Center Theatre Group News & Blogs

‘Grey Gardens’ Before and After the Beales

Center Theatre Group — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 21:21:00 -0700

In the 44 years since, Edith Bouvier Beale and her namesake daughter’s fall from mid-Atlantic aristocracy (and how that fall was reflected in their crumbling home) has made Little Edie and Big Edie permanent fixtures in the ever-shifting landscape of American pop culture, most notably in the Maysles brothers’ 1976 documentary and of course in the musical pre- and post-show audience engagement programs we’ve been expanding and enhancing over the last year at the Taper.

The cornerstone of our Disgraced engagement strategies is our curated list of links to blog posts, podcasts, and other resources.

Our June 17 Youth Theatre Forum invited teenagers to spend a day engaging with Disgraced and grappling with the questions it poses. Students participated in three pre-show workshops where they discussed how our biases—both conscious and unconscious—impact the way we see other cultures; how art can spark big conversations about ethnicity and religion; and their own faiths and beliefs. Center Theatre Group teaching artists and youth facilitators—alumni from our Angels in America (which was first fully produced in its entirety at the Mark Taper Forum in 1992) to last summer’s revival of Martin Sherman’s Bent, Center Theatre Group has been proud to share LGBT stories. A short video offered the gala audience a chance to look back at some production highlights before Ritchie accepted the award from actor Tom Berklund, who appeared in Bent.

Ritchie began by thanking Lambda Legal for its vital work as well as Elliott Sernel, who serves as a board member for both Center Theatre Group and Lambda Legal, for his commitment to and support of both institutions.

Then, Ritchie shared a recent remarkable moment in Center Theatre Group—and America’s—history: June 26, 2015, when the Supreme Court legalized the freedom to marry for all same-sex couples. That day, explained Ritchie, the two shows in rehearsal at Center Theatre Group just happened to have same-sex love stories at their core—Todd Almond’s rock musical Girlfriend and the dark Holocaust drama Bent. The timing was perfect and also serendipitous; there was no master plan to have two LGBT shows onstage at once, said Ritchie. Indeed, he would not have defined either story in precisely that way. “I believe that LGBT stories are historical stories, are love stories, are important stories, American stories, and most of all, are human stories,” he told the crowd. “They’re all of our stories. And the LGBT community is our community. Which is why it’s always come naturally to me to share their stories on our stages.”

In an interview with actor Daniel Franzese on the red carpet beforehand, Ritchie explained why this award was particularly special. “I’m in a business that gives out a lot of awards, maybe too many,” he said. “I was extremely touched because this award is about the importance of what we do, not the quality or entertainment value of what we do.”

Vampire Diaries actress Kat Graham was also honored at the event, which was hosted by author and fashion and lifestyle expert Lawrence Zarian and actress .

Broadway Veteran Jack Viertel Delights Donors

Center Theatre Group — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 01:25:00 -0700

Viertel delighted the crowd gathered at the Kirk Douglas Theatre Rehearsal Room with his in-depth knowledge of the musical theatre genre, an art form he believes should be not only enjoyed for its content, but also studied and appreciated for its unique form. He told the crowd that while he doesn’t believe there is one formula for success in a musical, there are patterns to this “very peculiar structural animal.” They include the opening number, the "I want song" (which gets audience members on the ride of the show), the “conditional love song” (like “If I Loved You” from Carousel) and even the “I hate you conditional love song,” (best exemplified by “I’ll Know” from Guys and Dolls).

So why does the first song of the second act—think: “It’s Too Damn Hot” in Kiss Me Kate—often feel so peripheral to the rest of the play? The Broadway crowd of old had a bad habit of leaving the theatre at intermission and not making it back in time for the beginning of Act II. Viertel also shared the history behind the narrator’s “To be continued” line at the completion of Act I of Finian’s Rainbow, Gypsy, Ragtime, and Hamilton.

Afterward, Viertel signed books and chatted with donors in the lobby—an appropriate ending and homecoming of sorts for a theatre-lover who fell for the art at age 6, when he got Mary Martin’s autograph on board the Super Chief train as it carried the star from Los Angeles to New York. After seeing Martin perform in Peter Pan soon after, Viertel told the group, “I didn’t want to do anything else ever again as long as I lived except find some kind of life in the theatre.”

