“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it…The wound is the place where the light enters you.”

-13^th-century Persian poet Rumi, as quoted by Jason Karasev in “Death House”

My name is Annika Bjornson and I am an International Studies (Political Science) major, with minors in English and Chinese. This trip was not my first time in Los Angeles, but it was the first time I was able to truly experience and appreciate it for its diversity, ingenuity, and community. We have encountered so many kind people in the City of Angels who have taken time to help us get to know the arts scene in LA from their perspective. The performing arts community here is particularly vast, and yet well-connected. Recently, our class was able to see this when we attended the second night of Jason Karasev’s “Death House” at The Road Theatre Company, a small venue in North Hollywood (or “NoHo,” as the locals call it).

Small theaters like The Road provide a much different performance experience than larger venues in the area. While the Pantages or the Walt Disney Concert Hall put on big-budget shows that people see for the breath-taking spectacle, The Road uses a smaller budget, cast, crew, and venue to bring more intimate performances to the stage. Their scripts are often original premieres for the performing arts community to enjoy, and their employees are typically well-experienced people in their respective fields who do not do it for the source of income, but rather for the chance to do what they are passionate about and to network with other professionals.

However, the actors’ union recently implemented minimum wage requirements, which has hurt many of the small theaters who can not afford to pay their actors the new amount. Despite this, The Road has remained one of the best small theaters in its area and continues to bring brilliant shows to the stage, showing the value in diversity of performance venues.

Even as someone who has been very involved in theater and seen countless shows, I can easily say that Death House was the most emotional piece I have ever seen. Playwright Jason Karasev has won many awards with this heart-wrenching script, including first place in both the 2018 Playwrights First Competition and in the 85^th Annual Writers Digest Competition. The story is about a death-house chaplain who must hand over his job to a confident young pastor and their time spent with “an enigmatic inmate who challenges their convictions and changes their lives forever…[it] explores justice, redemption, and the possibility that we’re all more connected than we may want to admit.”

As the men of the church, played by Sam Anderson and Chase Cargill, get to know the life story of Lilliana, played by Verity Branco, there was not a dry eye in the room. The audience’s raw, emotional reactions felt like a part of the show because of the actors’ close proximity and the personal nature of the show’s contents. That, and the chance to meet the actors, playwright, and director afterwards, made the whole event feel even more engaging and enabled a relationship between those onstage and those in the audience.

Experiencing this story about life and death certainly gave us lasting memories for the end of our trip. Los Angeles has showed us a lot about the intersection of culture, politics, human experience, and art. This show certainly brought these things together in a heart-wrenching way and showed us the community that can be created around a shared love for the power of theater in causing social change.