Center Theatre Group News & Blogs

Bash into the Playwright Behind 'The Mystery of Love & Sex'

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 19:39:00 -0800

The Los Angeles Times sat down with “Bash,” as Doran is known, during rehearsals to discuss the inspiration behind the play:

Reflecting on The Mystery of Love & Sex, Doran says: ‘I realize now it’s no coincidence that this is the play I wrote after my son was born, because I think that by becoming a parent, it allowed me to look on my own childhood from a completely fresh perspective, with a degree of distance and amusement and compassion. …And it also allowed me to look at the experience of being a parent from a completely different perspective.’

Another factor: ‘I had had a rift with a very dear friend of mine. And part of me was so confused that I could feel such intense mourning for a relationship that was not my marriage.’

In a video interview produced by Samuel French, the publisher of the play, Doran reveals engrossing tidbits about each character, like: “If there’s one thing to know about Jonny, it’s that he keeps himself very, very private, and that has come at an enormous emotional cost to him.”

10 Shows with Divine Inspiration

Center Theatre Group — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 22:53:00 -0800

The Book of Mormon, from South Park creators Trey Park and Matt Stone and lyricist and composer Robert Lopez (also of Frozen fame), is a satirical and deeply scathing take on the Church of Latter Day Saints and its titular book. The musical became a smash hit, earning a slew of Tony Award® nominations and winning a total of nine, including Best Musical, in 2011.
Jesus Christ Superstar follows the last two weeks of Jesus Christ from the perspective of disciple-turned-betrayer Judas Iscariot, and contains allusions to the modern world, slang, and other anachronisms. Composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber with lyrics by Tim Rice, the show began as a rock opera concept album before becoming a full-length production.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was the first Lloyd Webber-Rice collaboration to mount a production—at St. Paul’s Junior School in London. This Old Testament story of a boy whose jealous brothers sold him into slavery is Lloyd Weber’s most produced musical in the United States and a perennial favorite of professional and amateur theatres around the world.
Godspell, an adaptation of the Gospel of Matthew, began as a non-musical college performance project at Carnegie Mellon University, then moved to La MaMa in New York, where it was discovered by a producing team that wanted to make it into a musical. Armed with a new score by Stephen Schwartz that spanned pop and folk rock to gospel and vaudeville, it opened Off-Broadway in 1971 as a musical, was adapted for film in 1973, and premiered on Broadway in 1976. The show is so popular that Madonna, Lady Gaga, Jeremy Irons, Queen Latifah, Donna Summer, Paul Shaffer, and Jon Hamm all have it somewhere on their résumés, and it has even spawned a slightly shorter children’s version, Godspell Junior.
God Hates Musicals: A Musical Parody of The Westboro Baptist Church was created as an artistic response to the infamous Topeka, K.S. church. The show opened at Boston University’s TheatreLab@855 in 2014. Taking aim not only at Westboro Baptist but also U.S. television coverage of tragic incidents such as the Boston Marathon bombing, it features delightfully profane lyrics and a set of gay star-crossed lovers.
Children of Eden chronicles the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and finally, Noah and the Flood. The script originated as Family Tree, a production created by Youth Sing Praise, a religious theatre camp, before being adapted by Stephen Schwartz (who also composed the Godspell score) and John Caird. Though the show has enjoyed popularity around the world, including a run on London’s West End, it has never played Broadway.
A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant is a satire billed a “deadpan presentation” of the life and writings of Church of Scientology founder and science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard by its creators, Kyle Jarrow and Alex Timbers. Despite numerous intimidations and allusions to legal action by the Church of Scientology, including calls from church members in the entertainment industry to parents of the performers, the show has played in cities including Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.
Leap of Faith premiered at the Ahmanson in 2010 before moving to Broadway for a brief run. Both the show and the 1992 movie it was based on, which starred Steve Martin, tell the story of a faith healer/con artist who pitches his tent in a Kansas town and finds himself falling for a woman who challenges the way he sees the world.
Sister Act was adapted from the 1992 comedy film, with a book by Bill and Cheri Steinkellner and Douglas Carter Beane, lyrics by Glenn Slater, and music by Alan Menken. The musical follows lounge singer Deloris Van Cartier into the witness protection program at the convent The Holy Order of the Little Sisters of Our Mother of Perpetual Faith, where she shakes up the choir and the community.
Altar Boyz was the ninth-longest-running Off-Broadway musical of all time after its 2004 premiere at the New York Musical Theatre Festival. A satirical musical presented as concert for the eponymous fictitious Christian boy-band, it parodies both popular Christian music and the boy-band archetype. Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker wrote the music and lyrics, and Kevin Del Aguila wrote the book.