Why You Need a Community Liaison

Estela Garcia — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 19:53:00 -0700

My journey with community members usually begins with meeting them face-to-face, often when I’m tabling at key community events or attending community meetings to spread the word about our programs. Next, I communicate with them via email or phone calls, confirming attendance at events and dispensing important information. Then, I greet them at our events and often provide translating support, so a familiar face and voice is guiding them through a new process. And finally, if we’re lucky, I’ll be the person greeting them at the Ahmanson Theatre for their first theatre experience. We build up to that moment by creating trust and ease and evoking curiosity for theatre both as audience members and behind the scenes at The Shop, Center Theatre Group’s costume and prop shop and warehouse.

The other important part of my job is that when I go into the Center Theatre Group offices, I become the voice of the community at the organization. I help strategize the best ways to communicate with community members and market our programs throughout Boyle Heights. One of the things we had to adjust early on, for example, was the focus of our marketing flyers. Flyers usually have the Center Theatre Group logo displayed prominently, taking up a lot space to help raise awareness of the organization. But, when creating flyers for our Boyle Heights programs, we instead emphasize “free,” “theatre,” and “food.” Community wants to know the “what” before the “who” in order to plan around their busy lives.

I grew up in a neighborhood with similar demographics to Boyle Heights, which keeps me in tune with community needs on a personal level. Professionally, I started this type of work at a small theatre organization looking to attract members of their immediate community for a specific production. I was hired to do marketing, and I implemented a grassroots campaign similar to the work I do at Center Theatre Group. Later, I worked on South Coast Repertory’s community-based program where I witnessed the successes and challenges of launching a grassroots marketing campaign at a large theatre institution.

Working with a small or large organization has its challenges. Working with Center Theatre Group—which has a large workforce and is responsible for three theatres plus many other projects—is like operating a slow-moving machine; everything takes time and goes through multiple approval phases. Copy is written, copy is translated into Spanish, photos are taken, and the graphics department designs collateral. I have to prepare with a long lead time and be patient. In a smaller organization, there aren’t always the resources for a dedicated community liaison, so it might be the marketing director who does this job or a community volunteer. The scale and scope of each project may be different, but engaging the community is still the goal, and the community liaison can help spread the word and maintain momentum for an organization and project of any size.

For theatres or other arts organizations considering adding a community liaison to their team, here are my criteria for the ideal community liaison:

Speaks the language of the community. We’re defining language broadly to include colloquial language.
Has administrative experience and is able to create an effective marketing plan and help craft and evaluate surveys to help strategize outreach efforts.
Marketing to a demographic you can relate to is key. It is best if the community liaison is recruited from within the community.
The community liaison is the voice/advocate of the community at the organization and the voice and face of the organization in the community. They need to listen carefully and have strong communication skills to speak to both parties and accurately represent them in the room.
Possesses street smarts. The bulk of the work will be in the communities, and at times involves going door-to-door. The community liaison has to navigate a community’s shifting landscape including politics, gentrification, personal agendas, community needs, and neighborhood hot zones.
Sometimes engagement strategies have to shift on the spot, and the community liaison must have the flexibility to adapt and re-strategize.

Asking the Deep Questions with Ayad Akhtar

Center Theatre Group — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 00:21:00 -0700

Since then, Akhtar has developed a body of work spanning screenplays/teleplays, stage plays, and a novel that dissects the Muslim American experience, questions America’s relationship to Islam, and critiques the effects of the American Dream on immigrant communities. Akhtar has been called “one of the theater’s most original, exciting new voices” (Linda Winer, Newsday) and in 2013, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his debut play, Disgraced (which plays the Mark Taper Forum until July 17, 2016).

In 2013, Akhtar discussed why he started writing and how his career unfolded in a wide-ranging interview with Gabriel Greene at the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) National Conference. “If I break down my career into four stages, then—basically—I spent a lot of years writing really badly and thinking that I was writing really well. And then I spent a bunch of years realizing that I’d been writing really badly and getting better. And the third period was: I’m writing better, but no one is paying attention. And then—finally—there’s been this recent period where I think I’m writing better and people are starting to pay attention,” he explained, noting that the one word he would use to describe his career is “perseverance.”

The fourth and current period of Akhtar’s career has been defined by a deeply personal focus on his Pakistani heritage, but this was not always the case. “Write what you know is very good advice, but I didn’t take it for a long time,” he told TCG. “I thought, what I know is not very universal, and nobody’s going to care about it. Because it doesn’t seem worthy of this very high calling: questioning the meaning of life.”

