Big Little Theater Company presents

A new play with music set inside the uterus

A queer love story told from deep inside the cells of the body

A radical reclamation of the power of menstruating bodies

Menstruation: A Period Piece is an ensemble-driven, experimental, bold musical that theatricalizes the menstrual cycle, centering a queer love story as told through the cells of the body. 

Menstruation: A Period Piece will be presented at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, March 24-April 16 as part of their 2023 season.

Menstruation is shrouded in shame. We believe everyone deserves to have a joyful connection with this vital system–it’s the reason we’re all here! Menstruation will be a healing space for anyone who has been taught to feel disconnected from our bodies.

In a world that is increasingly hostile to menstruating people, including women and queer, trans, and nonbinary folks, MENSTRUATION puts a queer love story and a full company of women and nonbinary performers front and center. It’s a joyful, healing celebration. We’re in a time of increasing scrutiny on bodies who menstruate and there’s a direct correlation between this and the shame and silence that surround menstruating bodies. When we can foster a joyful, powerful connection to the menstrual cycle, it bolsters us in the fight to protect all bodies.

We envision a Los Angeles theater community full of conversation-changing, bold, well-resourced work.  The people are craving it and we are bringing it! 

Katie Lindsay (she/her) Director: Katie Lindsay is a director, writer, producer, and the Artistic Director of Big Little Theater Company. With BLTC, she created A Walk in My Neighborhood, a guided audio walk in Atwater Village. Her work tends to be playful, ensemble-driven, and visually theatrical. I am a 2019 Foeller Fellow at Williamstown Theater Festival. Recently projects include The Door You Never Saw Before by Matt Schatz (Geffen Stayhouse) and Red Emma & the Mad Monk co-created with playwright Alexis Roblan (The Tank, NYTimes Critic’s Pick). She has worked with New York Theatre Workshop, the Getty Villa, Williamstown Theater Festival, IAMA Theatre Company, Ars Nova, Fresh Ground Pepper, and EST/Los Angeles. As an assistant director, she has worked on Broadway, off-Broadway, and regionally with Rebecca Taichman, Eric Ting, Rachel Chavkin, Robert O’Hara, Kimberly Senior, Sarah Ruhl, Branden Jacobs Jenkins, and PigPen Theater Company. Proud graduate of Dartmouth College and member of SDC. 

Camille Jenkins (she/her) Lead Producer: Camille Jenkins is a producer, director, writer, teaching artist, and creative leader. Equity, exploration, and collaboration are the tenants that she lives by both professionally and personally. She holds a BFA in Performing Arts and an MA in Arts Administration from Savannah College of Art and Design. She has produced, directed, written, and taught in collaboration with Riverside Children’s Theatre, Unique Minds, Inc, Oakland Theatre Project, and Four Larks among others; projects include the inventive spoken word interactive experience: Spoken Perceptions and The Goddesses Guide: Adura for the Women of African Diaspora (Hollywood Fringe Festival).  Currently Camille is the Programming Manager at The Wallis in Beverly Hills, where she has also co-directed and assistant directed.

Miranda Rose Hall (she/her) Playwright: Miranda Rose Hall (she/her) is a writer based in Brooklyn, NY. Her plays include A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction (finalist for the 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize), Plot Points in Our Sexual Development (finalist for the 2019 Lambda Literary Award in Drama), The Kind Ones, and Menstruation: A Period Piece.  A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction is currently touring Europe as part of the Sustainable Theatre?  project created by British director Katie Mitchell, French choreographer Jérôme Bel, and Théâtre Vidy in Lausanne, Switzerland. Her work has been produced by theaters including LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater, Baltimore Center Stage, the Magic Theatre, Théâtre Vidy, Piccolo Teatro, Centaur Theatre, Dramaten, and the National Performing Arts Center in Taipei. Commissions include Yale Repertory Theater, Playwrights Horizons Soundstage, Baltimore Center Stage, Concord Theatricals, and LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater as a Berwin Lee New York London Commissioned Playwright. In 2020, she was honored with a Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. BA: Georgetown University and MFA: Yale.

Tova Katz (she/her) Composer & Music Director: Tova Katz is a queer, genre-bending lyricist-composer, writer and performer. She’s performed her original musical work across NYC, including La Mama E.T.C., Ars Nova, and 54 Below, she’s been a featured vocal performer at Joes’ Pub and Playwrights Horizons, and is a founding member of performance collective A Beautiful Desperation. Her original musical performance was an Official Selection at The ONE Theatre Festival and received the award for Outstanding Solo Performance in a Musical at the All Out Arts Fresh Fruit Festival in NYC. Select LA credits include her original award-winning solo musical See You at the Funeral! (Broadwater Main Stage). Tova is thrilled to be a part of the 2021-2022 Geffen Writers’ Room where their collaborators AK Kalinowski and Katie Lindsay are developing their new queer musical Beneath the Bowtie. Imagination saves her life every day. SAG-AFTRA/AEA/ASCAP.

CLAIRE: Jane Hae Kim

EMILY: Bibi Mama
THE EGG/MEL: Jo Lampert

UTERINE UNION REPRESENTATIVE, ETC: Kaci Hamilton
UTERINE CHORUS: Kate Lý Johnston

UTERINE CHORUS: Marnina Schon

UTERINE CHORUS: Audra Isadora

Creating epically intimate theater is a challenge: we need financial support to pay all our collaborating artists, design and build our epic uterus set, rent equipment, spread the word about the show, and cover any contingencies that will arise during production. Big Little Theater Company is committed to paying equitable living wages to all collaborating artists, and supporting new plays with fully resourced premieres. Your donations will make this possible!

We are thrilled to have raised $65,000 in individual donations and $13,000 in grant funds from the Venturous Theater Fund, and to have secured a partnership with the Los Angeles LGBT Center to make this production happen.

What we're paying for:

Artist Fees: We pay all artists equitable, living wages
Personnel: The staff behind the scenes who make it happen
Production: Bringing our incredible designs to life
Occupancy: Rehearsal space, storage, and the like
Marketing: Getting the word out!

Your tax-deductible donation will directly support:

-Living wages for all collaborating artists

-Scenic design, construction, and installation of the huge, epic uterus where the play unfolds

Get the word out! – Share our campaign on social media, tell your friends, send a carrier pigeon to all your friends and enemies: we want to celebrate this extraordinary show with as many people as we can in our LA community!

THANK YOU for spending time with MENSTRUATION: A Period Piece.

In generous partnership with Fractured Atlas, Big Little Theater Co, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, and the Venturous Theater Fund.