Jesus Reyes

Designing an Experience for Parents

Every time I meet a parent, without fail, I’m asked about programs for their children. It’s wonderful that parents and caretakers want their children to have access to more resources, but I remind them that many of our programs are for adults. Parents and caretakers work hard and deserve their own time to be creative, to socialize, to learn a n...

Designing an Experience for Parents

The Boyle Heights Chronicles: Use More Lenses, Find More Intersections

I’ve come to know that community encompasses more than just a group of people from a specific neighborhood, ethnicity, or age, and so, I’ve developed three “lenses” that I look through as I design community programs: community, Center Theatre Group, and artists. Each lens allows me to see who and what is represented or what spaces are...

The Boyle Heights Chronicles: Use More Lenses, Find More Intersections

What I've Learned Three Years In

We are halfway through the third year of programs in and around Boyle Heights as part of Center Theatre Group’s The Shop initiative and community programs, and each day I still learn something new, I meet someone who has never been to the theatre, and I find myself in awe of the creativity unleashed at a workshop, play reading, or costume de...

What I've Learned Three Years In

The library I grew up visiting doesn't exist anymore: The Shop Chronicles

The library I grew up visiting doesn’t exist anymore. My refuge was Benjamin Franklin Library in Boyle Heights and that’s where I got lost in The Chronicles of Narnia, I indulged my teenage angst with The Chocolate War and was profoundly moved by the epic East of Eden. The library was a place to catch up on homework, do some research or be...

One word leads to another, leads to another: The Shop Chronicles

Center Theatre Group is very fortunate to have cultivated deep relationships with some of the nation’s preeminent playwrights. Playwrights like Luis Alfaro, Carla Ching, Jason Grote, Kinan Valdez, Sheila Callaghan, Dan O’Brien and David Adjmi. These playwrights have also agreed to lead Free Writing Workshops at The Shop as part of The Shop...

A visual invitation: The Shop Chronicles

When you open the doors to a library you expect to see lots of books and people milling about from shelf-to-shelf or tapping away at computers. But, when you walk into a library in Boyle Heights you encounter something different, something surprising, what you find are mannequins dressed from head-to-toe in clothing you may have seen before, b...