FEATURING THE MUSIC OF PAT BENATAR & NEIL GIRALDO
Directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene
Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 2022
Photos by Jamie Pham Photography and Sean Daniels/DVR PRODUCTIONS
INVINCIBLE – The Musical, featuring the music of Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo, reimagines the timeless story of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet for the 21st century through an intricate weaving of the four-time GRAMMY® Award-winners and 2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees’ legendary catalog and inspired new songs. This wildly inventive new musical explores how love and equality battle for survival in times of great transformation. Join our star-crossed lovers in the modern, war-torn metropolis of Verona as the newly elected Chancellor Paris vows to destroy the progressive resistance and return the city to its traditional roots. INVINCIBLE – The Musical imagines peace in a divided world.
Directed by Anne Bogart
Costumes co-designed with SITI Company
The Getty Villa & BAM Next Wave Fest 2018
The Guthrie Theater, 2020
Photos by Dan Norman
Press:
“The god [Dionysus] with moussed hair and red leather pants, a female incarnation or possibly a nonbinary one… strutting like an overcaffeinated Mick Jagger... This hyperbolic performance reorients the tragedy as a showdown between male hierarchy in one corner and androgynous anarchy in the other.
Just because you’re possessed by a fierce and devouring god doesn’t mean you can’t be fashion-forward.”
New York Times, Alexis Soloski
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AFTER MARY SHELLEY
World Premiere, Junkyard Opera
A Four Larks Production, directed by Mat Sweeney and devised in collaboration with the company
The Wallis, 2020
OVATION WINNER BEST COSTUME DESIGN 2021
11 OVATION AWARDS INCLUDING BEST PRODUCTION
STAGE RAW TOP TEN
LA THEATRE BITES BEST THEATRE OF 2020
Photos by Kevin Parry
Press:
“A mad and brilliant creation… weaving together dark and beautiful elements into one awe-inspiring and horrific mass…From the impressively detailed set design to… Lena Sands’s inventive costuming — the artistry verges on scientific mastery.”
Stage Raw, Vanessa Cate
“Visually, this “Frankenstein” is enthralling…the collaborative ingenuity of this “Frankenstein” is undeniably impressive. “
Los Angeles Times, Charles McNulty
“Frankenstein is a major work...visually and aurally breathtaking and terrifying in equal measure...creepy and gorgeous…Frankenstein will punch you in the gut.”
KCRW, Anthony Byrnes
Coming to BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL 2022
World Premiere at UCLA Royce Hall
Created by Jennifer Koh and Davóne Tines
Composed by Ken Ueno
Directed by Alexander Gedeon
Video by Hana Kim
“The performance begins with Koh standing on stage silent, head down, not moving as behind her footage plays of Koh at 17 performing in the last round of the International Tchaikovsky Competition where she won the top medal. There is also footage of her Korean-born mother, Gertrude Soonja Lee Koh, who escaped from North Korea and experienced harsh treatment during the Korean war. In the film clip, she is apologizing to Jennifer for Jennifer being first generation in this country and her mother being an immigrant.
As Koh uses her violin to almost deconstruct its sound, using a bow whose long horsehairs fall freely from its tip, Tines takes the stage to vocalize. At first, they are each dressed as they might for a classical performance with Tines in Tails and Koh in a gown. Later, they will change into clothes that better reflect their interior lives (with Tines eventually appearing in what I can only describe as a Billy Porter style Men’s gown).”
Forbes, Tom Teicholz
World Premiere, Musical
WINNER: DISTINGUISHED PRODUCTION, 2023 Stage Raw Awards
NOMINATED: BEST COSTUME DESIGN, 2023 LA Drama Critics Circle
Directed by Katie Lindsay
Los Angeles LGBT Center, 2023
Press:
Costume Designer Lena Sands takes the cake with her monumentally phenomenal wardrobe.
This ensemble is dynamite, serving up equal measure camp and conviction as they travel through the uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, endometrium, and the processes of follicles, corpus luteum, progesterone, and the unfathomable inner emotions and needs our bodies hold onto. - V Cate, Stage Raw
As with her work on Frankenstein and Cuckoo’s Nest, Lena Sands‘ costumes are imagination cubed, especially that awesome six-legged Corpus Luteum. - Tony Frankel, Stage and Cinema
World Premiere
Written and directed by Nancy Keystone in collaboration with Critical Mass Performance Group.
Mixed Blood Theater, 2023
Photos by Rich Ryan
A fantastical fifth grade class takes the Virgin Mary on a journey through Punk Rock, Patty Hearst, and Christmas Pageants to smash the patriarchy and liberate the mind.