In his early 30s, however, “I started to sense that I was avoiding something about where I came from and who I was. It was something that I was avoiding in my work, but I was also avoiding it at the level of identity,” said Akhtar. “And I realized that the best way to respond to this growing awareness was just to be still about it and to see what happened. And at some point, I started to turn and look over my shoulder—metaphorically speaking—to see what I had been running from. And at that point, there was this burst of creativity. American Dervish came from that moment and so did Disgraced.”

However, Akhtar hasn’t given up on those deep questions that so intrigued him as a young man. In fact, the opposite is true. “I am trying to write to the universal. That is what I am trying to do. Period. End-of-story. What I hope is that by writing from a particular place—that I know and that I find fascinating and that I have a whole lot of love for and problems with—I can open onto the universal,” he said.

And he believes he has achieved that with Disgraced. “I wanted to create a tragic arc that was not noble and detached but something else; something that could reach an audience in a much more immediate way,” he said. “And one of the things that has been very gratifying about all this has been that there have been a bunch of people that have come out of the theatre unaccountably moved and they don’t know why. And that is the point.”

The Islamic Art of ‘Disgraced’

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 01:06:00 -0700

Linda Komaroff, who curates the Islamic art collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), noted that Isaac could save himself the trip to London by viewing the many great works of Islamic art on display at the nearby Metropolitan Museum of Art. Angelenos, too, are lucky enough to be able to view LACMA’s renowned works (which are currently traveling). Today, LACMA owns over 1,700 works of Islamic art; the museum began to concentrate seriously on the collection in 1973. Since 9/11, said Komaroff, Americans generally have grown more curious about Islamic art. “People have a much better sense now that there’s this culture or this civilization out there that’s called Islam, and they don’t know much about it,” she said.

That includes how Islamic art is defined. “We’re not talking about religious art,” said Komaroff, but rather about art created during “a period when the leadership or the predominant culture was Islam.” In fact, 75 percent or more of the Islamic objects you find in a museum are secular (or possibly secular). The term “Islamic art” covers work created over “a long period and an enormous geographical expanse,” said Komaroff, that stretches over 1,400 years, and from parts of Europe and the Middle East to South and Central Asia.

“The most distinguishable characteristic” of Islamic art, said Komaroff, “is something inscribed or covered in writing in Arabic script.” (It’s not necessarily the Arabic language but could also be Urdu—the language spoken by Amir’s family in Disgraced—Persian, or Turkish.) “That really has to do with the central role that writing takes in the religion of Islam,” said Komaroff. The Quran (which means “reading” or “recitation”) was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed, who was illiterate, as a book that he was able to read. As a result, “it became important to read in the language of the Quran, which is Arabic,” she said.

Arabic script is “the most obvious thing that unites all of Islamic art,” said Komaroff. “Writing is used to provide information but it’s also used as decoration” everywhere from art and architecture to clothing and drinking vessels in the medieval Islamic world.

The other major characteristic of Islamic art “is geometric designs and floral designs,” said Komaroff. (The Disgraced stage directions call for Emily and Amir’s living room to contain “a large painting: a vibrant, two-paneled image in luscious whites and blues, with patterns reminiscent of an Islamic garden.”)

Contrary to what many people think, “representational imagery is quite common” in Islamic art, said Komaroff. “You just don’t find it in a religious context. Objects of everyday use or things that clearly have a secular function have figures on them.” Those include illustrated manuscripts, textiles, sculptures, and ceramics. The Quran forbids making or worshiping an idol but does not forbid representational art; the Hadith (the second-most-important body of literature in Islam) includes injunctions against the making of images. “But it’s really unclear what it meant at the time,” said Komaroff. “It’s been interpreted later to be drawings, but they may have been referring to idols.”

In Disgraced, Emily tries to explain to Isaac why she finds Islamic art so inspirational—but also that she is not alone in being influenced by this tradition: “It’s time we woke up. Time we stop paying lip service to Islam and Islamic art. We draw on the Greeks, the Romans… —but Islam is part of who we are, too.”

Komaroff said that here in Los Angeles, we can see the influence of Islamic art on “what we think of as Southern California-style architecture. A stucco home with a red-tiled roof owes its inspiration indirectly to Islamic architecture,” which moved from Spain to Mexico and then to California. The Adamson House and Malibu Lagoon Museum, which was built by the family that created Malibu Potteries, features many tiles inspired by the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, an Islamic city.

