Tag Archives: EST/LA

The FPI Files: Returning Soldiers Speak… Now, Their Families’ Stories

March 21, 2026Female Artists, playwriting, Reading, WritingBenjamin Fortier, Bryan Caldwell, Denah Angel, Ensemble Studio Theatre Los Angeles, EST/LA, Gregory Hillman, jeffrey Webster, Jim Lunsford, Leilani Squire, Liisa Rose, Returning Soldiers Speak, Sawyers Playhouse, VeteransCalendar Updates

by Leilani Squire

I was born and raised in the military. My father was deployed on an aircraft carrier off the coast of Okinawa when I was born at Tripler Army Hospital on the outskirts of Honolulu. This was during the Korean War. He served thirty years in the Navy, which means I grew up inside the military complex.

It is different to be raised in the military instead of being raised in the civilian world. As I write this, I see how I really can’t explain the difference because I do not have a reference to what it means to grow up outside of the military. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I thought of the playwriting project Military Family Staged Readings—to better understand the bridge between the two worlds.

There is also a difference between those who wear the uniform and those who wait for the return of the deployed. Each experiences the military in a different way, and hard as we try, there remains a gap of understanding, of experiences. My father was deployed many times—leaving on a big ship and returning six months or a year later. When he left I was one way, and when he returned I was a different person. We both changed during his deployment and it took time to reconnect and establish our relationship as father and daughter.

You may wonder why I begin this blog post about a child whose father deploys to a far away country and what that has to do with playwriting and the theater. Most people in our society do not understand what it means to be a spouse, child, mother or father of those who wear the uniform.

a military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery

Since 2010, I have worked with Veterans helping them tell their stories through poetry, prose, and playwriting through the organization Returning Soldiers Speak. As rewarding and meaningful and important as this work has been, I yearned to do something different. I wanted to honor the family members of the military.

I guess you could say that I wanted to honor my mother who was a military wife for thirty years. And my sisters who moved from place to place with each new set of orders. And that little girl who waited for her father’s return. So, I wrote a proposal of a playwriting project for Veterans and family members—playwriting workshops that would culminate in a series of staged readings for the public—and submitted it to the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. We were awarded the grant (that is, a matching grant) and began the playwriting workshops last fall.

The interview process was challenging because each person was wonderful and full of potential and passion, but due to the constraints of our budget, we couldn’t accept all of them.

Our playwrights are Benjamin Fortier, a Marine Corps Veteran who was in Fallujah in 2006; Gregory Hillman, a Marine Corps Veteran who was deployed to Afghanistan; Jeffrey Webster, a Coast Guard Veteran who does ceremonies for Veterans in Hospice; Bryan Caldwell, a grandson of a Navy Captain; Denah Angel, a daughter whose father served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War; and Liisa Rose, a wife whose husband was an Air Force Colonel who served for almost twenty-nine years.

Some live in Los Angeles, others live in various parts of the country. The challenge has been how to bring all of us together—and so enter Zoom. It amazes me how intimate the workshops have been using this virtual platform.

One Saturday morning during our Zoom playwriting workshop, we were focusing on Liisa Rose’s play. Her play asks the question: Is the current state of the country worth giving one’s life for? This is a provocative question to ask at any time, but to ask this question during these turbulent times is daring, brave, and important.

Support and Defend is the title of Liisa’s play and the main character faces the challenges of grieving the death of her husband (a character who died while deployed to Afghanistan) and raising her two almost-adult children. Much of Liisa’s play draws upon her own experiences in the military (but thank goodness she and her husband are living happily in Arizona).

At one point in our conversation, Liisa began telling us about a very personal experience that happened when her husband returned home from yet another deployment. I asked her if she had written about that and she said no. I suggested she write a monologue for the main character. She did. And then she wrote a scene based on their experience. It is one of the most powerful things I have ever heard or read.

She debated whether the scene belonged in the play, and if it did, where in the play’s structure would the scene reveal what it needs to reveal? She also wondered what her husband would say if she told him that she wanted to write this scene. He told her that would be okay. And ultimately, we decided that the play needs it.

It has been my honor to work with Liisa; she is a good playwright and has written an important play. The question she poses about weighing the current state of one’s country drives the story forward, and invites us to look with new awareness and search for an answer. After each reading, the playwright and the audience will engage in dialogue. I am curious what shape the dialogue will take after hearing Support and Defend.

Our other wonderful female playwright is Denah Angel Shenkman. I know Denah from Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA where we have worked together for many projects—I as a playwright and Denah as an actor.

A while ago, Denah told me the story about the Greek side of her family. During World War Two, the family’s house was taken over by the Nazis and her two aunts had to fend for themselves. They eventually escaped and found their way to America and joined their father. Theirs was complicated journey and a fascinating journey. I knew this project would be an opportunity for Denah to begin writing about her ancestors.

