Center Theatre Group News & Blogs

The Ground on Which I Stand

Center Theatre Group — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 00:22:00 -0700

“That speech blew the conference up,” said Benny Sato Ambush, a director and artistic director who has worked at both black and white theatres around the country, and who is currently Senior Distinguished Producer in Residence at Emerson College and 2016 Artist in Residence at New York University. “I remember quite distinctly that after it was over, people were scurrying about, moving fast, and chattering loudly almost immediately. It was a burst in that auditorium.”

Ambush did not agree with all of the points Wilson had made, but he recognized immediately that people needed to engage in a dialogue about them. Clusters of like-minded people were talking amongst themselves, but not with people of different perspectives. Ambush organized an open forum the next day to do just that. “We had a session underneath a tent,” he said. “And man was it crowded. And we talked for at least three hours. Nonstop.” A second three-hour session followed.

In a theatre magazine later that year, Ambush wrote:

Juggling disparate viewpoints, we managed to achieve—if only for a little while—a non-judgmental atmosphere of communal revelation, an empowering act for many of us. Results and answers meant less than the process of stumbling toward honest engagement across racial, cultural, class, geographic, gender, and generational divides…Although we are far from solving the problems of race and inclusion in theatre, we took important steps toward a free dialogue working toward possible solutions.

Ambush believes that Wilson’s speech continued to reverberate through the theatre world well after the conference ended. “I have to believe it had a ripple effect,” he said. “Anybody who was there in that auditorium during that address was affected by it in one way or the other. It was that kind of catalyzing address.”

The address also earned Wilson pushback, most notably from Robert Brustein, a theatre critic and the founding director of Yale Repertory and American Repertory theatres. Brustein and Wilson sparred in the press before facing off at a sold-out event in New York City moderated by actress Anna Deavere Smith. Brustein’s main point of contention was that Wilson’s perspective—and his desire to make theatre political—undermined “the basic function of dramatic art.”

Writing about the debate shortly after, Ambush noted that it offered the theatre community another opportunity for self-assessment:

Over issues of who should speak for whom, who should have authority and custodianship of whose art, who gets to define whom, and who gets to play what parts on stage, the two men’s beliefs represent diametrically opposed viewpoints that can serve as guideposts for the rest of us to gauge where we stand.

So where, exactly, does American theatre stand today when it comes to the questions of race and culture that Wilson grappled with two decades ago? We haven’t solved all the problems Wilson presented, said Ambush. But we have made progress. “The inclusion of our different culturally specific racial and ethnic points of view is better than it was,” said Ambush, noting that the proof is in the wide range of plays being produced at regional theatres around the country today. However, “funding is [still] disproportionately low and unequal” for black and ethnically specific theatres.

“We have to be vigilant because this is America, and racism abounds, and there’s a blindness there in many people,” said Ambush—an observation that the #BlackLivesMatter and #OscarsSoWhite campaigns, and the events that preceded them, carry out. But American theatre—and global theatre—is almost certainly better for August Wilson and the issues he brought to light, said Ambush.

“I suppose like any of us, all artists, he was not without his contradictions, but he spoke clearly about where he stood, unapologetically,” said Ambush. “I appreciate him for that, applaud him for that, and if nothing else, he got us talking about things. I don’t know if he intended to blow up that conference, but it got us somewhere else than where we were before he gave that address.”

A World Premiere Ripped from the Headlines

Center Theatre Group — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 00:50:00 -0700

“I wanted to write a play in which someone’s presentation—the thing they are pitching and selling—becomes as important, if not more important than the fabric of their character,” explained Baitz, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Other Desert Cities, which appeared at the Mark Taper Forum in 2012. Our current election “seemed like the perfect opportunity to explore such a story.”

In a world of 24-hour news cycles, Twitter meltdowns, and political discourse that resembles a schoolyard brawl more often than it resembles serious debate, Baitz feels that artists have a responsibility to respond. “I believe that, right now, art can do something that is harder for the media to do,” he said. “It can examine and explore—not simply report on—it can perhaps locate and explore the level of sanity in our culture.”