Artist James Turrell Shines Through the Set for 'An Act of God'

Michael Zoldessy — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 17:59:00 -0800

But Los Angeles has been at the forefront of these types of art experiences since the 1960s, when the city was the center of the Light and Space Movement and home to its superstar artist, local legend James Turrell, who became famous for creating light and space environments. (And is also famous, among a younger generation, for inspiring Drake’s recent music video for “Hotline Bling.”) To view a work by Turrell is not so much looking at something but rather experiencing a place where a human’s perception becomes the art.

Did Drake’s New Video Get Its Bling from James Turrell’s Light Installations? http://ow.ly/THqv7 #video #art #lightart #lightspacetime #videoart #visualart #newmedia

A photo posted by Niche.LA Video Art (@videoartz) on
Oct 22, 2015 at 9:36am PDT

You can see Turrell’s influence right now at the Ahmanson, in the set for An Act of God, which plays through March 13, 2016. In his New York Times review of the show, Charles Isherwood lauded the “eye-dazzling set by Scott Pask, reminiscent of both James Turrell’s recent Guggenheim exhibition and the design ethos of Busby Berkeley musicals.”

In Pask’s design I see not only echoes of 2013’s Aten Reign at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York but also strong references to Turrell’s Skyspaces.

Happy 72nd birthday to light and space artist James #Turrell, who took over our Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda in 2013 with his site-specific installation #AtenReign, one of the most dramatic transformations of the Guggenheim ever conceived. Watch our video on Turrell and Frank Lloyd Wright's shared vision of the world—an interest in harnessing natural light (link in bio). ��✨

A photo posted by Guggenheim Museum (@guggenheim) on
May 6, 2015 at 7:22am PDT

Mood indigo #love#turrellskyspace#turrell

A photo posted by fleur de éther (@d.ether) on
Jun 15, 2015 at 2:27am PDT

It is also eerily similar to the work-in-progress Turrell has been creating at Arizona’s Roden Crater for nearly 40 years. Located in the remote Painted Desert of Northern Arizona, Roden Crater is the culmination of Turrell’s work—a controlled environment built within a volcanic cinder cone, providing the ultimate space for contemplation of light.

“Nature loves the ellipse” —James Turrell. Photograph by Florian Holzherr.

A photo posted by James Turrell (@rodencrater) on
Jan 23, 2016 at 9:20am PST

Sean Hayes may claim to be the King of the Universe in the production at the Ahmanson, but his throne is our window into his world onstage, as it conveys His every feeling. Like one of Turrell’s Skyspaces at sunset, the changing colors of the throne seem to signify different moods. The aperture behind God allows us to look right into His brain (with its violently fluctuating weather included). The hilarious script is only enhanced when Lighting Designer High Vanstone (who also so skillfully commanded the tone in last season’s Matilda The Musical) uses the set as his canvas to literally color David Javerbaum’s words onto the steps at the center of the stage.

In An Act of God, the artists attempt to use the power of a James Turrell-like environment as the backdrop for the most forceful being imaginable. And indeed, when you visit an installation by James Turrell, it is an all-encompassing immersive experience. At Turrell’s Breathing Light (currently on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art), you’re not allowed to take pictures, so nothing can take away from your full absorption of the work. It’s an experience that can completely take control of your consciousness and serve as a retreat from the chaos of the outside world. One might even liken it to a religious experience.

