Hit The Lights! Co.

ISLA
August 3 – 30, 2026
Created by Hit The Lights! Company

ISLA, a bilingual shadow puppet play with music, investigates the harsh realities of political refugees, the love of family, Cuban mythology, and the spirit of sisterhood. ISLA is inspired by the family history of Hit The Lights! Company’s Co-Artistic Director Samantha Blain and her mother and aunts’ escape from Cuba in 1969 during the Freedom flights. Mixing puppetry, an original live score, recorded audio interviews of the Blain sisters and poetry from Maria De Lourdes Blain reflecting on their time in Cuba, ISLA blends magical realism and documentary theater to explore the experiences of being torn from one’s home and the journey to create another.

The narrative centers on three sisters living on an island unraveling under political revolution. Once vibrant and full of promise, their world begins to erode under the pressure of surveillance, isolation, and forced labor. The sisters must decide whether to stay or flee. Guided by visions of a magical manatee spirit (a folkloric figure inspired by Cuban mythology) they navigate impossible choices about loyalty, survival, and the meaning of home. Their story culminates in a daring nighttime escape across the ocean, risking everything for the possibility of freedom.

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.