MARIOLOGY DECONSTRUCTS DEEP-SEEDED LEARNING TO INSPIRE IMAGINATION ABOUT THE VIRGIN MARY’S ROLES IN SYSTEMS OF GENDER, POWER, AND FAITH, OPENING THE MANY POSSIBILITIES FOR LIBERATION.
A Visual Album created by Four Larks
Film Directed by Christin Turner
Costume Design by Lena Sands
Makeup and Hair by Pamela Bjorklund
Work-in-progress videos previewed at the Getty Villa in May 2022.
The Homeric Hymns, among the oldest extant poems from the ancient Mediterranean, tell the stories of Demeter & Persephone, of Semele & the lightning storm, of Dionysus & the wine-dark sea, and the cycles of the sun and moon. Our adaptations, sounded through a prism of devotional music traditions spanning centuries and continents, draw on these primordial texts to navigate our collective responsibility to the earth and one another, to dream of what we can do together, and to cope with being apart. Join us as we seek out new modes of congregation and resound these ancient praise songs to the gods we need today.
REDCAT 2023
Conceived and Directed by SARA LYONS, co-created with THE ENSEMBLE
Performed by JENNIFER JONASSEN, JACK MACCARTHY, STACI MIZE, CHENOA RAE, MICHELLE SUI
Archival texts adapted by SARA LYONS from texts by Vivan Gornick; Shulamith Firestone; Anonymous members of Redstockings (1969); Jamison Green; Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan; Lena Hill
Costume Designer: LENA SANDS
Scenic Designer: EMILY ANNE MACDONALD
Media and Interaction Designer: JOSEPH AMODEI
Lighting Designer: CHU-HSUAN CHANG
Sara Lyons This Emancipation Thing awakens transcripts from 1970s second-wave feminist consciousness-raising circles and juxtaposes them against the present in a new theatre event led by an interracial, gender-expansive ensemble. How do our relationships, our desires, our relationships with our bodies vibrate between 1968 and 2023, across generations? Whether for an hour or for six, settle into a womb of listening and care as contemporary LA-based feminists of all ages and genders intervene in the past, collapsing time in a new kind of theater experience from director Sara Lyons. With reproductive rights slipping through our fingers, what wisdom must we awaken from the activists who ushered in Roe v. Wade (1973)? What of that past must we crumble — and how will we emerge from the rubble?
WINNER: Stage Raw Theater Awards, Production of the Year, 2017
NOMINATED: Ovation Awards, Best Costume Design (Intimate), 2017
AMERYKA charts a course through 250 years of astonishing connections between the United States and Poland, in an epic exploration of the universal human longing for freedom and justice. My design uses contemporary objects like belts and airline blankets to insinuate the period garments represented. This holds our current moment accountable for past histories.
Written and directed by Nancy Keystone in collaboration with Critical Mass Performance Group. Workshops designed by Sara Brown.
Kirk Douglas Theater
Photos: Lawrence K. Ho
Our version of Massenet's Manon, led into a strange and opulent world, where the rich aspire to statuesque architectural presence and succumb to pleasure readily. Manon tries to keep up, using any means possible to gain power which she hopes will provide the key to happiness.
Directed by Stephanie Havey. Produced by Curtis Institute of Music.
Photos: Corey Weaver and Brandon McNeel
Created by Sabrina Wenske and Nathaniel Justiniano
Directed by Nathaniel Justiniano
Naked Empire Bouffon Company
Original online livestream June 2021
Coming to San Francisco Fringe Festival September 2022
Meet the immortal trickster witch, Baba Yaga, as she shapeshifts into a series of “progressive” Karens, transporting the audience to familiar worlds where Karens thrive undercover.
Untitled Communion creates space for catharsis and hope within our current political climate. Without words, it encourages us to scream, breathe and fortify ourselves for the struggle ahead. The gods pictured draw on imagery that is surreal, religious and childish, and usher in our inner strength.
Directed by Nancy Keystone in collaboration with Critical Mass Performance Group
REDCAT NOW Fest 2017
East West Players
Directed by Nancy Keystone.
Photos: Michael Lamont
By Samantha Behr
Directed by Josh Sobel
Photos by Alejandro Caminos
How do you fight hopelessness? A senator from a well-known political family, Rosaura Flagg promotes stability to her fellow citizens, even as the country is crumbling. As a mysterious disease starts to spread, her daughter lies in a hospital room in a coma-like sleep. "The Fig and The Wasp" is a a meditation on loneliness and motherhood in a world of conflict. It explores the destruction caused by isolation and the power of care and connection, against a backdrop of fire, lethargy and despair.