Still, it’s tricky to make art when the truth often seems stranger than fiction. “At a certain point, your job as a writer of drama—of craft—has to take precedence over current events, especially when this election is so preposterous and defies credulity in so many ways,” said Baitz.

Playwright Jon Robin Baitz on the first day of rehearsal for the world premiere of his play “Vicuña” at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre. Photo by Craig Schwartz.

It’s a lesson he learned while writing his first play, Mizlansky/Zilinksy or ‘Schmucks,’ which began with dialogue Baitz copied verbatim from the “two crooked film producers” he was working for as an assistant. “What I created was this kind of ‘best-of’ compilation tape,” he said. “Later, when I had a few more years under my belt and the play was being done at Manhattan Theatre Club—I realized that the play was essentially plotless.” With Vicuña, he changed tacks and stopped listening to the candidates’ every utterance and the daily fluctuations of the race. “Even though the material I was drawing from was so rich, I had to leave aside ‘the real’ in order to live in some actual plot,” he said.

This allowed him to double down on the play’s central question: “At what point do you recognize how you subvert your own beliefs in order to be successful, and at what point do you stop subverting your beliefs in order to hold on to the basic qualities that make you decent?” That’s achieved in part through the presidential candidate character, a man Baitz described as “a xenophobic, semi-Fascistic demagogue who’s deeply cynical.” But it’s also done through the tailor, “an immigrant with his own secrets, his own compromises, and mythologies.”

That character is based partly on Washington, D.C. tailor Georges de Paris, an immigrant who hand-stitched suits for every president from Lyndon B. Johnson to Barack Obama, and who died in 2015. Vicuña wool itself also has D.C. ties. In a 1958 scandal dubbed the Vicuña Coat Affair, Sherman Adams, an aide to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, resigned after receiving suspect gifts—including an expensive vicuña coat. Seem a bit ridiculous? Then consider this: today, an off-the-rack vicuña suit can cost upwards of $20,000, and a custom-made suit can easily cost as much as $50,000.

Vicuña is the seventh play and the fourth World premiere by Baitz to be produced by Center Theatre Group since 1989. “I guess you could say that my relationship with Center Theatre Group is probably my longest relationship in the American theatre,” he said. Plus, “[Artistic Director] Michael Ritchie was my stage manager at Bay Street Theater on my first production of Three Hotels,” in 1992. “We’ve been friends ever since.”

Baitz credits this friendship with giving him the freedom to write Vicuña in the first place. “I was able to show him scraps and bits of very early parts of this. I guess he trusted that I’d turn those scraps into a play.” And in politics (and art), perhaps that’s all that matters.

Getting into Character for ‘A View From the Bridge’

Center Theatre Group — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 00:53:00 -0700

Van Hove himself said that this play “fits as a glove” with this set of actors—the third such group he’s directed in this production. “I always allow people to bring their own personality to it,” he said. “It’s important in this case that the personality of the actor shines onstage; it’s not only playing a character.”

For Catherine Combs, who plays Catherine, that’s easy in part because of the name she shares with her character. “It’s actually a very emotional thing to hear someone say your name onstage,” she said. “It’s spelled the same, it feels the same.” She added, “It always helps when you really like a character, and I really liked her.” Combs finds great resonance in Catherine’s coming-of-age. “There aren’t many parts for young women that have this kind of trajectory,” she said. “There really is something very dynamic about her. You watch her grow up.” The knowledge Catherine gains over the course of the play is devastating and particular—but also universal. “I feel like what happens to Catherine is, once you know, you can’t un-know it,” said Combs. “The interesting thing is at the beginning of the play, before that happens, you sort of watch. I mean I think growing up is a tragedy, in a small way, and not in a bad way. But there is something that gets lost.”

Thomas Jay Ryan plays Alfieri, the lawyer, who serves as a kind of Greek chorus to the story. “In the play as written, the character is very much on the outside of the action in a sense. He operates as a narrator,” said Ryan. “One of the great successes of this production—as opposed to many other very good ones—is that Ivo has figured out this character.” Ryan explained that as Alfieri, in van Hove’s eyes, “I know how it’s going to end, and I’m in a sense warning the audience, this is how it’s going to end.” In the second half of the play, Alfieri tries to change the course of the action. “You try to jump in and alter what you know is inexorably going to happen…and you can’t help trying to change the destiny that you’re talking about,” said Ryan. “And that’s an amazing thing to play, and it’s an amazing responsibility to have in the production.”

