FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Press Inquiries: Kuker & Lee PR [email protected] or [email protected] One man’s simple letter ignites a nation’s first black civil rights movement. Los Angeles, Ca (October 6, 2019) – The multi-award-winning team that brought you When Jazz Had the Blues returns with Playwright Carole Eglash-Kosoff’s new original play, The Double V at the Matrix Theatre. Directed by Michael Arabian with set design by John Iacovelli. Nic Few leads a dynamic cast! Produced by Leigh Fortier, The Double V is about activism, a dramatization of true events. How a simple letter to a newspaper initiated a series of changes that gave black Americans their first taste of equality in a society that had always denigrated them. The Double V campaign, early in the years of World War II, campaigned for both Victory in the war and Victory in the battles for racial equality in the United States. THE TEAM Written by Carole Eglash-Kosoff Directed by Michael Arabian Senic Design by John Iacovelli Produced by Leigh Fortier Lighting Design by Jared A. Sayeg Costume Design by Dana Rebecca Woods Music Preparation / Sound Design by Christopher Moscatiello Projection Design by David Murakami Publicity by Kuker & Lee PR ENSEMBLE CAST INCLUDES Nic Few* – Ira Lewis Brie Eley – Marjorie “Madge” Evans Preston Butler III – James “Jimmy Thompson Terra Strong Lyons – Annie Culver Cary Thompson – Frank Bolden, Clem Thompson Joe Coffey* - Charlie Simpson, J. Edgar Hoover Jamal Henderson – Joe Bibb Chris Thompson John Apicella – William “Biff” Trent * Proud Member of Actor’s Equity The Double V opens at Matrix Theatre (7657 Melrose Avenue, 90046) on Friday, Oct. 25 through Sunday, Nov. 24. Performances are on Friday and Saturday at 8pm, Sunday at 3pm. Running time: 100 minutes. The press is invited to review any performance. Ticket prices are $40 (VIP Reserved $50, Students $20 (groups of 8 or more email [email protected]). Purchase tickets online at: www.OnStage411.com/doublev Phone Reservation line is: 323.960.7776 CREATIVE BIO’S CAROLE EGLASH-KOSOFF – (Playwright) lives and writes in Valley Village, California. The Double V is the historic follow up to her multi-award-winning production of When Jazz Had the Blues. She has also published five books and wrote and directed an award- winning short documentary, The Life & Art of David Labkovski. In 2006, following the deaths of her husband, mother, and brother in a single month, she traveled to South Africa to teach in the black townships and pen her first book, The Human Spirit – Apartheid’s Unheralded Heroes which was later produced as a play at the Odyssey Theatre garnering favorable reviews. Her second novel, When Stars Align, a historical fiction novel, dealt with the love of a mixed-race boy and a white girl in the turbulent era after the Civil War became her second play. Winds of Change, her third novel, continued that saga. Sex, Drugs, & Fashion, her next book, fictionalized the decades she spent working in the apparel industry. Her fifth book, By One Vote, is dramatized non-fiction, telling twelve true stories of events in American history, shaped by a single vote. Carole graduated from UCLA, has visited nearly seventy countries and oversees the A Better Way Scholarship Program that grants scholarships to graduating high school seniors. MICHAEL ARABIAN – (Director) Michael Arabian has directed (both in New York and Los Angeles) numerous world premieres, winning over 50 awards. A Producer, Director, Writer, and Teacher, he also founded Theatre InSite at CBS Studios-Radford, forming a partnership with CBS to produce site-specific environmental theatre and develop shows for film and TV, utilizing their back lot and sound stages. Michael now runs InSite Productions, an independent company that develops and writes projects, at time collaborating with other writers and producers in Theatre, Film, and TV. His production of Waiting For Godot at the Mark Taper Forum was honored with five Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards, including outstanding production and direction; was nominated for 10 Ovation awards, winning five, including best production and was cited as one of the ten most memorable productions of 2012 seen in either New York or L.A. by Los Angeles Times critic Charles McNulty, who called it a ”luminous revival.” In addition to the Mark Taper, he has directed at such theaters as the Roundabout in New York, the Getty Villa, San Diego Rep, Laguna Playhouse, La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, Rogue Machine, Odyssey Theatre, the Hudson, the Actors Studio among others. He has taught many acting and directing programs, most notably at the USC Film School, USC School of Dramatic Arts, Howard Fine Studio, and the L.A. Film School. LEIGH FORTIER – (Producer) Plays produced by Leigh have garnered numerous awards, including the recent Best Musical Production Ovation Award for “When Jazz Had The Blues”, over 20 LA Weekly Awards, 18 NAACP Awards (26 Nominations), three of five GLAAD Media Awards nominations for Best Play in one season (including award recipient Medea, the Musical). Highlights include multiple