Backstitch Residency 2025
Lita Lofton
ARTIST BIO
Lita Lofton is a Brooklyn-based director, event producer, and performance artist specializing in movement-driven storytelling, immersive theatrical experiences, and glamour on purpose. Lofton is the co-founder of The Social Club Thtr. Her work, informed by over two decades of ballet and movement-based training, has been seen at TheaterLab, Access Theater, The Slipper Room, Ideal Glass Studios, Open Jar Studios, The Sultan Room, and Alchemical Studios. Her archival research design can be seen in Season 2 of Random Acts of Flyness (HBO).Â
Of Russian and African American heritage, Lofton seeks to tell stories of love, resilience, and joy as an act of rebellion with her distinct aesthetic style and collaborative DIY approach to crafting theatre. She is most inspired by fairytales, folklore, and the final girl in horror films.
ARTIST STATEMENT
” My work is in the business of dreams and nostalgia as a framework for examining our collective futures. As theater makers I believe we have a responsibility to hold a gentle mirror up to our audiences, our communities, and our society as a whole to invite conversation, understanding, and community organizing outside of screens and digital spaces. My goal is to create moments of beauty and fleeting magic that in turn offer grounded pathways to objectively examine our realities. Radical joy and beauty on purpose are some of my favorite types of rebellion. My work is for the ancestors and for the next generations and for you as well. Thank you for being here. “
About THE WORK
On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco and Other Substances
A fragment, a dream, and a patchwork quilt; On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco and Other Substances is a compilation of over 100 of Anton Chekhov’s lesser known short stories along with his personal letters and journal entries. Considered by many to be one of the greatest writers of all time and credited as one of the fathers of modernism in theater, Chekhov’s words weave stories of love, loss, struggle, and everyday life in a beautiful and complicated country.
Set at a dinner party on a frozen winter’s night, On the Harmful Effects… tells an entirely new and yet somehow familiar story of love, loss, struggle, and everyday life in our own beautiful and complicated country. To tell a timeless story, you must bring your story along with the times. This piece is a love letter to one of the greatest playwrights of all time, to dinner parties as a vessel for peak comedy and high drama, and to the Black Eastern European experience.
On the Harmful Effects… was first workshopped in February 2024 at Theaterlab in Manhattan as part of Theatrelab’s First Look Series. It has since been performed as a full length workshop production with Theaterlab in February 2025.