Frederick Weller, who plays Eddie Carbone, quoted Alfieri in explaining why he likes his character: “‘But I think I love him more than my sensible clients because he was completely himself.’” Weller explained, “Eddie I think is a strangely beautiful guy…He dies because of an excess of a certain virtue, although that virtue is a little strange and murky.” Eddie’s love for Catherine, his niece, is a virtue in a sense. “But it’s also what she thinks of him, and what his community thinks of him, and that’s more important to him than life,” said Weller. “And so when he finds himself protecting his niece to the point that it jeopardizes her view of him, because he takes certain actions that have destroyed, ironically, their love, he’s got to risk his life to get it back.”

Storytelling Podcasts for fans of ‘Throw Me On the Burnpile and Light Me Up’

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 23 Sep 2016 21:34:00 -0700

The Memory Palace: The Memory Palace is the brainchild of the current artist-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nate DiMeo. It combines stories from history with the sensibility, sensitivity, and linguistic flourish normally associated with poetry. But make no mistake, DiMeo’s tales are expertly researched and magically crafted. Some of our favorite episodes include “Harriet Quimby” and “Local Channels.”
Criminal: Criminal is a podcast about crime for people who want more from true-crime than the usual fare of solved and unsolved murders. It is a podcast about the first woman to create a marijuana empire. It is a podcast about a tiger in a gas station in Louisiana. It is a podcast about people who have ventured outside the bounds of the law and have touched (or been touched) by the darker side of life. Some of our favorite episodes include “The Editor” and “The Brownie Lady.”
You Must Remember This: A storytelling podcast about Hollywood’s first century, You Must Remember This explores everything from the midcentury blacklist to MGM’s star-making machine. All the while, film critic Karina Longworth populates her stories with some of the silver screen’s most famous and infamous characters. Learn about Arthur Miller’s life during the time he wrote A View From the Bridge, or open your ears for the liberated life of Joan Crawford. Some of our favorites include “After the Fall: Arthur Miller” and “Monsieur Verdoux: Charlie Chaplin’s Road to Hollywood Exile.”
StartUp: StartUp was the pilot podcast for < a href="https://gimletmedia.com/" target="_blank">Gimlet Media and began as a self-referential look at what it takes to start a business. Season one chronicles former NPR producer and journalist Alex Blumberg’s successes (and failures) as he attempts to launch a new podcasting company. However, since its success, StartUp has turned its storytelling lens on other companies wrapped in both the revelries of success and the throes of defeat. Our favorite episodes include “Dear Music Fans” and “Gaming the System.”
Lore: Lore is a history podcast for horror aficionados. In each episode, Aaron Mahnke explores the real-life origins of some of the world’s most beloved tales of terror—from the possibly American origins of the vampire to the world’s earliest accounts of haunted lighthouses. Lore is a fantastic journey into the stories that go bump in the night. Some of our favorites include “They Made a Tonic” and “Take the Stand.”
Limetown: Limetown is a podcast for lovers of radio dramas and NPR journalism alike. The six episodes contained in season one explore a science fiction mystery centered around a small southern town—told in the style of investigative journalism. The voice acting is top-notch, and the writing has more plot turns than an Agatha Christie novel. This story is sequential so make sure to start with episode one, “What We Know.”
Accused: Accused is a true-crime podcast for anyone who loved Serial. This new podcast from the Cincinnati Enquirer focuses on the 37-year-old unsolved murder of Elizabeth Andes. Just like Serial, this is an impeccably crafted long-form narrative that only gets better with every episode. The best part? Accused only started a few weeks ago, so the end is still very much unknown. As with Limetown, this is a podcast that must be heard from the very beginning, so make sure to start with “Chapter 1: The Crime.”
The Moth: No list of storytelling podcasts would be complete without mentioning The Moth. This celebration of the raconteur invites real people to tell stories from their lives without notes, in front of a live audience. Sometimes hilarious, other times heartbreaking, The Moth not only celebrates the power of a good story; it celebrates the confounding beauty of the human condition. Recent episodes of note include “LA Confidential ” and “Pagan Fundraisers, Blue Haired Boy, Autism, and Oscar.”

