Hit The Lights! Co.
ISLA
August 8 – 29, 2026
Created by Hit The Lights! Company
Starring Daniela Delahuerta, Samantha Blain, and Tiffany Iris
Featuring Mikayla Stanley, Erica Knight, Casey Scott Leach as Puppeteers and Musician Claron Hayden
IISLA, the latest full-length work from acclaimed theater company Hit the Lights, is a uniquely original family history led by founding company member Samantha Blain. In her Caribbean coming-of-age story, Blain’s American lineage is born when three young women learn that sometimes the real world can be stronger than magic.
Based on the true saga of one family exodus to Miami via the 1960’s Freedom Flights, ISLA is a visually sumptuous, musically driven play that evokes the rustic spirit of pre-Castro Cuba’s kitchens, fields, dance halls and public squares. Blain, in the role of her aunt, must ally with her sisters to chart a path to an uncertain and newly imagined future.
This hour-long, all-ages performance features a full original songbook and a driving Latin jazz-influenced score composed and performed live at each show. Cinematic projections, recorded interviews with Blain’s mother, and an extended cast of handmade shadow puppets revitalize this carousel slideshow of generational memory through the exquisite craft of HTL’s technical team.
Echoing the family’s odyssey, ISLA’s immersive set is a kinetic picture book in a state of continuous transformation. Photos on the wall rise up and reach through time, a dreamlike menagerie of jungle creatures menace and protect the children, and the cast of actresses shift seamlessly from silhouette to vibrant life.
ISLA unforgettably explores the inherent possibilities of the immigrant’s journey and offers lived insight into how we come to terms with the things we keep and the things we leave behind.
About Hit The Lights! Company
Hit The Lights! Co. is a multi-disciplinary ensemble based in Astoria, Queens. Together, they devise hand-crafted stories and educational programming centering innovation, accessibility, and fun. The company is composed of four experienced multidisciplinary artists who write, perform, puppet, direct, and produce their works collectively.
Original works include ISLA (Jim Henson Production Grant and NYC Women’s Fund Recipient), DUNGEON (Audience Pick of the Fringe at the Cincinnati Fringe and Editors Pick at the Minnesota Fringe); WHALES (nominated for three New York Innovative Theater Awards including Outstanding Innovative Design, Outstanding Original Music, and Outstanding Premiere Production of a Play, Artist Pick and Venue Award Minnesota Fringe); HORSETALE (New Victory Theater Lab Works Resident); an original site-specific immersive theater experience in collaboration with the Know Theatre of Cincinnati (THE OTHER RHINE); original puppets for Vogue Magazine’s March 2021 cover shoot featuring Gigi Hadid; a live cinematic puppet adaptation of Gimlet Media’s hit podcast (The Habitat); an original adaptation of Hamlet created in partnership with Portland Stage Company; a collaboration with New York Botanical Garden’s Spooky Pumpkin Nights; a live music video for Grammy Award-nominated Sammy Miller and the Congregation; and were nominated for an Off-Broadway Alliance Award for “Best Family Show” for their theatrical adaptation of the book TASTE THE CLOUDS commissioned by New York City Children’s Theater. HTL!’s Off-Broadway credits include performances at the New Ohio Theatre, Dixon Place, La MaMa ETC, Little Island, The Flea Theate, The New School, and Ars Nova in NYC, where we were Company in Residence in 2018 and 2019.
As educators, Hit The Lights! has taught masterclasses at New York University (NYU), Atlantic Acting School, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Barrow Group, Orange County Community College, and CO/LAB Theater Group in NYC. They were also Company-in-Residence at Williams College’s STUDIO62 summer theater program, where they served as guest artist faculty leading workshop intensives in 2018 and 2019.