award winning plays The Talented Tenth directed by Oz Scott and starring Robert Guillaume at the Hudson Avenue Theatre, Up The Mountain by Kevin Arkadie (numerous production awards and LA Times 10 Best), and Kathy and Mo: The Dark Side starring Kathy Najimy and Mo Gaffney (co-produced with Jimmy Nederlander at the Henry Fonda Theatre). Along with Burn This (directed by Jessica Kubzansky at the Odyssey Theatre), The New Bozena (directed by Rainn Wilson), Walking the Blonde (presented by Kathy Bates and Sharon Gless), Snakebit by David Marshall Grant (nominated for GLAAD Media Award), and the World Premiere Pope Joan for Broadway producer Michael Butler (HAIR). Leigh produced and co-created the hit musical A Gay Christmas Carol (GLAAD Media Award nomination for Outstanding Production). Leigh also produced Room 105 (about Janis Joplin) starring Sophie B Hawkins, critically-acclaimed award- winning Serrano The Musical (directed by Joel Zwick with Book and Lyrics by Madeline Sunshine). Other recent critically -acclaimed productions include When Stars Align (Odyssey theatre) and When Jazz Had the Blues (Matrix theatre), and Gruesome Playground Injuries at the Hudson Theatres. Leigh’s upcoming projects include “Nature is a Hanging Judge” ), and a web TV pilot “West Bollywood”. JOHN IACOVELLI – (Scenic Designer) Has created memorable designs for more than 300 plays and musicals at most major theatres in the U.S. including Steppenwolf Theatre Company, McCarter Theatre Center, Long Wharf Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, Pasadena Playhouse, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Center Theatre Group. He is the resident Scenic Designer at the Matrix Theatre. Iacovelli received a primetime Emmy for the broadcast of the Broadway production of Cathy Rigby is Peter Pan. He was the production designer on Ruby in Paradise, starring Ashley Judd, and art director on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids! His television credits include The Old Settler starring Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen, The Gin Game staring Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke, “Babylon 5,” “Ed,” “Resurrection Blvd.” and “Lincoln Heights.” He has an MFA in scenic design from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Website: iacovelli.com JARED A. SAYEG – (Lighting Design) An LA native, Jared began his career at an early age from the moment he stepped backstage assisting some of the best in the industry. Since growing up in the theatre, his work has now been represented throughout the US, on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in London’s West-End, Spain, Edinburgh, Las Vegas, theme parks, and on international tours. Los Angeles credits include designs for International City Theatre: Backwards in High Heels, Songs for a New World, Threepenny Opera, Bright Ideas, Facing East & The All Night Strut. Colony Theatre’s Educating Rita and the award winning production TRYING with Alan Mandell, for which Jared received an Ovation Award Nomination. For Reprise Theatre Company: Forum, They’re Playing our Song & GIGI, as well as designing the critically acclaimed new production of The Who’s Tommy for Flicker House Productions with Alice Ripley (Ricardo Montalban Theatre.) Other notable productions include: Guys & Dolls (Cabrillo Music Theatre) the Indie Rock Ballet The Question (Ricardo Montalban Theatre) and currently working on the designs for Intimate Opera’s Amahl & the Night Visitors (Pasadena Playhouse) On the West End he lit Rolling with Laughter at Her Majesty’s Theatre, followed by a run at the Nottingham playhouse as well as in Los Angeles. Broadway design credits include: Bravo Bernstein and Gotham Glory at Carnegie Hall with Anthony DeMare. Jared was the US Assistant Designer for the Broadway productions of PRIMO from London’s National Theatre, Andrew Llloyd Webbers The Woman in White as well as the 2003 Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Off-Broadway he was the Associate Designer on: Humble Boy (Manhattan Theatre Club), Nobody Don’t Like Yogi (Lambs Theatre), & Ministry of Progress (Jane St. Theatre). For three seasons Jared was in residence with LA Opera, where he was part of numerous productions, including lighting Placido Domingo in Queen of Spades at the Teatro Real in Madrid. He has lit various performers in concert including: Betty Buckley, Michael Cerveris, David Hyde Pierce, Audra McDonald, Sutton Foster, Sara Ramirez and Jason Alexander. Jared has had the privilege of collaborating with artists such as SHAG (Josh Agle), Eric Idle, Jason Robert Brown and Lonny Price. DANA REBECCA WOODS – (Costume Designer) is happy to be collaborating with Michael Arabian; Carole Eglash Kosoff; Leigh Fortier and the wonderful design team assembled for Double V. Her design work includes The Color Purple directed by Jeffrey Polk; Sheldon Epps’ Blues in the Night at San Francisco’s Post Street Theater; Laguna Playhouse and The Wallis; In the Red and Brown Water at UC Santa Barbara; Shout Sister Shout, Stop Kiss, Above the Fold, Fences, and others for The Pasadena Playhouse; Jitney and Fences at South Coast Repertory.