Two Levees in Conversation

Center Theatre Group — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 19:12:00 -0700

Playing Levee, said Jason Dirden, who takes on the role in our production, is “scary but also a lot of fun. He’s unedited. He’s very impulsive. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think before he speaks.”

Wayne Mackins-Harris, a sophomore at Fordham University in New York City, nodded along as Dirden talked about the role, actor-to-actor. Mackins-Harris, who is majoring in theatre at Fordham, also played the role of Levee onstage at the Taper, in the 2015

Center Theatre Group — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 21:47:00 -0700

There’s a lot for her to love in the role of the title character in August Wilson’s the Kirk Douglas Theatre and have continued to support new work and other initiatives over the past decade as members of the Board of Directors for years, and was honored in 2014 for her individual commitment when we named the Anne Douglas Control Booth at the Douglas. Kirk performed onstage at the Douglas in his autobiographical one-man show Before I Forget in 2009. ("It’s not often that a man in his 90s gets to practice his craft before a live audience and talk about himself for 90 minutes to boot," said Douglas.) They have attended many Opening Nights at the Douglas and have been on-hand for other memorable moments in the theatre’s history. "What could have been better than congratulating Robin Williams after his performance of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo on Broadway, knowing that this extraordinary play had its premiere in a regional theatre bearing my name?" said Douglas.

Douglas has written and spoken on numerous occasions about theatre being his first love ever since his kindergarten stage debut; he ended up in the movies almost by accident. (Film paychecks were "enough to finance me through the next round of Broadway flops," he joked about the beginning of his career.) In his first autobiography, 1988’s The Ragman’s Son, he wrote, "Doing a play is like dancing to music. Making a movie is like dancing in wet cement."

Douglas, who turned 99 last year, remains a believer in the power of the art form, pointing to this year’s enormous Tony Awards^® audience as a sign of its endurance. "I cannot imagine a world without theatre," he said. Lucky for Los Angeles, he is one of the people ensuring its future here.

10 Blueswomen who Changed Music Forever

Center Theatre Group — Thu, 08 Sep 2016 19:53:00 -0700

Perhaps that’s why, in the 1920s, the blues filled the smoky halls of illegal speakeasies and the mahogany studies of East Coast aristocrats alike. It fueled a fledgling recording industry as well as the careers of America’s first celebrities of color, including “Mother of the Blues” Ma Rainey. But Ma was only part of a pantheon of pioneering blueswomen who revolutionized the world of entertainment by singing about the dark side of life—bad relationships, loneliness, money troubles. In honor of Ma’s run at the Taper, we’ve put together a list of some of our favorite blueswomen as well as a playlist of the music they used to understand the language of life.

