November

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

During the best of/worst of times called “adolescence,” finding a passion for something—and getting support for others as you pursue that passion—can save your sanity, and maybe even your life! Center Theatre Group’s Theatre Crash Course opened its arms and its doors to a group of adolescents trying to find that passion in theatre—and i...

Crashing Into a Career in Theatre

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

Marsha Norman’s credits span the spectrum of performance from tragic plays to HBO series and have earned her top awards and prizes including a Tony and a Pulitzer. But what drew her to the tale of housewife and World War II war bride Francesca Johnson and inspired her to write the book for the musical adaptation of The Bridges of Madison Count...

A Conversation with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Writer Marsha Norman

The walk across the First Street bridge from Boyle Heights into Downtown Los Angeles takes mere minutes, but for families juggling the many working parts of their busy lives, crossing that river may feel like crossing an ocean.

A Bridge to Boyle Heights

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?

Rock ’n’ roll and musical theatre, Kansas City and Los Angeles, the Pacific Palisades and “Malibu,” and Center Theatre Group donors and artists came together for an unforgettable evening under a 100-plus-year-old oak tree on a Saturday night this fall. The occasion: a CTG benefit to celebrate and support the opening of Todd Almond’s Kansa...

Courtney Love and Todd Almond Rock Out for Donors

What does it mean to be successful—as a man, a father, or a son? Male playwrights have grappled with this question for over 2,000 years, ever since Sophocles dramatized Oedipus’ murder of his father, King Laius in Oedipus Rex. Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men, which plays the Kirk Douglas Theatre November 20 to December 20, 2015, carves ou...

'Straight White Men' Takes Aims at Father-Son Drama

Theatre is one of the only disciplines where educators are expected to do it all. A teacher trained in acting is still expected to teach costume design. And a costume designer is still expected to teach the tenets of lighting. So how does a theatre teacher (or a teacher who’s had the theatre program dumped on them—and might be trained in an ent...

Teaching Theatre: Crash Course Style

Three times a year, Center Theatre Group welcomes a new class of bright-eyed students and recent graduates to its internship program. With internships available in almost every department, from artistic development and marketing to community outreach, the program brings together a diverse group of young people from theatre and non-theatre backgroun...

Our Fall 2015 Interns Dream Big

How does the woman The New York Times has anointed “the most adventurous downtown playwright of her generation” follow up a silent play featuring an all-nude feminist cast? If you’re Young Jean Lee, you ask yourself the same question you ask yourself when you start any play—what don’t I want to write—then tackle a genre you’ve never w...

Playwright Young Jean Lee on Why We Hate Losers