WHO WE ARE
Imagine Theatre is LA’s Equity Theatre for Young Audiences.
We were founded in 2016 – under the name Imagine Project – with the objective of creating a flagship professional theatre for families in the entertainment capital of the world. We want theatre-going to be a part of childhood in LA, as it is in many metropolitan cities around the world.
Our productions are open to the public on weekends and to school groups on weekday mornings.
Our Mission
Imagine Theatre strives to build an empathetic and inclusive society, across cultures, by immersing young people in theatre that celebrates gender equity, diversity, and civic engagement.
Our Vision
The role of live theatre is indispensable to shaping the way our children connect to each other and the rest of society. Through the stories we tell and the communal experience of theater, we imagine a future guided by kind and courageous people who have the motivation and inner resources to make the world a better place.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory and homelands of the Chumash, Tataviam, and the Gabrieleno (Gabrielino, Tongva, and Kizh) people. They traveled here and built their homes here thousands of years ago. Ethnic cleansing has left all but a few thousand of these native peoples. We honor and respect the original inhabitants of this land who preceded the founding of Los Angeles.
Core Values
- We promise to tell relevant stories that spotlight female heroes.
- We promise to champion kids, especially girls, with the courage to find their own voices.
- We promise to create experiences accessible to kids from all economic backgrounds.
- We promise to hire local artists and commit to gender parity on and off the stage.
- We promise to produce plays that are inclusive of stories from LA’s diverse cultural fabric.
- We promise to be the vehicle for social change in a way that only professional theatre can be.
LEADERSHIP
Armina LaManna began her stage career at the age of six in the former USSR. Directing experience includes: The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord at The Lantern Theatre, Fool for Love for Crescent Moon Entertainment, The Tale of Turandot at Imagine Theatre, A Woman of No Importance and Fast and Loose at Sacred Fools, Fair at OC-Centric New Play Festival, The Maids at ETC, Little Armenia at The Fountain Theatre, Who’s Your Baghdaddy?, and Red Light Winter, and Pushkin at Boldino all at The Chance Theatre’s On the Radar, We Wait at Moving Arts (Car Plays), The Caucasian Chalk Circle, A Lie of the Mind, The Zoo Story, and Hello Out There all at Temple Theatres, and Pushkin at Boldino at the Philly Fringe Festival. Armina is the author of Pushkin at Boldino, Warrior Queen Anahit the Brave, The Tale of Turndot; she also translated and adapted Gogol’s The Government Inspector for The Lantern Theatre, Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, and Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata. She was the recipient of the Samuel Fels Fund Dramaturgy Internship in 2007, an invited lecturer on American plays at the Arlekin Theatre in Moscow, Russia in 2008, and one of the recipients of the Outstanding Women of 2019 Honor from the AACC. Armina is a member of SDC, AEA, and DG, and is an Adjunct Professor of Theatre at GCC. She holds an MFA in Directing from Temple University.
Managing Director
Laura Hill is a seasoned theatre arts professional with more than twenty years of broad-range arts management and producing experience. She first worked with the award-winning Deaf West Theatre across many capacities, including Managing Director. There, she also produced many of the company’s critically acclaimed mainstage and TYA productions. Hill also served as Managing Director at other top LA intimate theaters—Antaeus and Rogue Machine—as well as working at Center Theatre Group, the Pasadena Playhouse, Padua Playwrights, and the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. In addition, she has produced more than twenty-five theatrical shows (most as a single producer), including several LADCC, LA Weekly and LA Ovation award-winners.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Board Chair
Co-Founder
Alex Zonin is the Director of Business Development at Envivent and a Professor of Mathematics at Santa Ana College. A true altruist with thousands of hours of volunteer service under his belt, humbly working to make this world a better place one small deed at a time.
Board Member
Co-Founder
Armina LaManna has been working in the theatre since she was six. She believes that storytellers have a lot of power and thus the responsibility to use it to better the world. She is a mom to twins, a Professor of Theatre, and a devout Trekker.
Board Member
Secretary
Anne-Marie Osgood is part of the Roman/Osgood Real Estate team at Keller Williams World Media Center. She was a performing artist for thirty years & is passionately committed to exposing kids to theater to better the way they see the world.
Board Member
Tamar Kevonian is an entrepreneur and a mother of two. She applies her Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and her Master's in Business Administration to change the world and leave it a slightly better place for her daughters.
Interested in joining our Board of Directors? Visit the Opportunities page for details.
AMBASSADOR
Penny Johnson Jerald
Penny Johnson Jerald is Imagine Theatre’s official Ambassador. She is currently starring as Dr. Claire Finn on HULU’s science fiction comedy-drama series The Orville. Jerald is a graduate of The Juilliard School, and a NAACP Image Award and Screen Actors Guild Award-nominated actress. “The only way to make real change in society is to visually see the possibilities. Theater allows for unfiltered intimacy between audience and performers. This intimate setting is the beginning of what can be.” -PJJ
ADVISORY BOARD
Tom Buderwitz
Karen Malina White
Dr. Mary Mason
Andrew Barnicle
Karine Darbinyan
Jack Megrabyan
Monica Mitrani
Laura Harrison
JOIN OUR LIST
