2015 | Center Theatre Group

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

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.

With Straight White Men playing the Kirk Douglas Theatre through December 20, 2015, Center Theatre Group took to the streets of Culver City to find out what ideas and images the show’s title brings to mind, and how Angelenos define privilege. We also asked playwright Young Jean Lee to explain why she chose this provocative identifier for her play...

When I Say 'Straight White Men,' L.A. Says...

When I was younger, I was supposed to be a preacher, but I decided it would be too much responsibility. I didn’t want to worry about other people’s souls. I switched to pre-med, but I didn’t want to worry about other people’s bodies. And so, I switched to playwriting.

"The Christians' Playwright Lucas Hnath on Revealing the Invisible

When audiences step into the Mark Taper Forum to see playwright Lucas Hnath’s The Christians, they may do a double take. The stage is being transformed into a megachurch’s pulpit (with a full choir) for the play, which opens with a sermon from a pastor that will divide his congregation....

Lucas Hnath Wants to Talk About Faith—But Not His Own

Playwright. Director. Singer. Filmmaker. Korean-American. Feminist. Experimental. Adventurous. Provocative. Young Jean Lee and her boundary-pushing, genre-bending, radically inclusive work is impossible to place in any one box. So who is the playwright and director behind Straight White Men, which plays the Kirk Douglas Theatre November 20 through...

Who is Young Jean Lee?

Appropriate, at the Mark Taper Forum September 23–November 1, 2015, explores the haunting historical sins of a Southern family while uncovering some contemporary ones along the way. A hidden graveyard, a crumbling plantation mansion, and a chorus of insects make the perfect backdrop for a haunting, and one character even claims to feel “spiri...

'Appropriate'-Inspired Hauntings in L.A.

“Rituals are perhaps the oldest...members of the performance family. Their business in society is to effect transformations that cannot otherwise be brought about.”—Tom F. Driver, Liberating Rites: Understanding the Transformative Power of Ritual...

On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, a landmark decision for gay and lesbian Americans. Exactly a month later on July 26, Bent opened at the Mark Taper Forum in its first major U.S. revival.

When Martin Sherman’s play Bent premiered on Broadway in 1979, it introduced many audiences to the story of gay persecution in the Holocaust. Over the past few decades, this history has become more widely known, thanks in part to the re-appropriation of the pink triangle the Nazis forced gay male prisoners to wear.

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