Women’s festival looks outward as well as inward

WHEN it comes to the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival, it doesn’t matter who you are; they’ve got you covered. There’s Nafeesa Monroe’s exploration of her multiracial identity in “Journey to Becoming a Super Woman,” and Shyamala Moorty’s complex and politically themed dance numbers such as “Balance,” in which she marries Eastern and Western movements on alternate sides of her body. There’s also the musical number “A Song for My Father” – in which Mattilyn Rochester deals with the death of her preacher dad – and the spiritual journey of Kim Wayans, recounted in her piece “A Handsome Woman Retreats.”

And the three-day festival of solo works doesn’t lack for lighter amusements either, according to co-founder and executive producer Adilah Barnes. There’s Juliette Jeffers’ online dating adventures in “Looking 4 a Chocolate Match.com” and spoken word poetry by the Lindz, who, Barnes says, riffs on the most commonplace subjects with an insightful wit:

“What she can do with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is incredible, just out of this world,” says Barnes.

It’s this attention to diversity – of ages, ethnicities, moods and themes – that has helped ensure the festival’s longevity as it heads into its 15th edition, having showcased more than 400 artists over the last decade and a half. This year will include a Champagne gala to open the festivities and then five themed programs (“Politically Speaking,” “Identity,” “En Route,” “Shades of Love” and “Uncut”) spread over three days.

“This is a milestone year,” Barnes notes. People, evidently, have noticed. After selling out performances in the festival’s old Santa Monica home at the 120-seat Highways Performance Space, “we realized we’ve got to think bigger,” says Barnes. That’s how the festival found itself setting up shop in the 354-seat main stage of the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood’s Arts District, which it will stock with its array of national and international poets, actresses, dancers, storytellers, performance artists and musicians. It’s a select group culled from a thorough, multi-round screening process. (The festival accepts roughly one-third of its applicants.)

The whole thing began, Barnes says, as a sort of satellite program of the Women’s Theater Festival in Philadelphia (when it staged a festival at UCLA in 1992). And when the East Coast organization declined to return for future engagements, Barnes and company picked up where the Philly crew left off. That, all these years later, L.A.’s festival is still growing, she sees as testament not just to its female talent, but also the strength of the local performing arts audience.

“They said L.A. was too schmoozey, too celebrity-driven,” recalls Barnes. “Whenever anyone says that in my presence, I correct them: L.A. is a theater town.”