In writing her play, Denah has drawn upon her family’s story, and at the same time embraced the creative process of letting the story and the characters define the play. She has known all along what story she wants to tell, and it has been exciting to watch her take the leap into an unknown place and find the elements and aspects of the characters and their journeys.

One of the first times (if not the first time) Denah, Jim Lunsford (our wonderful dramaturge) and I met, she said that she wanted to write a love story. She wanted to show the complexities of what it means to live during war and to discover love in that harsh and brutal world. She began with three characters, added another character, and then another character to deepen and strengthen the theme, conflict, story and plot. She has drawn upon her Greek heritage in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that add spice and flavor, history and authenticity to the play. How she weaves Greek mythology throughout the characters’ lives—their relationships and their dialogue—makes sense in this world of her creation, and invites us to envision what it means to live in a place rooted in mythology.

We might inquire: How does ancient mythology speak to me in the 21^st century? What can I learn? How might I use myth to create myth? What can I learn from the historical context of the play that will serve me during these turbulent times? For me to ask such questions means the playwright has done the work and written a play of meaning and authenticity. I am excited to bear witness to the dialogue between the playwright and the audience after the reading of An Era.

Denah Angel and Leilani Squire (top, l to r) with dramaturge Jim Lunsford

I must give a shout out to Jim Lunsford, our incredible dramaturge. I couldn’t have done this project without him. He understands theater in a way that I wish I did. He sees through to the essences of structure in a way that I wish I did. He envisions the whole picture, while I see the specifics—we make a wonderful team.

I am directing An Era and honored and excited to be doing so. Keith Szarabajka and Joe Garcia will direct readings as well.

The staged reading series begins with Denah Angel Shenkman’s An Era on March 25 and closes with Liisa Rose’s Support and Defend on April 29.

There are four other staged readings in the series that will also be awesome:

April 1 – Gregory Hillman, Self-less
April 8 – Benjamin Fortier, The Park
April 15 – Jeffrey Webster, Killing to the Sound of Trumpets
April 22 – Bryan Caldwell, Flowers From Hell

I hope you join us for these wonderful plays, engage in the dialogue after the reading,and enjoy the camaraderie of community.

Military Family Staged Readings take place March 25 – April 29, Wednesdays at 7:30pm, followed by dialogues between the playwrights and audiences. The readings take place at Sawyer’s Playhouse, 11031 Camarillo Street in North Hollywood, CA. Donations will be gratefully accepted. For more info, visit returningsoldiersspeak.org/military-family-staged-readings-project

The FPI Files: Women’s Stories at EST/LA, One Act at a Time

June 22, 2017Female Artists, playwritingCarole Real, Ensemble Studio Theatre Los Angeles, EST/LA, gender parity, LAThtr, Liz Ross, one acts, women playwrightsLAFPI

Is it just us, or has Ensemble Studio Theatre/Los Angeles been getting their femme on, lately? Including last year’s hit production of member playwright Karen Rizzo’s “Mutual Philanthropy,” Ann Talman’s “Woody’s Order!” earlier this year, and works presented through the company’s development programs, we’ve heard a lot of female voices coming from EST/LA’s space at Atwater Village. Now the 2017 One Act Festival is currently playing, with 50% of the works written by women. Time to chat with one of EST/LA’s Co-Artistic Directors, actor/producer Liz Ross, and Carole Real, playwright and former Co-Artistic Director.

LA FPI: Needless to say, we’re big fans of gender parity. How did the plays for this Fest come to you?

Liz Ross: All the submissions came from playwrights associated with our company either through the Playwrights Unit, NeWest Playwrights (which is our writers group for playwrights under the age of 30), and writer company members.

Our membership and writing groups are all pretty equally male and female voices. I think we are around 50/50, to be honest. And we’re particularly proud this year that each play has been developed here through our programs such as Sunday Best, our monthly reading series; Winterfest, our annual members project series; LAFest, our Los Angeles voices festival; Launchpad, a staged reading series; and True Story, our monthly storytelling evening.

LA FPI: Do you see differences in the stories women playwrights are telling, vs. male playwrights? Or differences in how they’re telling them?

Carole Real: I have all kinds of theories, but they are just theories and it’s never wise to paint with a broad brush. For instance, in my observation, the play with the twist ending tends to be written by a male playwright. But I bet our readers could come up more than one example of a twist ending play that was written by a female playwright.

One thing I think is objectively true is that women playwrights tend to have more female characters and more female protagonists in their plays than male playwrights. In addition, the female characters women write tend to have their own goals and aren’t just in the play to “help” other (male) characters or serve as plot points. And I think women playwrights tend to write female-female interactions that women audience members experience as truthful and moving.