Also featured prominently in Disgraced is a work of art that is not Islamic art geographically or chronologically but has a connection to Islamic Spain: Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of Juan de Pareja, a 1650 painting of Velázquez’s slave, whose mother was a Moor and whose father was Spanish, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website. “The fact that his first name is Juan, which is John, suggests that he’s no longer a practicing Muslim,” said Komaroff, because Jews and Muslims were expelled from Spain or forced to convert beginning in 1492. The characters in Disgraced refer to him as a Moor, but that term “doesn’t necessarily make him a practicing Muslim,” said Komaroff—but rather “someone of Muslim descent.” Which makes him perhaps not too different from Disgraced’s Amir.

‘Miscast’ for a Very Good Cause

Center Theatre Group — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 00:35:00 -0700

After dinner, Affiliates President Anne Bruner, event chair Marilyn Stambler, and the evening’s honoree, Mary Levin Cutler, took the stage to thank guests and discuss why they support Center Theatre Group. Cutler, an actress, ethnomusicologist, and lifelong theatre lover, talked about how proud she was to be honored by Center Theatre Group, noting that being named “Guardian Angel” by the Affiliates “feels like getting an Academy Award.”

After receiving an introduction from Artistic Director Michael Ritchie, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder cast members took over the stage to perform a truly unique cabaret show proving that John Rapson (who plays eight D’Ysquith heirs in the national tour that closed last month at the Ahmanson Theatre) is not the only actor in the company who can gender bend with aplomb. In Miscast: Songs We’ll Never Do From Roles We’ll Never Play, the Gentleman’s Guide actors performed their favorite show tunes—sung by the opposite sex. Accompanied by a live band and infused with personal touches, performances like Kristen Beth Williams and Adrienne Eller’s rendition of “Agony” (Into the Woods) and David Scott Purdy’s mash-up of “The Man I Love/My Man” (An American in Paris/Funny Girl) took down the house.

Between numbers, Angels’ Cabaret director Chuck Ragsdale shared some personal—often humorous—stories of the cast’s first theatrical experiences to highlight the significance of arts education in their lives, including an illegal fifth grade production of The Phantom of the Opera and a Raggedy Ann and Andy performance that skipped several pages of dialogue by accident.

“The performances were terrific, our donors and guests were wonderfully generous, and the Angels’ Cabaret exceeded our wildest expectations,” said Affiliates President Anne Bruner. “We are proud to continue our tradition of supporting Center Theatre Group’s amazing education and community programs.”

‘Disgraced’ Does Not Apologize

Center Theatre Group — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 18:00:00 -0700

In the Center Theatre Group Podcast, director Kimberly Senior called it “a nasty play” and one “that does not apologize.” She added, “Where things like empathy, and listening, and understanding come, is after the curtain has gone down. If we do the play correctly, that is what you are left feeling.”

In the podcast, Akhtar, who has faced criticism from the South Asian and Muslim American communities, said, “Is it good for the community or is it bad for the community is of course not a question that you can ask of an artistic work. It’s a question you ask of an ad campaign or a public relations announcement. If you don’t show characters in all of their humanity and their failings and their rage, then you don’t have characters that are interesting to an audience.”

But he remains proud of the fact that in Disgraced “there’s a role for a South Asian actor of talent and endowment to cut their teeth and really test their mettle against. If we don’t have roles like that as actors, then we can’t become those actors.” He added that for the actors who play the characters of Amir Kapoor and his nephew Abe, “Even if they find that story loathsome, it’s still a version of their story.”

Akhtar expanded on that idea in an article he wrote in advance of the play’s World premiere on Broadway.com, where he explained that he was initially inspired by seeing a terrific performance by an actor of Indian origin starring in Hamlet:

I started to imagine an American, of Muslim origin, whose identity was fissured at the root, a man haunted by contradictions and vibrancies maddening enough to draw out every ounce of acting talent in a first-rate actor of Pakistani-Indian, even Middle Eastern, descent.

I see the American experience as being defined by the immigrant paradigm of rupture and renewal: rupture with the old world, the old ways, and renewal of the self in a bright but difficult New World. Even generations after the initial familial departure, Americans recapitulate this rupture and renewal in their own lives, with their families, with their communities. The remaking of the self seems to be the most essential of American journeys.

