ELATE invites everyone looking to get into the Christmas spirit to come to Emmanuel's free Christmas Concert Sunday afternoon, December 13th at 4pm. Come by and enjoy the songs of this blessed season.

Our next show will be the musical "Don't Hug Me" (A Minnesota Love Story) and will be directed by Linda Miller. The show opens April 24th and continues through May 9th. Auditions will be in February.

Plans for the hilarious big cast musical "1776"

are continuing. The musical comedy is based on the story of the signing of the declaration of independence and how the United States nearly did NOT happen. It features a lot of comedy, a little romance and some great songs by Sherman Edwards. Michael McCambridge and Jeff Zimmer plan to co-direct with Jeff Thorsen as musical director. The show is tenatively scheduled to open November 5, 2010 and due to high overhead, run for two weeks only. This musical is rarely done but a LOT of fun. We will need 25 men

and lots of backstage help with costumes and sets and publicity. Auditions for leads may be in late May or early June with all other parts auditioning in September.

"THE PRISONER OF SECOND AVENUE" by Neil Simon closed November 22 after a successful three week run. Pictures should be posted very soon. In the meantime, enjoy this one!

The Production History page of this website is FINALLY being updated! We had a problem adding pages to the site but now seem to have found a way around this problem. So look for pictures and updates for "Have We Got a Show For You!",

"The Diviners", "The Golden Age of Radio: Christmas Edition", "The Foreigner", "Together Again for the First Time: The ELATE Musicals", "Songs for a New World", "Wait Until Dark", "ELVIS: R.I.P. It Up!" and "the Curious Savage" being posted VERY soon!

If the link doesn't take you to the production page the first time, reboot the elate main page and try again. Try navigating to other pages. For some reason occasionally there is a kink in our link. Stick with it and you WILL get there!

Can you guess what show this picture is from?

Click on the picture to find out!

The annual ELATE REUNION PARTY was a big success with over 60 people in attendence. Thanks to the Bratchers for once again hosting this unruly mob. Everyone brought dishes to share to complement the fine spread prepared by Joey Bell. After dinner the awards were announced and "The Foreigner" basically swept!

ELATE is sad to announce the passing of beloved friend, actress, singer, rap artist and wardrobe director Bernice Mulcahey. Bernice passed away Saturday morning, August 15th. Services will be at 10:30am Friday August 21st at Glenhaven Cemetary 13017 North Lopez Canyon Road in Sylmar. Cards and condolences may be sent to the family at 11319 Lull Street Sun Valley, CA 91352.

"We've Got a Show For You" a fun musical revue directed by Carol Bratcher closed August 23rd with a SELLOUT house! Extra chairs were put out to handle the overflow as the audience packed the LST to see the final show. Kudos to Carol and her talented cast on another successful show!

Olevia Nicholsen who has been a big part of the ELATE community and the brains behind running the ELATE Cafe at shows is fighting cancer. Please pray for her to win this struggle and if you can drop her a card and let her know you're thinking of her. 2111 Scott Road Burbank, CA 91594

After you're done here, try visiting check out http://artists-in-exile.ning.com and see some of the new bits Roger Eschbacher,

Steven Kirk

and Jeff Zimmer

have been shooting. Look for a lot of familiar ELATE faces to appear in upcoming productions!

"The Golden Age of Radio: Christmas Edition", ELATE's 80th production,

closed December 14th after a successful three week run. The series of radio recreations proved popular with both actors (who didn't need to memorize parts or come in for a lot of rehearsing) and audiences (who seemed to like the hilarious scripts and unique way of producing a show).

ELATE was invited to bring the show to Solheim, the Lutheran Retirement Home in Eagle Rock, where we performed "Fibber McGee and Molly", "Burns and Allen" and the closing "Lord's Prayer" scene from "Amos 'N Andy".

Thanks to all who participated on stage or in the audience!

The hilarious comedy "The Foreigner", written by Larry Shue and directed by Daniel Johnsen closed after a triumphant run August 23rd. There were several sellout audiences and the show got a rave review. Congrats Daniel and the entire cast for starting out our 2008-2009 season on such a high note!

The ELATE annual reunion party and award ceremony was held July 28th at the fabulous Bratcher house!

The Season Ticket Holders Awards winners were announced, however Al Gore has demanded a recount so the results are not yet final, pending the decision of the Florida Supreme Court:

Only season ticket holders can vote! So when you get that ballot, please send it in right away! If you would like to vote on next year's season ticket holder awards there's one thing you must do: BECOME A SEASON TICKET HOLDER!

We are still looking to firm up the rest of next season's schedule! So if you have a show you'd like to suggest, and perhaps produce or direct, please contact a board member right away! We would like to have a summer, fall and spring show next year. If you have ideas, NOW is the time to step forward!

A lot of people have had trouble navigating this website lately. It seems some sort of bug has gotten into our shortcut, the come.to/elate address. ELATE's original webmaster Billy Weyandt took a crack at the problem and discovered the dreaded www.com page does not appear if you log in to the elate page using the actual address: http://elate2001.fortunecity.com So please use this link and bookmark that address so you'll be able to access all the past productions and other pages. (with the exception of the "Elvis" page, a work in progress) Thanks Billy!

To find out what other ELATE members are up to, make sure to check out the Coming Up.../Keeping in Touch page!

Thanks to a grant from the Verdugo Hills chapter of Trivent for Lutherans, and the $1700 plus dollars raised by the entertaining "Joey Ho Show"

ELATE has been able to replace the old fiberglass chairs with comfortable, upholstered, spring supported movie theater seats! To accomodate the new seats new platforms were built and the rake of the seats changed for better viewing. And now its all paid for! Hooray!

We are still seeking pictures from "5 Tellers Dancing in the Rain", "Sound of Music", "Catacombs". "110 in the Shade", "Tales of Wonder", "Love Letters" and "Brigadoon". Now that we are able to update the website again, Please let a board member know if you have photos from any of these!

Elate began as a dream of Mike McCambridge and Lincoln Stegman. We started out doing one show a year. Now over 20 years later ELATE has produced 77 shows and has presented 14 full seasons. For our 10th anniversary, we asked our current members to share their memories with us. You can check those out by clicking here. We liked that idea so much, we decided to do it again for our 20th anniversary. Enjoy! Click here to take a look!

Believe it or not, the Lincoln Stegman Theatre is now into its second DECADE of production! Named after one of Elate's co-founders,

who was also a former President of the congregation, the theatre's first show was "The Very Great Grandson of Sherlock Holmes" in summer of 1991. Over 100 people packed the theatre for the dedication ceremony in honor of our beloved Linc.

Since then, the theatre has hosted over 40 additional shows and has become Elate's workhorse.