Center Theatre Group

Ahmanson Theatre audiences are getting a very special treat for the entire run of The Bridges of Madison County (through January 17, 2016): composer Jason Robert Brown, who won two Tony Awards® for the show (Best Original Score and Best Orchestrations), is conducting the orchestra. A former Angeleno, Brown is a big fan of the Ahmanson and is excit...

Composer Jason Robert Brown Switches Hats to Conduct at the Ahmanson

Before The Bridges of Madison County became a Tony Award ®-winning musical, it was one of the highest grossing movies of 1995, garnering an Academy Award nomination for Meryl Streep and showcasing director and co-star Clint Eastwood’s astonishing range. A few years before that, it was a literary phenomenon: a few months after its April 1992 publ...

Musicals that Leaped from Page to Screen to Stage

What does a recent rash of TV shows focusing on religious subjects such as Breaking Amish, Big Love, and Reza Aslan’s upcoming Believer reveal about our fascination with the collision of deeply held beliefs, doubt, and different perspectives on religion?...

Reality TV, 'The Christians' and Exploring Belief

Auditions are always a roller coaster of emotions, and the preliminary auditions for this year’s August Wilson Monologue Competition were no exception. One hundred forty-six students from 45 high schools in 52 cities convened at Center Theatre Group’s Downtown L.A. headquarters on Saturday, November 14 to ride this particular coaster. T...

Riding an Emotional Roller Coaster at the August Wilson Monologue Competition Preliminary Auditions

Why is a massive cross dominating the stage of the Mark Taper Forum, and why is a choir belting out hymns? These are two ways The Christians, which plays the Taper through January 10, 2016, is immersing audiences in an evangelical church where they play the congregation. At the pulpit, a pastor questions a core tenet of Christianity, organized reli...

In 'The Christians' L.A. is The Choir

Straight White Men playwright and director Young Jean Lee talks with Center Theatre Group Associate Artistic Director Diane Rodriguez and UCLA Center for the Art of Performance Executive and Artistic Director Kristy Edmunds about how their theatres came to co-present her show at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. “You guys were sort of lying in wait [to g...

Young Jean Lee on Bringing 'Straight White Men' to L.A.