Center Theatre Group News & Blogs

Middle School Playwriting Program inspires adolescents' self-expression

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 21:04:00 -0800

Established in 2009, this three-year pilot program aimed to improve and inspire the students’ writing and creative thinking skills. CTG teaching artists partnered with middle school English teachers and local actors to teach playwriting techniques to students as they progressed from sixth to eighth grade. Students wrote both independently and collaboratively, and fortified their work through theatre games, ensemble-building activities, periodic readings with professional actors, and editing sessions where they served as dramaturgs for each other.

Final professional readings of the student plays took place at each school’s culmination ceremony before peers and family members.

“It felt great,” said a Pacoima Middle School student at his culmination ceremony. “I’ve been doing this for three years, and I’m actually showing these skills to my mom, showing her what I got.”

The Middle School Playwriting program aimed to enhance students’ literacy skills, to encourage students to express themselves in original stories, and to add to the body of research showing the benefits of integrating arts instruction across academic disciplines.

“At its heart, Center Theatre Group’s Middle School Playwriting Program is about giving adolescents avenues to explore different writing styles and to develop dexterity with complex ideas,” said Leslie K. Johnson, director of education and community partnerships at CTG. “This helps them build confidence in their own writing and the willingness to take creative risks.”

The Middle School Playwriting Program will relaunch with new students in the 2013 – 2014 school year.

A version of this article appeared in the July 2012 issue of Performances.

Go on the road with ‘War Horse’

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Go on the road with ‘War Horse’

If you're experiencing _War Horse _withdrawal, you can get your fix on YouTube, where star Andrew Veenstra, who played Albert on the Ahmanson stage, chronicles his experiences on your for Broadway.com. In this episode, Veenstra asks fellow company members Nathan Koci and John Milosich to share their experiences performing the traditional English folk music that underscores War Horse.

In this episode, Veenstra talks to various members of the War Horse company about life on tour.

Broadway or Bust a bust?

Center Theatre Group — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Broadway or Bust a bust?

Billed as “part competition, part performance, and part non-fiction drama,” Broadway or Bust (PBS) tells the story of 60 high school students vying for recognition as the nation’s leading male and female high school musical theatre performers.

The first episode of the three-part miniseries begins with an introduction to the 60 finalists, selected from more than 50,000 high school students. The second episode depicts a grueling, weeklong boot camp that introduces the contestants to the highs, lows and setbacks of a life on Broadway. The final episode, airing Sunday, reveals the winners of the National High School Musical Theater Awards.

The concept of the show – part Glee, part American Idol – has excited theatre fans eager for more Broadway-sized drama on the small screen, but does the show deliver?

No, the show “relies on stale reality TV tropes,” says Alex Kaufman of The Tufts Daily, who faults the show for focusing too much on the competition and not enough on the contestants’ back story. The structure of the show is too much like American Idol, which forces the aspiring stars to mug for the camera while spouting the trite clichés of reality TV competition. “These young adults won’t rest until they are the best. That is their modus operandi. … Sadly, the end goal of this game is not artistic satisfaction but vacuous commercial victory.”

Actually, the contestants offer a “refreshing contrast to the ruthless, dog-eat-dog ethos of so many reality-show competitions,” according to Don Aucoin of Boston.com. He cites the example of Evan, who confesses he’s not a great singer and then proves it with his “off-key version of ‘Master of the House,’ from Les Misérables. But … Evan utilizes his comic chops to the max, and his performances draw delighted applause from his peers.” The scene, in his view, depicts an atmosphere of collegiality and mutual support.

A pair of Bay Area participants agrees with Aucoin. “This was more about putting a show together – the finished product,” said Nicholas Wetherbee in an interview with Chuck Barney of the Contra Costa Times. “And at the end, when the finalists were announced, there were no hurt feelings, no tears. We just supported and cheered each other on.”

Either way, the series is “addictive,” according to The Huffington Post. Do you agree?

Sony blockbusters to become Broadway musicals

Center Theatre Group — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Sony blockbusters to become Broadway musicals

In the golden age of Hollywood, producers mined Broadway gold to create their movie magic, making memorable films like A Streetcar Named Desire, The Sound of Music and West Side Story.

That formula has reversed in recent history, with many Broadway musicals drawing inspiration from the cineplex. In the past five years alone, nearly half of the shows nominated for the best musical Tony Award have been based on movies, including Tony winners Once and Billy Elliot: The Musical. With Sony Pictures recently announcing a five-year deal to produce stage versions of its studio films, it looks like the trend will continue.

The plan emulates a strategy first tested by Disney, which has mounted productions of Mary Poppins, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid and Newsies since it first ventured onto Broadway in 1994 with Beauty and the Beast.

Sony's first project will be an adaptation of the 1982 Dustin Hoffman classic, Tootsie. Is this reason to cheer or jeer the Sony plan?

UK company of Jason Robert Brown’s ‘13’ records cast album

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0700

UK company of Jason Robert Brown’s ‘13’ records cast album

"I wanna fly, wanna drive, wanna get rich, wanna get out, wanna get my braces off, wanna get my nose pierced, wanna grow my hair long."

13 tells the story of thirteen 13-year-olds trying to stay "cool," survive classes and navigate cliques at a middle school in Appleton, Ind. Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown composed the score for this musical comedy that premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in 2007.

Since its world premiere, 13 has run at Goodspeed's Norma Terris Theatre and on Broadway at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. Recently, the National Youth Music Theatre of the U.K. staged a six-performance run at the West End's Apollo Theatre.

Playbill.com reports the company has since recorded a cast album, which Brown will mix and produce himself. For more information, click here.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson takes on The Producers at the Bowl

Center Theatre Group — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Jesse Tyler Ferguson takes on The Producers at the Bowl

Jesse Tyler Ferguson, a two-time Emmy nonimee and star of Modern Family, returns to the stage in a three-day run of The Producers at the Hollywood Bowl, where he will star as anxiety-case Leo Bloom. In this profile by Christopher Smith of the Los Angeles Times, Smith traces Ferguson’s career in the theatre, beginning with his starry-eyed memories of watching the Tony Awards as a child.

Casting controversy at The La Jolla Playhouse

Center Theatre Group — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Casting controversy at The La Jolla Playhouse

Multiple Viewpoints

The La Jolla Playhouse attracted national headlines with its recent production of The Nightingale, a musical set in China based on the Hans Christian Andersen fable, but critics were not discussing the show’s inventive puppetry or Duncan Sheik’s contemporary score. Instead, they were debating whether it was acceptable to cast a story set in Asia with a mostly non-Asian cast.

The Nightingale was sold as “a new musical about falling in love with the world.” In an interview with Jim Hebert, U-T San Diego theatre critic, writer-lyricist Steven Sater evoked this theme to justify the creative team’s decision to practice color-blind casting.

“It’s not about Asia,” he said. “Hans Christian Andersen was writing a satire of the West, and setting it in China. And we actually have done a great deal of research into Chinese history, and drawn on Chinese history. … [But] we’re very much retaining the world of fable – contemporary fable.”

For many Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, however, this explanation did not sit well, especially given the historical displacement of Asian-Americans in professional theatre. In a controversy reminiscent of the firestorm that followed the casting of Jonathan Pryce in Miss Saigon, Asian-American actors took to Facebook to condemn the La Jolla Playhouse.

Nearly 150 people participated in a public forum July 22 to discuss the controversy, resulting in heated exchanges between the theatre company and members of the Asian-American community. Representatives of the company would not comment on the future of the workshop.

How do you think the creators of The Nightingale should address this issue? Tell us in the comments section below!