News And Blogs

The mix of business, artistry, and personal responsibility that comes with a creative career in theatre can be tricky to master, especially for young, emerging professionals. As part of our efforts to support an ever-growing and increasingly diverse theatre community in Los Angeles, Center Theatre Group hosted our first Workforce Readiness Symposiu...

Making Working in Theatre Work for Everyone

Dear Community Member, If you’ve never been to Center Theatre Group before, I want to welcome you to what I hope will be a wonderful experience. For those of you who are returning…it’s nice to have you back here with us!

A Letter from Michael Ritchie: October 2018

It’s hard to imagine that less than a generation ago, Cupertino, California was an agricultural town. Today, it is home to Apple Inc.’s headquarters—a vast, ring-shaped structure made of glass and steel—and one of the wealthiest cities in the country. Yet for playwright, director, and El Teatro Campesino founder Luis Valdez, Cupertino will...

‘Zoot Suit’ Creator Luis Valdez Plants New Seeds at the Taper with ‘Valley of the Heart’

A major pillar of Center Theatre Group’s mission is to foster new plays and support local playwrights at every step of the process from conception to production. The ideal example is Quack, a World premiere onstage at the Kirk Douglas Theatre October 21 – November 18, 2018. Playwright Eliza Clark wrote the piece during her residency in the 2016...

From Start to Finish, A Home for New Work

It’s easy to take the cold weather attire and accents of the characters of Sweat to mean that the problems they face are endemic to industrial East Coast towns. Yet the reality for so many Angelenos is all too similar to that of the Reading, Pennsylvania working-class characters in Lynn Nottage’s searing play (onstage August 29 – October 7, 2...

Different Coasts, Same Problems

Center Theatre Group has remained the first and only West Coast theatre to embrace my voice as a writer. I write African comedies, explained Ghanian American playwright Jocelyn Bioh. There are so many beautiful layers to my continent, and I feel rewarded in knowing that I’m adding to the conversation of how the African diaspora is reflected [ons...

Playwright Jocelyn Bioh Blends Comedy and Culture in ‘School Girls’

All three stages at Center Theatre Group have hosted artists whose stories reflect our diverse community since our doors opened in 1967, but this fall marks an important moment. At the Ahmanson, Taper, and Douglas, three powerful female playwrights—all theatre artists of color—have works onstage simultaneously: Dominique Morisseau, book writer...

Three Playwrights. Three Stages. Three Journeys.

Good friends are hard to find—and oftentimes harder to keep. And even the most challenging female friendships can be legendary with the right gals by your side. In honor of School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play—onstage at the Kirk Douglas Theatre September 2–30, 2018—we’re paying tribute to some of the most iconic girl squads in p...

Five Girl Squads that Are Friendship Goals

Director Lisa Peterson is happy to be back in Los Angeles and at the Mark Taper Forum with Sweat. The Obie Award-winning director has collaborated with some of the best playwrights in the world, including Tony Kushner, Beth Henley, David Henry Hwang, Donald Margulies, and Caryl Churchill, at regional theatres across the country. She also spent a no...

A Director Comes Home to the Taper

From both an urban development and stylstic standpoint, industrial design has become incredibly popular in American culture, embraced for both the history it evokes and its more utilitarian qualities. This trend provides an interesting juxtaposition to Lynn Nottage’s Sweat—onstage August 29 – October 7, 2018 at the Mark Taper Forum—a play t...

Industrial Design Meets Set Design

Los Angeles has more theatre companies per capita than any city, and is a place writers flock to looking for opportunities across every form of media. But it can still be hard for playwrights to find one another and find support for their theatrical endeavors.

A Festival by Locals, For Locals