If you're visiting LACMA, be sure to sign up to view James Turrell's "Breathing Light"! It's an amazing and surreal experience, and one you're sure to enjoy! #LACMA #jamesturell #breathinglight #art #museum #neon #pink #hotlinebling #LA #iloveLA #LosAngeles #exploreLA #discoverLA #LAiloveyou #LAstory #calilove #weshootLA #thisbeautifulcity #thisisLA #laloveletter

A photo posted by LA Love Letter (@laloveletter) on
Jan 26, 2016 at 10:52am PST

When God Creates Comedy Gold

Center Theatre Group — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 16:51:00 -0800

God is not generally known for His sense of humor. You won’t find the Bible on any list of the funniest books ever written, and you probably don’t attend religious services for the laughs. But people have been finding humor in God, the clergy, and religious laws for centuries: in the Middle Ages, the Feast of Fools involved the appointment of a mock bishop or pope, low and high officials switching places, and parody. (It sounds a little like a modern-day roast…) Nowadays, comedians regularly mine God and religion for comic gold. With God bringing laughter to the Ahmanson Theatre in the form of Sean Hayes’ body in An Act of God (through March 13, 2016), we’ve collected some of the most (or maybe least?—beware of profane language) godly humor on the Internet:

Tom Lehrer’s “The Vatican Rag”

Tom Lehrer—a mathematician who taught at Harvard, MIT, and UC Santa Cruz—ended up on national television for his satiric, Cole Porter–inspired songs, including “The Vatican Rag.” In response to the news that the Catholic Church was going to permit secular music to be used in some sections of the liturgy, Lehrer wrote a ragtime ditty that begins, “First you get down on your knees / Fiddle with your rosaries / Bow your head with great respect / And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect…”

George Carlin on the “invisible man living in the sky”

God was a favorite subject of legendary comedian George Carlin. A few of his classic lines:

How can He be perfect? Everything He ever makes…dies.

America prays for God to destroy our enemies. Our enemies pray for God to destroy us. Somebody's gonna be disappointed.

The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery,’ and ‘Thou shalt not lie’ in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.

In this “Religion is bullshit” routine, Carlin points out some of the ironies in how we talk about God and His love, and why he can’t believe in a supreme being.

“I need to find God” —Chris Rock

In this early, pre-Saturday Night Live Chris Rock bit, the standup ponders why people don’t start looking for God until after they’ve sinned: “You kill 30 people, then you find God!” Rock returned to the subject later, in a 2004 comedy special: “Separate God from school, separate God from work, separate God from government, but on your money it says, ‘In God we trust.’ All my life I’ve been looking for God, and He’s right in my pocket.”

Ricky Gervais on acts of God

How do insurance companies decide what is an act of God—and what’s not? Ricky Gervais imitates an insurance executive on the phone with Him, trying to figure out how to get out of paying out for a volcanic ash cloud disrupting travel and a tree falling on a car.

Amy Schumer tries to make a deal with God

Paul Giamatti plays God in this sketch from Inside Amy Schumer, where the comedian tries to cut a deal with Him after seven years of silence. (The last time she called on God, it was to secure a victory for her knight at Medieval Times.) “I really need to stop making so many white girls,” an exasperated God says to Himself.

Supervising Interns, Creating Colleagues

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 18:29:00 -0800

Former Center Theatre Group interns work in nearly every department within the company, and are scattered across Southern California theatre companies and nonprofits. Whether they’re in production or management, development or education, many share a similar story of getting one foot in the door—and finding themselves pulled into a deep, lasting relationship with the organization.

While getting her master’s in theatre arts management at California State University Long Beach, Center Theatre Group Artistic Development Program Manager Patricia Garza interned in the Education Department in fall 2007, then transitioned into Interim Company Manager at the Kirk Douglas Theatre (first as a graduate fellow then a paid employee), got hired by the Education Department, and moved to Artistic Development six years later. “My internship unlocked that I could do administrative, behind-the-scenes work and still play a big role in day-to-day operations of a theatre company,” she said. “That was a big a-ha moment for me.” Garza got her hand in a lot of different departmental pots as an intern, and today she advises her own interns to do the same thing. “It’s an opportunity to create your own path, just as I did when I was an intern,” she said. “Doors are open for you that are very hard to open from the outside.”

