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2020 TRUE WEST AWARD: LISA WAGNER ERICKSON
By John Moore, Senior Arts Journalist

“In May 2018, local playwrights Lisa Wagner Erickson and Ellen K. Graham co-founded a 30-seat boutique venue called Theater 29 at Sheridan Boulevard and 29th Avenue. They envisioned a space where a network of self-producing playwrights would have the freedom to create, collaborate, develop and produce their own plays. To date, Theater 29 has hosted new works by more than 30 local writers. It also has become both an umbrella and a crucial home for many of the community’s avant-garde collectives ranging from Feral Assembly to Pandemic Collective to The Lulubird Project, which Erickson also founded. The COVID shutdown has barely slowed her down.“

Westword: Events You Won’t Want To Miss This Fall

Project PlayBox: ”Theater 29 and the Lulubird Project have set up a novel theatrical experience for these stay-at-home, virus-plagued times: The event comes to you in a box, and you get to interact with three local playwrights: Lisa Wagner Erickson, Ellen K. Graham and Tami Canaday. Here’s how it works: You register and receive artwork and instructions in your mailbox; an email containing audio and/or video files follows. Graham’s Against Sand provides an animated story enhanced by the cut-out renderings of the characters you received by mail. For A Shiny Quest, Wagner Erickson has created a fantasy game: Set up the pieces at home, turn on her audio, and let the challenge begin. Printed art for backdrops and character renderings come with Canaday’s Art of a Guest. The project is not only DIY and immersive; it’s also a testament to the creative ways that theater artists are finding to connect with the community. “

Boston Globe (A review of Step on Me)

“Don’t miss the curtain-riser ‘Step On Me,’ a hilarious short play by Lisa Wagner Erickson that toys with one woman’s obsession with the bathroom scale.”

WESTWORD; 21 Best Things to Do in Denver

“Not everyone wants to see A Christmas Carol for the millionth time — or anything holiday-oriented, for that matter — when December rolls around. Fortunately, the Lulubird Project has a welcome, and challenging, alternative. The company’s Hidden Worlds & Strange Negotiations, a collection of short plays by local playwrights, observes how we navigate our way through relationships and difficult times in fleeting, funny and sometimes magical ways. Get away from it all when the curtain rises at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, December 5; shows continue at the same time Thursdays through Saturdays through December 21 at Theater 29”

Las Cruces Bulletin: And the winner is - ‘The Mrs. Wheatland Pageant’!

” 1950's What do you do if you’re about to turn 30, you are desperate to have a baby and your husband is suddenly wearing an apron and pumps? You host a beauty pageant, of course!”

“Theater 29 helped usher in several new plays by local writers. Burnt Offering by Dakota C. Hill was produced there by Chase & Be Still Productions and Feral Assembly. Yet Another Night of Grand Guignol by Rhea Amos and Jeff Garland and Atomic Sea Fish Death Romp from the Deep by Amos and Jerod Brito were produced by Pandemic. The Mrs. Wheatland Pageant by Lisa Wagner Erickson was brought to us by Lulubird Project at Theater 29“

"While The Mrs. Wheatland Pageant may not have all the pomp and circumstance of the Miss America Pageant, this new play by Lisa Wagner Erickson, opening Thursday February 28, at Theater 29, Promises to run away with the Miss Congeniality award. Presented by the Lulubird Project and Directed by Hart DeRose, the world premiere will mix sitcom nostalgia, small-town reality and gender norms.”

”1950’s sitcom fantasies, small town beauty pageants, strange fertility regimens, and gender norms collide in this rollicking comedy.”

“So now (since 2018), Theater 29 has been a lovely black box home for companies of writers including Pandemic Collective, Feral Assembly, The Lulubird Project, and Denverwrights.” (As well as Chase & Be Still Productions and Mr. Vulfran’s Carriage)”