When I arrived at the back room of a Glendale church, I was given a new name. It was clear that \u201cTodd\u201d was not welcome here. \u201cJoan\u201d turned out to be a suitable replacement, and I was immediately asked how my life had been since my husband had died. For on this night I would no longer be occupying the role of a straight white male. Every audience member is asked to take on the persona of a widow, for losing a husband appeared to be a perquisite to enter this meeting of the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertude Stein. <\/p>\n
How did he die, I was asked. \u201cSki accident,\u201d I blurted out. \u201cYours?\u201d A camping travesty that led to a bear mauling, I was told. Ad-libbing, in addition to quiche, was on the menu tonight. Metaphors, absurdities and seriousness intermingle in this production from New Forms LA and directed by Marissa Pattullo.<\/p>\n
Pattullo\u2019s vision for \u201c5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche\u201d ramps up the interactivity, seeking to transform a largely traditional proscenium show, albeit one with a few moments of fourth-wall breaking, into one that is centered around audience participation. Staged in a flex space without a tinge of irony at the Glendale Church of the Brethren, \u201c5 Lesbians,\u201d written by Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood, has been reconstructed as a largely immersive production, that is one that asks audiences to lean in and interact. <\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773830048_256_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Jessica Damouni\u2019s Ginny Cadbury devouring breakfast in \u201c5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche,\u201d a show that unfolds as a giant metaphor. <\/p>\n
(New Forms LA)<\/p>\n
While there is a small stage, it is used sparingly. The five-person cast roams the room, sitting at various circular tables to blur the lines between script and improvisation. Typically a svelte 75-minute show, on the night I saw the production it swelled to about two hours, allowing time for drinks, mingling and, of course, the eating of a quiche. Pattullo has added an intermission, with quiches courtesy of Kitchen Mouse and Just What I Kneaded included in the ticket. <\/p>\n
For quiche, I was told often, was the primary topic of conversation at the Easter-timed meeting, so much so that it was clear within moments that this was a gathering not of breakfast enthusiasts but of the repressed. The hidden meaning is no secret; it\u2019s in the title of the play. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a giant metaphor,\u201d Pattullo, 30, says. The show, she adds, \u201ckeeps finding ways to make sense with the times, whether it\u2019s Trump being elected, or we\u2019re at war. Or gay marriage. All of those things. A bomb going off and being trapped inside. It speaks to whoever is watching it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pattullo, who splits time building New Forms LA and serving tables at Los Feliz\u2019s Little Dom\u2019s, first discovered the show while in college in the Midwest. It immediately resonated, and Pattullo has been tinkering with ways to perform it live ever since. During the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, she staged an online version of the show, and debuted it as an immersive production last winter. It\u2019s back for two weekends this month.<\/p>\n
\u201c5 Lesbians\u201d makes a relatively smooth transition to the immersive format. Perhaps that\u2019s because the audience, in the script, is cast as attendees of the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertude Stein\u2019s brunch meeting, whose motto is \u201cno men, no meat, all manners.\u201d For about the first 30 minutes of the show we largely interact with the actors. Dale Prist (Nicole Ohara) has hidden ambitions. Vern Schultz (Chandler Cummings) seems ready for the group to cut its charade. Lulie Stanwyck (Noelle Urbano) is fighting so hard to stay prim and proper that she feels on the verge of bursting. <\/p>\n
\u201cI really like to play,\u201d Pattullo says, referencing how \u201c5 Lesbians\u201d lends itself to improvisation. \u201cSome of the girls I think are very \u2018stick to the script.\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Stray from the script.\u2019 If people come in late, call them out. If people are talking, call them out. You can adjust and improvise in immersive theater. Having a script but being able to break from it, is really fun for me. It tickles me.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Three](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773830048_21_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Wren Robin (Emily Yetter), Vern Schultz (Chandler Cummings) and Lulie Stanwyck (Noelle Urbano) protect breakfast in \u201c5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche.\u201d<\/p>\n
(New Forms LA)<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an underlying tension in the show because it walks a line between silliness and graveness. Ultimately, \u201c5 Lesbians\u201d is about finding joy in dark times, and moments inspire uncomfortable laughter, such as jokes about gay marriage being legal in four years\u2019 time (1960) or Ginny Cadbury (Jessica Damouni) devouring a quiche in a way that leaves nothing to the imagination. But it\u2019s also a show about how stressful moments can bring about vulnerability and community, as the whole church practically exhaled when Wren Robbin (Emily Yetter) finally let her hair down and expressed who she truly was. <\/p>\n
“5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche”<\/p>\n
\u201cEven when we did it back when I was in college, Trump had just won, so it just feels like it\u2019s keeping relevant,\u201d Pattullo says. The timeliness, she says, makes it such an amusing play to perform. <\/p>\n
Pattullo will sometimes, depending on cast availability, take on a role in the show. It\u2019s a chance, she says, to amplify the play\u2019s wackiness, which she believes helps puts audiences at ease and makes its difficult subject matter easier to digest. She tries to create the most outlandish tale possible for when relaying to guests one on one how her husband perished.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy story was a raccoon attack,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause my husband thought the raccoon was behaving with foreign intent, like the raccoon was a spy or something. It was just stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Or it was evidence of how immersive theater can delight when it deviates from the script. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anxieties due to war. A culture inhospitable to LGBTQ+ communities. And an underpinning of loneliness and suppressed yearning.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48937,102554,102553,4264,48,52,51,40282,102552,47,50,49,102551,3238,5927,102550,66572,1860,100863,315,2664],"class_list":["post-225107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-audience-member","tag-few-moment","tag-gay-marriage","tag-husband","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lesbian","tag-lesbians","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-marissa-pattullo","tag-play","tag-production","tag-quiche","tag-script","tag-show","tag-sisters","tag-time","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}