Doors are open for you that are very hard to open from the outside.
Patricia Garza

Manuel Prieto took her advice seriously during his 2011 internship. Prieto was on the path to becoming a designer when he landed a position in the Education Department with Garza. Besides developing skills like budgeting, grant writing, and writing lesson plans, the internship “activated the notion of being an artist, administrator, and also educator,” said Prieto. Today, he continues to do design work and works as a teaching artist but is also—while still in his 20s—the executive director of Los Angeles Music and Art School, an arts education nonprofit that has offered classes to East L.A. children and adults for over a half century. “I get to pick and choose my design gigs but also make an impact so that hundreds of students can have daily access to arts education,” he said. He currently has four former Center Theatre Group interns working for him.

Many former interns acknowledged the important role played by their individual supervisors. “I’m very appreciative to my supervisors for treating me like I was part of the team,” said Prop Assistant Eric Babb, who interned in the Props Department in spring 2013. “My internship supervisor created projects that were within my skill set but at the same time challenged me to expand on what I knew.”

While Babb and other interns got hired in the departments they interned with, a number of former Center Theatre Group interns discovered career paths they hadn’t realized existed in theatre. In fall 2014, Jazmine Jones interned in the Human Resources Department. “I was able to meet pretty much everybody within the company, so that helped me see what everybody’s role was and get some insight that way,” she said. As part of the career development aspect of the internship, every intern participates in a mock interview with a Center Theatre Group supervisor from a different department. Jones chose Development, and after working as a Temporary Assistant in Human Resources and Accounting, Jones moved to the Development Department, where she worked in a number of different capacities before becoming Donor Relations Coordinator last year.

I’m very appreciative to my supervisors for treating me like I was part of the team.

Eric Babb

Interns are finding success beyond Center Theatre Group’s doors as well. Last year, Ana Rose O’Halloran became Executive Director of North Hollywood-based Antaeus Theatre Company. As an intern in the Development Department in 2008, “I got to put some of the things I learned in graduate school into practice,” she said. Her studies had focused on the intersection of marketing and development; helping put together the Center Theatre Group Annual Report dovetailed nicely. “It was one of my first big communications projects outside of school,” she said. O’Halloran became a Development Department employee, then moved on to become Director of Development for a pediatric nonprofit. “Without that base from Center Theatre Group, I wouldn’t be where I am right now,” she said.

Tiffany Moon, the new Managing Director of the Ojai Playwrights Conference, originally came to Center Theatre Group for the Sherwood Internship, which “is designed to expose you to L.A. theatre on the whole,” said Moon, and provides for mentorships in a number of different departments. She got to see plays all over Los Angeles, review applications for the Sherwood Award for Emerging Theatre Artists, assist with a Development event, work on social media for the Radar L.A. festival, and participate in the Writers’ Workshop. She ultimately got hired by the Management Department before accepting her position at the Ojai Playwrights Conference.

Without that base from Center Theatre Group, I wouldn’t be where I am right now.

Ana Rose O’Halloran

Center Theatre Group has hosted interns since the 1970s in different configurations, but in 2012, the program was formalized and expanded to bring in about 50 students per year in departments across the company. “It’s competitive,” said Center Theatre Group Next Generation Initiatives Program Manager Camille Schenkkan, who supervises the selection process and runs the program. “We look for people who need an internship to achieve a career goal. Someone with the highest-level skills may not get an internship; we want people who will grow the most.” Schenkkan is also proud of the fact that many Center Theatre Group interns have no theatre background, and move on to take jobs in a variety of different sectors. But regardless of the career path they end up taking, most of them come away with a real affinity for the art form.

Choosing interns with different backgrounds, giving unusual candidates an opportunity they might not find elsewhere, and creating a diverse class each semester has long-term benefits, too. “A couple of years down the road, you and your former interns are peers,” said Schenkkan. “It’s a nice way to shape the colleagues you want to work with for the next 30 years.”

Center Theatre Group’s internship program receives support from Bank of America and the J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation.

Celebrating the Playwrights in Our Backyard

Center Theatre Group — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 15:50:00 -0800

Beginning in 2016, Center Theatre Group and HUMANITAS—a non-profit that actively supports new and emerging writers—are awarding the Playwriting Prize annually to the best new unproduced play written by a writer based in Southern California. The top three writers are also being honored at the Humanitas Play Fest at the Kirk Douglas Theatre on February 12–14 2016.