Ethel Waters (1896 – 1977): Ethel Waters’ career was as long as it was illustrious. She began singing in Philadelphia nightclubs when she was only 14 and continued working until her death in 1977. She was the first African-American to perform on the radio, a constant presence on Broadway, and an Oscar-nominated Hollywood actor. She was famous for her precise timing and well-defined phrasing, which she employed to great effect with classics such as “Stormy Weather” and “St. Louis Blues.” For the last 15 years of her life, Waters toured alongside the evangelist Billy Graham, recording hymns and devotionals for his crusades such as “His Eye is on the Sparrow”(a song that would eventually become her signature). Yet Waters died in near poverty, subsisting off a paltry drawing from Social Security and the kindness of her friends and family. Even so, according to her obituary in the L.A. Times, those who were close to her reported, She was happy, even sick and broke as she was. To the end she affirmed her faith as in the song that had come to mean so much to her: “I’m sittin’ on the edge of heaven—and His eye is still on me…”
Marion Harris (1896 – 1944): The early life of Marion Harris is shrouded in mystery. However, in 1917 she cemented her place in music history by becoming the first woman to record a rendition of a jazz song (or at least the first woman to record one with the word “jazz” in the title): “I’m a Jazz Vampire.” She was a constant presence on New York stages throughout the ’20s and even made an MGM feature, Devil May Care. During the ’30s, she spent much of her time in London, where she performed at the Café de Paris as well as on the BBC. In 1944, she died tragically in a hotel fire after falling asleep with a lit cigarette. She is famous for standards such as “Tea for Two” and “Look for the Silver Lining.”
Clara Smith (1894 – 1935): Though unrelated to—and overshadowed by—the more famous Bessie Smith, Clara Smith is considered to be one of the most well-respected blueswomen of the ’20s. Smith arrived in New York in 1923 and went on to record 122 songs with artists such as Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, and Bessie Smith herself. The two Smiths were actually close personal friends until Bessie, reportedly drunk one night in 1925, physically attacked Clara. Smith’s vocal style was deep and soulful, earning her the nickname “Queen of the Moaners.” She died of a heart attack in 1935 at the age 40, but not before she cut her legacy into the vinyl of a Columbia record with songs like “Sobbin’ Sister Blues” and “Woman to Woman.”
Mae Glover (1906 – 1946): At the age of 13, Lillie Mae Glover ran away from home to sing in a traveling show. She told a reporter years later, I wanted to sing the blues, but my father was a pastor, and the blues were looked on in those days as dirty music. And for me to stay in Nashville would have been a disgrace for my family. Suffering from something of an identity crisis (or simply butting up against the difficulties of being an African-American woman in the recording industry), Glover recorded music under many names including May Armstrong and Ma Rainey II (after Ma Rainey’s death in 1939), and became a fixture on the world-famous Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1981, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Music and Entertainment for songs such as “Joe Boy Blues” and “Lonesome Atlanta Blues.”
Mamie Smith (1883 – 1946)
: While Ma Rainey may be referred to as the “Mother of the Blues,” Mamie Smith may be equally deserving of the title. Her 1920 record Crazy Blues was both the first blues record ever recorded and the first blues smash hit, appealing to both white America and people of color. In fact, its success is lauded as the event that alerted record companies to the popularity of the blues as a musical genre (as well as the potential market in records made by and for minority groups). But perhaps Mamie’s biggest accomplishment was paving the way for every blueswoman to follow, shaping the archetype as a woman of glamor, taste, and refinement. Yet by the end of the ’20s, Smith’s career was over. She reportedly died penniless and forgotten in 1946 before being buried in an unmarked community grave. Even so, her influence remained. Seventeen years after her death, musicians in Iserlohn, West Germany, organized a benefit to buy Mamie a tombstone. Before shipping the stone to New York to be interred at the Frederick Douglas Memorial Park, they inscribed it with the message: “Mamie Smith 1893 – 1946, First Lady of the Blues.”
Victoria Spivey (1906 – 1976): Born into a family of musicians, Victoria Spivey got her start in Texas, touring with her father’s string band, then setting out on her own after his death. Spivey was an unusual artist for the time in that she wrote most of her own music and often accompanied herself on the piano. Even more unusual was that her music brazenly explored taboo subjects including sex, drugs, and violence. These “dirty” blues (as they were called) are probably best exemplified by Spivey’s first hit, an extremely thinly veiled lament titled “Black Snake Blues” as well as the incredibly direct “Dope Head Blues.” Spivey is, perhaps, most unusual for the fact that she ended her career not as a performer, but as a record mogul. In the early ’60s, Spivey and her boyfriend founded Spivey Records, which produced albums for artists such as Bob Dylan and Memphis Slim.
Edith Wilson (1896 – 1981): Edith Wilson is considered one of the first great crossover artists who introduced the blues to white audiences. She devoted most of the ’20s to touring the globe in musical revues, spreading the influence of early blues and jazz beyond the American continent and into the waters of the world music market. However, Wilson is probably most famous for being the face of Aunt Jemima pancake syrup until the ’50s. She was also an active member of the Negro Actors’ guild—an organization founded with the goal of creating opportunities for black actors in the entertainment industry. She died of a cerebral brain hemorrhage in 1980, but not before recording songs like “How Come You Do Me Like You Do?” and “Loving You The Way I Do.”
Ida Cox (1896 – 1967): Born Ida Prather, Ida Cox—like many blues singers—began her career on the vaudeville circuit. In 1923, she made her first of many recordings with Columbia Records—a track titled “Graveyard Blues.” Cox worked steadily throughout the ’20s and while she may not be as well-known as Ma Rainey or Bessie Smith, she was popular enough to be known as the “Uncrowned Queen of the Blues.” While Victoria Spivey may have been famous for her “dirty” blues, it was Ida Cox who made them possible—a fact best exemplified by her 1924 hit “Wild Women Don’t have the Blues.” In 1945, Cox suffered a stroke and all but retired from the recording industry, singing exclusively for her church choir until 1961 when she made her final recording, the album Blues for Rampart Street.
Sippie Wallace (1898 – 1986)
Bessie Smith (1894 – 1937): The late, great Bessie Smith was once known as the “Empress of the Blues.” Born in Tennessee in 1894, Smith began her recording career in 1923 with a contract at Columbia. Before that, Ma Rainey famously took the young Smith under her wing as a protégée (and, according to some, a lover). Smith’s hits are too numerous to count, but some of her most famous recordings include “Backwater Blues” and “St. Louis Blues” (which she recorded with Louis Armstrong). Smith’s star rose high during the ’20s, but by the ’30s she was beginning to fall into the depths of obscurity. Still, Smith continued to tour until a car accident led to her death at age 43. Smith’s legacy and influence continue to make their mark on young artists of all kinds, even 80 years after her death. In 2015, HBO premiered Bessie—a biopic based on Smith’s life and starring Queen Latifah—bringing Smith, once again, into the spotlight where she was most comfortable.

