June | Center Theatre Group

In 1972, Gail Sheehy wrote an article for New York magazine profiling a mother and daughter of unconventional tastes who long ago turned their backs on public opinion. This was America’s first introduction to the Beales and their dilapidated mansion known as Grey Gardens....

‘Grey Gardens’ Before and After the Beales

Equally heart-wrenching and incendiary, Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Disgraced (which plays the Mark Taper Forum through July 17, 2016) poses “thorny questions of identity and religion in the contemporary world” (Charles Isherwood, The New York Times) that confound not just the characters onstage but the audience members watchin...

Diving Deep Into ‘Disgraced’

Center Theatre Group’s long history of supporting the LGBT community by producing and presenting work with LGBT themes and characters was honored at Lambda Legal’s West Coast Liberty Awards on June 2, 2016. Artistic Director Michael Ritchie accepted the award on the company’s behalf at a star-studded gala at the Four Seasons Beverly Wilshire....

Lambda Legal Honors Michael Ritchie and Center Theatre Group

On June 8, 2016, Center Theatre Group donors at the Fan level and above were treated to an Up Close Dialogue between Producing Director Douglas C. Baker and Broadway theatre veteran and The Secret Life of the American Musical author Jack Viertel. Viertel, whose recent New York Times bestseller is subtitled “How Broadway Shows Are Built,” is cur...

Broadway Veteran Jack Viertel Delights Donors

Center Theatre Group has a great reputation and is a brand recognized by the theatre community and by many Angelenos, but for most people in Boyle Heights, it’s just three words they haven’t heard of before. An important part of my job as Community Liaison for Center Theatre Group is to provide a face for the organization and to create a person...

Why You Need a Community Liaison

Playwright Ayad Akhtar knew he wanted to be a writer at the age of 15. Until that time, Akhtar—the son of two doctors—was sure that his destiny lay in the world of medicine. Then his high school literature teacher changed his life. When I met her, she was in her late 50s. She’d been through five husbands. She lived on 40 acres of land north o...

Asking the Deep Questions with Ayad Akhtar

Emily is a painter whose work is heavily influenced by Islamic art and incorporates Islamic forms. She is also a white woman married to a Pakistani American man named Amir. In Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Disgraced, onstage at the Mark Taper Forum through July 17, 2016, Emily is accused of Orientalism by Isaac, a curator at New York’s...

The Islamic Art of ‘Disgraced’

The Center Theatre Group Affiliates’ Angels’ Cabaret was an evening of surprises and laughter for the 270 donors, supporters, and friends who filled the ballroom at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel in Bel-Air on April 18, 2016.

‘Miscast’ for a Very Good Cause

Critics and audiences across the country (including the Pulitzer Prize committee) have been raving about Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced since its 2012 premiere. But Disgraced and the actions of its characters are not without controversy and can be difficult to watch at times....

‘Disgraced’ Does Not Apologize

Disgraced, which plays the Mark Taper Forum June 8 – July 17, 2016, touches on a wide range of topics, from the effects of Islamic extremism on Muslim Americans and the appropriation of Islamic traditions in Western art to identity, faith, and what it means to live the American dream. With assistance from the Goodman Theatre and Berkeley Rep, we...

A ‘Disgraced’ Library of Resources

On May 2, 2016, local high school students Damaris Vizvett and Samuel Christian performed onstage at Broadway’s August Wilson Theatre in the August Wilson Monologue Competition National Finals. Vizvett, who earned first place in the Los Angeles Regional Finals, took second place, winning a $1,000 college scholarship and a $750 cash prize....

2016 August Wilson Monologue Competition National Finalists Head to NYC