The inaugural winner is Ngozi Anyanwu for Good Grief, which follows the misadventures of a young Nigerian-American woman in love, loss, and growing up. Anyanwu received $5,000 as well as an additional $5,000 grant that will go to a local theatre to subsidize the play’s world premiere. Second-place winner Dan O’Brien, author of Scarsdale, and third-place winner Louisa Hill, author of Lord of the Underworld’s Home for Unwed Mothers, each received $2,000.

it’s always nice when someone says, ‘We were moved by it too.’

HUMANITAS Prize Winner Ngozi Anyanwu

This is the first play by Anyanwu, an actress, writer, producer, and director who is a recent graduate of UC San Diego’s MFA acting program. She was wonderfully surprised to hear that she had won. “It took a lot to put that out there into the world,” she said of Good Grief. “So it’s always nice when someone says, ‘We were moved by it too.’” Although she has workshopped the play and gotten feedback from students in her graduate program, Anyanwu has largely been working on Good Grief by herself for the past few years; she’s looking forward to collaborating with Center Theatre Group’s artistic development staff. “I’m excited for the support that an institution can bring, and I’m interested in seeing what that means for the play,” she said, adding that a Southern California world premiere is her goal. The award monies will also allow her to fix her laptop—and go on to write plays two and three.

Center Theatre Group and HUMANITAS hope that the prize’s impact will extend far beyond Anyanwu and the runners-up. Each of the 234 plays submitted for consideration was read by at least two artists from the pool of 71 Southern California-based directors, dramaturgs, designers, actors, and artistic directors who volunteered to serve as judges. “So many of our evaluators have told me how much they loved being part of this process,” said Talenti. “And because they read the plays without knowing any information about the authors, they were dying to know who wrote them.”

Talenti believes this enthusiasm means that a number of the submissions “have a really good shot at getting produced in our backyard” and that it’s possible that in the next few years, we’ll see “a rash of world premieres by Southern California playwrights produced by Southern California theatres.”

Supporting local playwrights is important to Center Theatre Group on a number of levels. “I think it’s particularly exciting for audiences to see work created by artists who live in their own communities and who also often write about their own communities,” said Talenti. “Theatre suddenly has a particularly special relevance when that happens.” Whether or not this happens on Center Theatre Group’s stages is immaterial. “The more our local theatre artists flourish, creating new theatre fans in their respective neighborhoods, the more Center Theatre Group benefits from a deep pool of local talent and a new audience eager to see the work of the artist-next-door,” he said.

We are here to nurture them along their path—and help them develop their voices along the way.

HUMANITAS Executive Director Cathleen Young

HUMANITAS Executive Director Cathleen Young is excited that the prize will give both organizations the opportunity to support that talent pool, and “to find new playwrights and empower them to….write,” she said. “Most writers suffer a lot of rejection and spirit-crushing ups and downs on the way to success. It can be a tough and daunting road. We are here to nurture them along their path—and help them develop their voices along the way.”

Like his fellow judges, Talenti was impressed by the depth of voices who submitted plays for the prize, and by the “wide range of experience among the 10 finalists, who are from all over Southern California. Their plays cover a broad array of styles, aesthetics, and subject matter.” Talenti was pleasantly surprised to find that he wasn’t familiar with half of the finalists—an unusual experience for someone who’s been working with L.A. playwrights for 20 years.

Young believes that this group of playwrights has the potential to change not just the Los Angeles theatre community but our world at large. “By enabling and empowering writers to share their voices with the world, we actually play an important role in keeping our democracy strong,” she said.

Conversations from the Classroom: Teaching Theatre Students About Access, Equity, and Inclusion

Lynn Clark — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 20:11:00 -0800

Theatre students walk into our classrooms with their histories, their cultural identities, and their ideas about race and diversity. How can we have difficult, important discussions with them about these subjects? And how can we create alliances among diverse groups of students? Working with a play like Father Comes Home From the Wars is one way to start necessary discussions. But it is also something we can do on a daily basis.

Which is why I started a conversation on the subject with Los Angeles stage director Leslie Ishii, who has spent many years working to become a change-maker in this area and in honestly identifying her own blind spots and biases. Not only does she direct, but she is also the Diversity Liaison at East West Players, the nation’s premiere Asian-American theatre, and a member of Center Theatre Group’s Teaching Artist Faculty.