In Memoriam: Andy Arnold 1958 – 2016

Center Theatre Group — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 23:47:00 -0700

Before joining I.A.T.S.E. Local 33, Andy was a longtime and valued member of I.A.T.S.E. Local 44. Prior to coming onboard at the Ahmanson, he ran special effects for the TV show Survivor and before that for CBS.

Andy worked on approximately 40 productions at the Ahmanson from 2005 – 2016, becoming a full-time staff member in 2009. His first show as a crew member at the Ahmanson was Dead End, and his first show as Flyman was Spring Awakening. Other notable productions he worked on included the World premieres of 9 to 5: The Musical and Leap of Faith as well as the pre-Broadway runs of The Drowsy Chaperone and Curtains.

Ahmanson Head Carpenter Shawn Anderson said that Leap of Faith was particularly intense and challenging for Andy, who supervised a crew on the rail for the show that was in charge of moving extremely heavy pieces of scenery. “It was one of our more difficult rail shows,” said Anderson, “and he was able to come up with solutions. He was innovative in solving the difficulty of the show.”

Such innovation was typical of Andy. “He took pride in his work. Any time he could improve upon a situation—that was his main motivation,” said Anderson. “If there was something that maybe was a bit of a hindrance or a hang-up, a week later he’d come to me with a drawing, and say, ‘Look at this, maybe we should think about doing this.’”

His ingenuity and eagerness to help weren’t limited to his work. “It wasn’t like you had to say, ‘Hey Andy, can you help me with this?’” said Technical Director and Ahmanson Production Manager Joe Hamlin. “He would see that you needed help, and he would just take care of it. He was an all-around good guy.”

“He loved helping people,” added Anderson.

Andy was part of a crew that worked long hours, nights, and weekends at the theatre. Ahmanson Prop Man Stan Steelmon was quick to praise Andy as “a great flyman and a great stagehand” whose craftsmanship “was unsurpassed.” But he also talked about him as a man who “always had a smile on his face. He was such a nice guy,” said Steelmon. He would volunteer to help colleagues outside of work using his welding and construction skills. And he always had knowledge to offer, whether it was what prop to use to make corn on the cob steam onstage (a humidifier) or the benefits of buying organic meat. “He was a renaissance man,” added Steelmon.