and community service opportunities to people of the region.

The play explores the Settlement’s inspiring history, its significance to the local community and its resonance with the entire human community. At the play’s core is the universal struggle to achieve progress and growth while continuing to treasure one's heritage and culture.

Performances will be March 18, 19, 20, 25, 26 and 27 at 7:30 pm, with a March 27th matinee at 2:30 pm, at The Rudyard Kipling in Louisville. Tickets are $15, with special discounted tickets for students and seniors. For dinner and show reservations, call 502.636.1311. For show-only reservations, call 502.638.2559.

The upcoming production will be directed by Kathi E.B. Ellis and the cast includes company members Shannon Woolley, Jennifer Thalman Kepler and Trina Fischer as well as Karole Spangler, of StageOne Children's Theatre and Laura Ellis, who is also the sound designer. Graphic and costume design is by company member Typh Hainer Merwarth. Christe Lunsford is the set designer and the stage manager is Elden Richard Neal.

Local musicians will provide acoustic pre-show music 30 minutes before each show. The schedule for these musicians is as follows:  March 18 (7 pm) Sue Massek;
March 20 (7 pm) Jeff Guernsey & Tammy Burke;
March 25 (7 pm) Troubadours of Divine Bliss;
March 26 (7 pm) Dewey Kincaid;
March 27 (2 pm Twisted Sisters; and
March 27 (7pm) Tim Morton & Friends

Also for the first time, Looking for Lilith will be collaborating with MotherLodge for their MotherLodge Spring 2010: Live Arts Exchange which runs March 22 - April 18, beginning in Louisville, then traveling to Summit City Lounge (April 7th) in Whitesburg, KY and ending up in New York City's West Village.

Started by Louisville native and New York musician Ray Rizzo, "MotherLodge develops live shows with artists, venues, organizations and individuals who want to approach their work, their neighborhood and their place from a new perspective. Their programming gathers diverse artists and cultural creatives from local communities to cook up a stew of populist, absurd, abstract and communally motivated perspectives, doling out game changing art and life-affirming organized chaos to artists and audiences simultaneously, creating a community of the moment."             

LOOKING FOR LILITH THEATRE COMPANY is a nonprofit, ensemble theatre company, founded in New York City in 2001 by Shannon Woolley and Trina Fischer, both Louisville natives, along with Jennifer Thalman Kepler of Winchester, VA. Its mission is to present plays that re-examine history through women’s perspectives, mainly through the collaborative creation of original theatre, based on historical research. The company is funded, in part, by the Kentucky Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.