“Our society’s sustainability is going to be based on our ability to address equity, inclusion, and access,” Leslie told me. She has spent her whole career conducting research on these subjects. She also brings a personal perspective that is informed by her parents’ and grandparents’ experience of the “gross discrimination through being interned” in camps during World War II.

Before beginning any kind of discussion or activity with students, Leslie always makes sure to set up and conduct a safe space by utilizing discussion guidelines and working to ensure that the room will “hold confidentiality.”

Then, because there are so many different first languages in any given classroom, she introduces non-linguistic exercises to create connections among students, followed by a class discussion regarding their experiences. One such exercise is called “Crossing the Line,” and asks students to self-identify as belonging to certain groups by choosing to walk to one side or another of a line in the middle of the room.

In another exercise, she directs students to toss a ball around a circle until everyone has had a chance to catch it. Then, the pattern has to be repeated. Participants work at making the ball travel around the circle faster and faster, with the leader timing each round. Eventually, Leslie offers the group an extreme challenge: “How can we get the ball around the group, in the same pattern, in four seconds?”

She scaffolds this portion of the exercise by inserting commentary about the diversity of the group and how we all need to work together to solve the problem. She reminds students that their diversity will give them an array of solutions. “Let’s really listen to the ideas of everyone in our group” she’ll advise, or, “We all have good thinking, we come from different places, let’s combine our ideas.”

Leslie has conducted this exercise with all age groups, from elementary students to adults. “Fifth graders usually solve the problem before adults do,” she said.

Which is why she believes that alliance-building has to start with young people.

“Young people have this righteous indignation about fairness. We have to find where they have this power within themselves,” she said. She works in the classroom to help them harness that power and to develop skills in conducting productive communication around topics of race and inclusion.

Storytelling, especially about family or legacy, is one way to start these conversations and build bridges between students. Leslie said that oftentimes, students might not be aware of their legacy, because families haven’t shared the difficulty that they have gone through. It’s too painful, too hard to talk about. Some may believe that by keeping family challenges secret and unspoken, they won’t perpetuate or replicate the situation. But in fact, the opposite happens. Creating awareness and cultivating tools that young people can use to break cycles of oppression and internalized oppression is a major focus of her work. (Leslie suggested the Tools for Change website as a source for other alliance-building approaches.)

Creating a curriculum around analysis of stereotypes in plays, television, film, and the Internet can also be helpful in bringing awareness to young people. (Teaching Tolerance is a great resource for lessons on this topic.) Students are often exposed to racial and cultural stereotypes, but haven’t had the opportunity to examine where these ideas about particular groups come from. For example, they may initially view a stereotypical character from a particular culture—say, an Asian man in a fu manchu characterization—as humorous. However, upon a detailed examination of the character’s historical context, a new perspective on the character emerges. In the case of the Asian man, students end up learning about the pain the Chinese community experienced as a result of extreme mistreatment and racial discrimination during the building of our American railroads.

Focusing on historical context is a large part of Leslie’s work, from the production of Clybourne Park she is directing at UC Irvine, which deals with issues of race and housing in mid-20th-century Chicago, to her work as a teaching artist visiting high school classes before and after they see Father Comes Home From the Wars at the Taper.

One of the exercises she has developed for students to engage with Father Comes Home From the Wars invokes the Underground Railroad.

“As long as people have been slaves, there have been people who want to escape their plight,” she said. These people, from the slaves of the antebellum era to today’s refugees, are “always trying to get to a different place, a place where they can have a life they’ve been dreaming of.” This exercise leads students into the world of Parks’ play by asking them to create routes to their dreams.

In this exercise and others that grapple with similar subjects, Leslie thinks the biggest possible pitfall for educators is not doing too little, but doing too much. “The hard part for a teacher is that they want to help, but they may need to just hold space and watch a student be uncomfortable while they are working out these issues, or making discoveries or cultivating awareness about situations associated with their life,” she said.

She added, “Classroom management means we have to make sure we are not being dominant in ways that replicates colonialism and isms like racism and sexism. All isms are perpetuated and replicated through our lived experiences and societal conditioning which trains biases and blind spots right into us…these permeate our culture in ways that we don’t even know.”

