Directed by Lorca Simons and devised with the ensemble

Music by Leslie Zvitt and Darrin Kobetich

September 11-27, 2026

8:15pm

Ensemble

Elizabeth Bowie

Jeff Farrell

Dakota Foster

Thad Isbell

Aja Jones

Harper Caroline Lee

Marius Pfeiffer

Sara Rashelle

JC Roggenbuck

Carlos Romero

Rebo Salzar

Dana Ashley Schultes

Kyle Spencer

Projected Soul Notes

Grover Coulson, Johnny Simons, Gracey Tune, River Barley, and Libby Villari

Elk Band Musicians

Piano- Leslie Zvitt

Guitar- Darrin Kobetich

Production team

Director- Lorca Simons

Stage Manager- Lauren Riley

Assistant Stage Manager- Magnolia Potemkin

Intimacy Advisor- Harper Caroline Lee

Dance Choreography- Maddie Goff

Technical Director- Lee Neisler

Lighting Design- Nikki DeShea

Costume Design- Susan Austin

Set and Prop Design- Allen Dean

Co-Projection Designer- Ryan Riley

Co-Projection Designer - Dakota Foster

Additional Staging - Lake Simons

Sound Engineer - Clint Niosi

Sound Mix Operator - Jason Jordan

Light Board Operator - Maddison Walter

Wardrobe - Tommy Buckner

Publicity Photographer - Shannon Atkinson

Production Photos - Lauren Alyss Photography

Director’s note

There is a moment when love stops being a word and becomes an animal in motion — not gentle, not tame, but wide as weather. SOUL NOTES FROM THE VELVET ELK enters that moment.

Through movement, theatre, rhythm, image and ensemble, the work reaches into the places where we hold on and the places where we finally let go. Where love stretches itself across doubt, where the heart becomes a horizon, and where the body remembers that wings were never made for holding.

Wings are for risking the air.

It is a journey through the many faces of love — its arrivals and departures, its courage and vulnerability, its longing, loss, possibility and extraordinary capacity to transform us.

Because every goodbye, every arrival, every almost may simply be feathers practicing truth.

And perhaps to love — really love — is to trust that the fall will remember how to become flight.

SOUL NOTES FROM THE VELVET ELK

Open the heart.

Risk the air.

Take flight.

-Lorca

For my father.

Special Thanks

Our founders, Johnny Simons and the late Diane Simons and Douglas Balentine, Hip Pocket Theatre Board of Directors, Stage West Theatre, Dana Ashley Schultes, Gabrielle Roth, Maddie Goff, Dakota Foster Photography, Deborah Freed, Blake Hestir, Eddy Dunlap, Kellie Elliot, Gianina Lamberti-Stanfield, John Dyer, Lake Simons, Claudia Zvitt, Gracey Tune, Arts Fifth Avenue, Sara Rashelle, Gary Simmons, Grover Coulson, Libby Villari, Scott Ferree, Cy Dyer, River Barley, Barbara Meece, The Welman Project, Leslie and Jennye James, and our Hip volunteers.