Bing Theater, USC
Directed by Tim Dang
Photos: Craig Schwartz
REFEST 2023
In this dance a modern centaur of mythic proportions acquires human legs and takes off on the road.
The same costume when moved into the historic Ebell Building in Hollywood echoes 18th century grandeur and shifts publics perspectives of the architecture. Like Heidi Duckler often does with her work, the dance and costume work together to show proportions and details in new light.
Paraíso Diseñado/ Paradise by Design explores the moment before we die through three distinct worlds, reality, a performative world, and a world beyond the rules of time. The characters in reality, Ella, Uno and El Otro, are planning their collective suicide as a protest against global systemic thinking. We used historical moments of radical protest to inspire the clothing choices of the piece. The elephant was my early and intuitive impulse responding to the idea of a judge. I was specifically interested in the elephant as a predominating force for its huge size and social nature. The clothes then situate the performer as a caricature of specific holders of white, american and/or institutional power - the judge, the teacher and the gun shop owner.
Written by David Gaitan. Directed by Martin Accosta.
US Premiere. CalArts Center for Performance.
Photos: Spencer Sturr
Directed by Deena Selenow
Deaf West Theater
An immersive dance.
Conceived and choreographed by Sophia Stoller.
World Premiere, Gramercy Studios.
Photos: Chris Chavez, Alfredo Montes, John Sisley
To honor the 50th Anniversary of the Watts Rebellion, we used interviews from the community intertwined with spoof, ridicule and history to get to the heart of what caused the Watts uprising in 1965 and its continued significance.
Directed by Deena Selenow. Produced by Watts Village Theater Company.
Los Angeles Theatre Center
Photos: Amber LaRosa
The Bumps is as much an inquiry on theater-making as a play. Three pregnant performers play the pregnant characters in the production, creating an economy for pregnant actors where none exists, and a model for how to fold the needs of pregnant people into any work context.
My design explores the following questions: What types of clothes can accommodate continually changing bodies? Can we escape the maternity industry that entices pregnant people to purchase a whole new wardrobe? How can we look to images of our own mothers' clothing to uncover myths about how pregnant women are represented from the 1980s until today? If we incorporate or repurpose clothing from our mothers does that translate into a different personal connection onstage? Can the circularity and cycles of fashion help us understand the ways in which memory and the past surface continually in the present?
The Bumps is a National Performance Network production and was presented in workshop at The Skirball Center. It was also filmed for an upcoming BBC documentary series on utopian art. A reading to benefit Planned Parenthood will be presented Aug. 14 & 15, 2017 at the Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY.
Written by Rachel Kaunder Nalebuff. Directed by Deena Selenow.
Photos: Arianne Alizio and Amber LaRosa
Live Arts Los Angeles
Choreographed by Andrea Gise.
Francesca, Francesca uses the life of artist Francesca Woodman to delve into the struggles of the creative process. We combine slide projection and live performance to recreate Woodman's photos and to explore her signature merging of body and space.
Written and performed by Chelsea Duvall. Directed by Megan Lewicki.
Edinborough Fringe Festival.
World Premiere
Womens Interart Center, NYC
Directed by Chris Henry
When Hiro comes back to Kentucky from NYC for her little sister's wedding into a born-again christian family, she fights to find understanding for her family and herself.
Read the interview I gave about my designs here
Written by Leah Nanako Winkler. Directed by Deena Selenow.
West Coast Premiere at East West Players.
Photos: Michael Lamont
This dance uses bodies as tectonic plates. The dancers move as systems that roll over each other, find equilibrium and ultimately erupt. The costumes complete the landscape by creating abstract shifting forms and showing the bodies vulnerabilities beneath.
Choreographed by Andrea Gise.
REDCAT
When Spring Comes to Hills and Dales is an allegory of emptiness and isolation. Dallae, a Korean farm girl in the medieval Joseon dynasty, confronts the burdens of her emotionally stunted father and two demanding suitors while grappling with the grief of her mother's leprosy and exile. Our production team responded to Choi's poetic, imagistic stage directions by creating a material world that mirrored the complex and contradictory textures of Dallae's emotional landscape.
Written by In Hun Choi. Directed by Youg Suk Yoo.
Photos: Jon Michael Hickenbottom, Chu Hsuan Chang, and Hsuan-Kuang Hsieh