Take the language we use to talk about these issues. I began the conversation with Leslie by asking her to talk about diversity, which she later explained to me was shortchanging the issues. “Saying ‘diversity’ by itself doesn’t necessarily mean we’re inclusive or equitable or giving access,” she said. “The field is realizing, after years of saying ‘diversity,’ that bias and blind spots keep many from still achieving equity, and real inclusion also means access. So we often utilize three terms—inclusion, access, and equity—in order to create real change.”

Ultimately, Leslie believes that teachers can break the cycles of oppression by “dropping the seeds, holding space, and empowering their students to manifest their experiences. They are showing you what they have absorbed.” When students feel safe enough to share their stories, healing and learning soars and they feel “seen” by us educators.

Diane Rodriguez’s Journey to President Obama’s Desk

Center Theatre Group — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 17:00:00 -0800

As part of the advisory body for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Rodriguez will review and make recommendations on applications for grants, funding guidelines, and leadership initiatives, and advise the NEA chairman on agency policies and programs. As Chair of the Board of Theatre Communications Group, the national service organization for professional theatres, her interests are varied. Among them are “creating a national touring network for artists, exporting American theatre work to the world, supporting initiatives at theatres that support new forms of storytelling, reviving the Theatre Communications Group/NEA career development award for directors and designers, supporting more theatre festivals, and creating demand for the theatre by having audiences and communities experience making art,” she said. “If I could make some change and have an impact, how great if it was with one of the above?”

Many of these interests are in line with the work Rodriguez has done over the past 21 years at Center Theatre Group. In her previous position as the Director of New Play Production and Co-Director of the Latino Theater Initiative at the Mark Taper Forum, she increased the diversity of voices on Los Angeles stages and promoted the development of a new generation of playwrights like The Rude Mechs. More recently, she co-curated Radar L.A., a festival that spotlights interdisciplinary collaborative theatre, and was a driving force behind Center Theatre Group productions Popol Vuh: Heart of Heaven and Through the Looking Glass. These projects have encouraged new theatrical modes, welcomed new and underrepresented audiences and performers, and spurred communities to see themselves as creative forces.

Rodriguez’s influence already extends beyond Center Theatre Group and Los Angeles. In addition to spending eight years on the Theatre Communications Group Board, she also serves on the steering committee for the Latina/o Theatre Commons. “I've spent years thinking about the bigger picture while also remaining an artist and a regional theatre worker,” Rodriguez said. She has also directed, acted—winning an Obie Award for her performance in Heather Woodbury's Tale of Two Cities—and written plays. Her latest work, The Sweetheart Deal, is being co-produced by the Latino Theatre Company and El Teatro Campesino in 2017.

She will draw on all these perspectives on the National Council for the Arts. “I've been in the theatre all my life. I've done everything: sewn costumes, designed them, acted, directed, written, and produced.” said Rodriguez. “I have lived at this intersection for a very long time. It's not an easy balance, but it is one that keeps me anchored.”

A Road Map to Gentleness

Kristin Friedrich — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 15:42:00 -0800

He’s currently the Artistic Director of the Ojai Playwrights Conference, which fosters work that explores challenging social, political, and cultural issues. He’s been involved in hundreds of directing projects over the years, and he’s developed hundreds more.

Egan has often been drawn to stories that reﬂect urban violence, social upheaval, and intellectual ﬁssures that confront contemporary America. The Mystery of Love & Sex, which plays the Mark Taper Forum February 10–March 20, 2016, is different. Bathsheba Doran’s piece ﬁnds a quartet of likable, fragile characters trying to negotiate, then renegotiate, their bonds with one another. It’s fortuitous timing that Egan gets involved in their story now. He’s long been in touch with life’s brutality. What he’s fascinated with now, it seems, is its gentler side.

Kristin Friedrich: Tell me about your first reaction to The Mystery of Love & Sex?