Liz: I’m finding that things seem to be shifting. I think in the past women wrote more of the relationship stories, but now there seems to be a shift in this generationally. Many of the younger playwrights are crossing those gender norms and exploring more plays about identity issues from both male and female voices.

And then there’s a play like “The Guard Will Escort You to Ruff-Ruff” by Carole Real [included in Program B of the Festival]. This play explores how our global economy can unknowingly make us complicit in the abuse of factory workers over even a small purchase, like toys with our favorite cartoon characters on them.

LA FPI: So let’s talk about the Festival selections, starting with your play, Carole. Why are you telling this story?

Stella Kim and Sharon Freedman in Carole Real’s “The Guard Will Escort You to Ruff-Ruff,” directed by Chuma Gault. Photo by Youthana Yuos.

Carole: I became aware that foreign factories routinely break labor laws and violate safety codes of the countries where they are located — their own country’s laws — during the recession when I worked in a temp job for a large entertainment conglomerate. The job entailed reading foreign factory audits eight hours a day, five days a week. It was profoundly depressing and I became convinced that if people understood how these factories operate, they would feel differently about the global economy and understand that by turning a blind eye, we are complicit in the exploitation of vulnerable workers. It later dawned on me that I could dramatize the subject by creating a theatrical world where a factory auditor in China could “talk” to the temp worker in the US.

I absolutely love that the play has mostly women characters and that they attempt to work together to protect the most vulnerable of them! I know that in China, many factories are staffed mostly with teenaged girls, because they are hardworking and obedient, so factory safety and fair labor laws there is really and truly a women’s issue, and this is probably true in many other countries as well.

And I would be remiss not to give director Chuma Gault huge credit for the artistic success of this production. Chuma really saw the play as being about how women are penalized by being strong and smart in the office environment. This wasn’t something I was focussed on — that just seemed like “how it is” — but he picked up on that and made sure it was part of the story. Thank you, Chuma!

Liz: All three plays in Program B explore questions of conscience — from “Provenance” by Ian Patrick Williams to “Writing to Mrs. Otts” by Tom Stringer to Carole’s play, each play in this program asks us to consider what we’re willing to speak up about or against.

Program A had 5 plays that all explored relationships. They ranged from Karen Rizzo’s “Darkest Place” which explored loss and crisis to Deborah Pearl’s short piece “Can You Hear Me Now” about miscommunication in the cell phone era. Mary Portser’s “So Lovely Here on Earth” was a sweet piece about a woman trying to volunteer for a Mars Mission when her interviewer realizes that she’s just trying to escape her own misery here on Earth by “committing suicide by space.” Each of these plays, while being very different from each other and taking entirely different approaches, had a similar thread exploring our desperate need to be understood. I do think that women writers tend to invest in the search for understanding each other. Women write characters who watch and observe each other.

Program C has 4 wonderful pieces starting with “Things That Matter” a musical by Elin Hampton and Gerald Sternbach, “How Do I Get Get to Carnegie Hall” by Nick Ullett and directed by his wife Jenny O’Hara. Then “My Jesus Year” a heartfelt piece by Tony Foster, and finishing with Katherine Cortez’ “Between Friends” which is about a many years old friendship between two older women who discover that they still harbor secrets from each other after all these years. Katherine is just coming off of a successful Fringe production of her play, “In The Valley of the Shadow” with Rogue Machine. It’s a powerful piece that she developed with the Playwrights Unit and we had a reading in Winterfest.

LA FPI: So it’s not just us! Seems like there are a lot of powerful women artists working as part of EST/LA?

Carole: Yes! And I’d like to thank Liz Ross for the work she’s currently doing as one of the three Artistic Directors, and the work she has done in the past for EST/LA as an actress, producer and creative director. I’d also like to give a shout out to the other strong women who have made our company run, including Jenny O’Hara, Board President, Gates McFadden, Laura Salvato, Risa Bramon Garcia and Deb Stricklin (all former Artistic Directors), Heather Robinson who currently heads the Members Committee and all the other women who make EST/LA go. Without them, we’re nothing!

Liz: We have increased the diversity of voices within our membership and playwrights groups and this past year and actually have a very long history of producing women playwrights. Right now, we have so many projects in development that we can’t possibly produce them all so our focus is to serve their process; we’ve become a major incubator of plays, so to speak. We’re very conscious of including women’s voices equally to men’s and we do have a wonderfully strong and vocal community of women within our organization so I expect we will continue that way for a long time to come.

EST/LA’s 2017 One Act Festival continues through July 16 at the Atwater Village Theatre complex. For more information visit www.estlosangeles.org or call (818) 839-1197. Reserve tickets at brownpapertickets.com.