In Disgraced, Amir Kapoor has undertaken this central American crossing. He has separated from the old-world ways of his Muslim childhood, has adopted every inflection and attitude required to remake himself into the brilliant American success story that he is. A corporate lawyer living in Carnegie Hill on the Upper East Side. In a splendid apartment. With a beautiful and brilliant American wife. And yet, the price of his willful rupture from the past remains partly unpaid, for in a post 9/11 America, anti-Muslim prejudice will not allow the still glowing ember of his childhood to be snuffed out.
In the course of what I hoped would be a taut and compelling 90 minutes, the pillars of Amir’s identity would be knocked out from under him. He would move from being charming and brilliant to vulnerable and broken, expressing along the way the wildest of human oppositions: rage and empathy, narcissism, generosity, penetrating brilliance, heartbreaking and speechless confusion. I wanted to write a tragedy, which required a reversal of Amir’s fortunes due to some human flaw. In Amir’s case it would be denial. Denial of his Muslim heritage, which a post 9/11 America will not let him forget.

A ‘Disgraced’ Library of Resources

Center Theatre Group — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 18:33:00 -0700

Ayad Akhtar

AyadAkhtar.com: Peruse the playwright’s official website, which contains up-to-date information on upcoming productions, his body of work, and relevant events.; Learn More
Theatre Communications Group: A conversation with Ayad Akhtar and Gabriel Greene: Disgraced may be Akhtar’s best-known play, but it is only part of his larger cycle of work which spans novels, screenplays, and (at least) two other plays. In 2013, Akhtar spoke to Theatre Communications Group about the origins of Disgraced, as well as that of his other plays (The Who & The What and The Invisible Hand) and his novel (American Dervish).; Watch Video
From the Headlines to the Footlights: The Enduring, Worldwide Relevancy of Ayad Akhtar’s "Disgraced": In September 2015, American Theatre magazine named Disgraced the most produced play in America—and its relevance has only continued to grow. In the Goodman Theatre blog, Akhtar and the cast of the Goodman’s 2015 production discuss the play’s enduring legacy as a conversation starter.; Learn More

Art

Velázquez’s “Portrait of Juan de Paraja”: Diego Velázquez’s famous portrait of his assistant is a major inspiration for Emily, a character in Disgraced who is a contemporary painter. “The Portrait of Juan de Paraja” is currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Their online catalog allows anyone to view the painting, learn more about its origin, and explore essays on Velázquez and his work.; Learn More
10 of Velázquez’s most famous paintings: The Goodman created a list of some of Velázquez’s most famous works. These provide an easy introduction to the aesthetic that so inspires Emily.; Learn More
Geometric Patterns in Islamic Art: Emily draws much of the inspiration for her work from traditions she observes in Islamic art. These traditions—she argues—have been largely overlooked by art historians because of their origins outside the Western world. This blog post from the Metropolitan Museum of Art provides both context and examples of this work from their own collections.; Learn More

Islamophobia

"The Imam’s Curse": In Disgraced, Amir, a character who works as an attorney at a Manhattan law firm, consults on a criminal case in which a Muslim religious leader (Imam Fareed) has been accused of funneling money to a terrorist organization through his mosque. In September 2015, The New Yorker covered a case in which a Pakistani American family faced similar charges from the U.S. government.; Learn More
"Living Through Terror, in Rawalpindi and Boston": When the second bomb exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013, Haider Javed Warraich was across the street. He wrote this op-ed for the New York Times the day after the bombing, candidly wondering if he should start telling people that he was born in India rather than his native Pakistan.; Learn More
Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project: The UC Berkeley Center for Race and Gender Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project is a database of articles, political cartoons, videos, photos, and other resources on the subject of Islamophobia in America and abroad.; Learn More

Podcasts

'The Center Theatre Group Podcast': “Ayad Akhtar and Kimberly Senior In Conversation”: Ayad Akhtar and Director Kimberly Senior talk about the genesis of Disgraced, its subsequent popularity, and our Mark Taper Forum production in this podcast from Center Theatre Group.; Listen
'#GoodMuslimBadMuslim': Zahra Noorbakhsh and Tanzila Ahmed make up the two halves of the #GoodMuslimBadMuslim podcasts—a frank and hilarious look at what it’s like to be a modern Muslim American woman.; Listen
'On Being': "Reza Aslan—Islam’s Reformation": Scholar and author Dr. Reza Aslan discusses his own religious history and offers historical context for modern religions, with a particular focus on Islam. On Being, which is hosted by Krista Tippet, is an intimate look at religion and spirituality as a subject of discussion, interrogation, and interest.; Listen

Production

'Disgraced' Does Not Apologize: On the Center Theatre Group Podcast, director Kimberly Senior and Ayad Akhtar discussed their pride in the play—despite the fact that it can be difficult for audiences to experience. And in an article by Akhtar excerpted here, he explains why he created the polarizing character of Amir.; Learn More