Robert Egan:

I thought it was remarkable in that it covers so much human territory with such ease and grace and economy. It’s very much about life transitions. Its characters are constantly searching, seeking, and in many ways trying to connect in some deeper and richer way with the people they love. They’re trying to ﬁnd trust and belief in each other. How do you ﬁnd that kind of tenderness in a brutal world? Somehow in these two hours, Bash [Doran’s nickname] shows you the quiet seismic shifts that go on in all of our lives, whether we’re dealing with our sexuality, trying to create family, or trying to love. The play meditates on how we negotiate those kinds of connections. But this isn’t just about lovers and friendship and marriage—it’s also beautifully existential. It’s about the ongoing mysterious symphony of life.

How has running the Ojai Playwrights Conference, which nurtures a new group of established and emerging playwrights every year, changed the way you direct?

Our focus is to collaborate with a writer to help them fulﬁll their vision of their play. We’re not helping them develop their play for any speciﬁc theatres, which have their own agendas. There’s a purity about the work at Ojai. It’s similar to what you do in the rehearsal room. You explore the play together, and then you guide the room directorially to help the actors bring to life the demands of the play. I’m doing the same thing here as I do in Ojai. But I have to go way beyond, because this is a fully realized production with sound, sets, and lights.

Is playwright Doran involved in the rehearsal process?

Yes, Bash is here with us. She was here for casting. Every actor was chosen with her. And as a dramatist, she’s extremely meticulous and disciplined. I love having the playwright in the room because we sit for about a week, examining the play page by page. We’re talking about the story, the structure, the characters, what inspires them, what lines actually mean, what the backstory is. Then we drill down to moment-to-moment actions. It’s a very involved process.

The play has tension, but it’s also clear that the characters love each other. How do you approach that kind of tone?

It’s challenging to get the balance right. It’s hard to deﬁne the form that Bash writes. You’re moving along with the characters and then suddenly the history they’ve been living, the things they’ve been repressing, the silences they’ve endured—come out and they send shock waves through the four main characters. A lot of plays, from the ﬁrst scene, there’s drama, ﬁssure, and conﬂict. This play isn’t like that. I don’t think life is like that. Most of us experience life as a daily process to create peaceful waters. Then there are little tidal waves that hit and we try to return to the calm. What’s beautiful in this play is that all of the characters are operating from a place of care, even when they’re screwing up.

as a dramatist, she’s extremely meticulous and disciplined.

It also fast-forwards through a few years in their lives, through great change, without a lot of exposition. It’s thrilling when you’re engaged in a play as an outsider in the same way you engage in life. You re-encounter people. In the play when we jump ﬁve years, you experience through Bash’s writing and action that these relationships have changed. Then you reﬂect on previous scenes and you realize why that person was silent, that they didn’t want to reveal something.

A lot of your background, and your work, is steeped in activism and politics and social issues. How does the intimacy of this play feel?

I’m older than when I started out directing plays downtown 30 years ago. I’ve lived a lot more life. I’m divorced, I’m remarried. I have two sons and two step-sons. You’re not aware of it, but as life moves inevitably forward you become different. Bash’s play Kin and this play have some similar elements and structures—there are marriages, then disillusion, then reconnections. We tend to think of plays about marriage, like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, with vicious pyrotechnics from beginning to end. But in a lot of our relationships, things go silent, things go to sleep. It’s a slow shifting of the tectonic plates, it’s not a big earthquake. I think that’s the way many things happen in life. But Bash’s characters go on, they keep trying to reconﬁgure their connections. There is something quietly noble and courageous about them.

It seems as if this play came your way at an interesting time, that you’re identifying with its ideas.

I think it’s taking me to places in my own life that I’m exploring and trying to embrace and live fully within. It’s surprising and good that I’m encountering this play right now. It’s also surprising and good that I’m encountering Bash right now. I am a very disciplined guy, I’m rigorous, I work hard, I take it all very seriously. Bash is all of those things and more. She has a big, tender heart. I like to think we share that, too. It’s great to be working with a like-minded artist and human being.

You’re not aware of it, but as life moves inevitably forward you become different.

With Bash and the play, it’s a glimpse into a better world. How do we negotiate toward a better world? I think some of the most powerful plays are plays that examine that question not through grand, big issues, although those plays are great too. What Bash does is explore all of those larger issues through very speciﬁc relationships, through two young people and two parents, who oddly and ironically are both trying to ﬁnd the same things. There’s not some deep-seated pathology to them. They’re together in the big struggle of life.