LODESTONE’S TENTH AND FINAL SEASON (A Letter From the Artistic Directors About the End of Lodestone) At the very first meeting of what would soon become Lodestone Theatre Ensemble in July 1999, the founders (Bokyun, Phil, Chil and Tim) presented two possible scenarios of what Lodestone might become in the future. The first possibility was that one day Lodestone would have its own theater and that it might become more of an arts institution—there would be a larger Equity house and a smaller black box space and it would be an arts center that would not only focus on theater but also other performing arts like music and dance. The second possibility was modeled after companies like the Group Theater which had a short but intense life—“make an impression and get out before you’ve overstayed your welcome.” There was talk at the time that five years might be a nice round number to try to do interesting work before moving on. If you know our personalities, I’m sure it’s not a surprise to know that Chil was the strongest proponent of the first option, Phil of the second. But we were all in agreement that whatever we chose to do, we would always try to be relevant and make decisions organically. For a number of years we did explore the option of finding or building a permanent theater – and there were times when that could have become a reality – but I think at our core, the idea of becoming an institution, of possibly losing the “edgy” spirit that we tried to embrace from the beginning, made us a little uncomfortable. We’re proud of all the work we’ve done but something happened about three years ago, around the time we first moved into our current home at GTC Burbank with Judy Soo Hoo’s play SOLVE FOR X. It felt that as a company, we had really hit our artistic stride. Yes, some productions would be more successful than others, but overall we had become a true company and our work could stand with that of any of the other L.A. theater companies who were our peers. It seemed like a good time to start thinking about going out while we were at our peak. The decision to end Lodestone in its tenth year isn’t one that’s come lightly or suddenly—it’s something that we’ve been considering for several years and which our Board officially voted to approve last year. The plays you will be seeing in our tenth year were specifically chosen or developed knowing that this would not only be our tenth anniversary but our final year. We are not ending Lodestone because we are in financial difficulty, because we hate each other or because we’re burned out. If anything, we are as strong as ever on all three points. If we had to sum up the reason succinctly, maybe it’s best to say we’re ending while we have a legacy we can be proud of. Like with any artistic endeavor, we’ve had our creative ups-and-downs but we can honestly say in ten years, we’ve never done anything that embarrassed us, never did anything because of commercial reasons, never had to compromise our principles, never did anything that didn’t make us excited. That’s a legacy we’d like to leave intact. We hope that we’ve made a small but valuable contribution to the world of Asian American theater and that on some level our decision and our work inspires the next generation of our community’s theater artists to go further than we ever could. Thank you for your support, Philip W. Chung, Co-Artistic Director Chil Kong, Co-Artistic Director announcing our 10th and FINAL season!