Center Theatre Group News & Blogs

First Love, Rendered in the Stars and on our Stages

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 12:41:00 -0800

'The Mystery of Love & Sex'

(L-R) Sharon Lawrence, York Walker, Mae Whitman, and David Pittu in "The Mystery of Love and Sex" at the Mark Taper Forum. Photo by Craig Schwartz.

(L-R) Ryder Bach and Curt Hansen in "Girlfriend" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Photo by Craig Schwartz.
Set to the tunes of Matthew Sweet’s 1991 rock album of the same name, Girlfriend tells the tale of two 18-year-olds in 1990s Nebraska. Mike—the high school power player—is about to start a pre-med degree to appease his father. Outcast Will, on the other hand, is just happy to be finished with the humiliation of high school life. When Mike gives Will a mixtape of his favorite music, the two begin a courtship that is as tender as it is fragile. Girlfriend played the Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2015 and featured actors Ryder Bach as Will and Curt Hansen (from Broadway’s Next to Normal) as Mike.
'different words for the same thing'

(L-R) Erick Lopez and Savannah Lathem in "different words for the same thing" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Photo by Craig Schwartz.
In much the same way that Thorton Wilder’s Our Town explored the interweaving complexities of 1930ns New Hampshire, different words for the same thing tells the tale of Nampa, Idaho as seen through the lens of a single family. While much of the play focuses on the relationship between a prodigal daughter and her parents, one of its central plot lines follows the relationship between teenage Sylvie and her father’s Mexican employee, Frankie—a relationship her father does not approve of. different words for the same thing played the Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2014.
'The Cripple of Inishmaan'

Tadhg Murphy and Clare Dunne in the Druid and Atlantic Theatre Company production of "The Cripple of Inishmaan" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Photo by Craig Schwartz.
Martin McDonagh is not a playwright known for gushy tales of teenage romance. But The Cripple of Inishmaan is another story. Billy, the cripple of our story, dreams of making his mark—and impressing the town tough girl, Helen. If the prospect of a teenage romance isn’t daunting enough, their courtship is made ever more complicated by Billy’s claim that he is suffering from tuberculosis—which may or may not actually be true. The Cripple of Inishmaan played the Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2011 and was the first time The Beauty Queen of Leenane) directed a play on our stages.
'Spring Awakening'

The cast of the national tour of "Spring Awakening." Photo by Paul Kolnik.
This quintessential tale of teen angst, sexual frustration, and 20^th century repression first rocketed to the status of pop-culture sensation in 2007. What begins as a rather straightforward tale of girl-meets-boy is quickly complicated with a teen pregnancy, a botched abortion, and a lamentably preventable suicide that, together, expose the complicated landscape of teenage life bubbling beneath the surface of propriety and social expectations. Spring Awakening rocked the Ahmanson Theatre in 2008.
'Edward Scissorhands'

Richard Winsor in "Edward Scissorhands" at the Mark Taper Forum. Photo by Bill Cooper.
Edward Scissorhands is a classic tale of girl meets boy with scissors for hands. Matthew Bourne’s contemporary dance adaptation of Tim Burton’s much-loved feature of the same name tells the tale of the troubled romance between a suburban girl and the sensitive (if delightfully clueless) Frankenstein-ian boy her mother finds in a creepy castle just outside of town. Equal parts fairy tale and high school melodrama about just how hard it is to be an outcast, Edward Scissorhands manages to take an insane premise and imbue it with all the beauty and horror of American adolescent life at the end of the 20^th century. Edward Scissorhands played the Ahmanson in 2006.
'Romeo and Juliet'

No list of teenage love stories would be complete without Shakespeare’s masterpiece of hate and love in equal measure. The plot hardly needs explanation, as it has served as the source material for countless adaptations of all artistic flavors from West Side Story to the Underworld films. It is the quintessential tale of star-crossed lovers (and it’s also where the phrase originates). But no matter what form it takes, Romeo and Juliet is an enduring tale of the power of love (and death) to shape the world at large. As ubiquitous as Romeo and Juliet may be, it has only graced Center Theatre Group stages one time—in 2001.
'Les Misérables

Sutton Foster and Tim Howar in "Les Miserables." Photo by Joan Marcus.
The musical version of Victor Hugo’s classic novel first made tidal waves in the theatrical world when it premiered in Paris in 1980. Since then, Les Misérables has toured the world, been turned into a Hollywood film, and created a ravenous fan base of a scale only matched by the likes of Hamilton or Rent. Les Misérables features a French Revolution-era romance between Cossette and a young bourgeois intellectual named Marius…who is also the object of the affections of poverty-stricken Eponine. A young Sutton Foster played Eponine when Les Misérables played the Ahmanson in 2000 (fun fact: Les Misérables played the Ahmanson again in 2011).

Pachuco: A Conversation of The Americas

Richard Montoya — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 15:09:00 -0800

Poster from the Center Theatre Groups New Theatre For Now production of Zoot Suit Artwork by José Montoya.

Webster’s Dictionary now describes pachuco with all the economy of a José Montoya etching. That the word exists there in the “P” section of the bible of English definitions is a testament to a dedicated dramatist, poets, songwriters, and novelists. Chief among them is Luis Valdez, who along with Lalo Guerrero, Raul Salinas, Montoya, and the titan of Mexican writers, Octavio Paz, all played key roles in this star turn for a single word and its inclusion on the bookshelves of nearly every teaching institution in the Americas. No small feat, and perhaps just as important and remarkable is the dialogue that proceeded the placement of the loaded word in this good book: an artistic conversation that spanned the better part of a century and moved up and down the Western Hemisphere like a literary shadow cloud specter ignoring all manner of walls and borders.

In the poem "Pachuco Portfolio," for example, Montoya dedicates his poem to his idol Mexican comic and an early innovator of pachucismo style and manner: "…Pa’ Tin Tan y la Tonya y su carnal Marcelo…" Tin Tan brought élan, humor, and comedic precision as sharp as the creases in his drapes to his nightclub act and films. With a sprinkling of Chicano-tinged caló in his speech, Tin Tan was resplendent and communicating in the finest zoot suits the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema could manufacture. Puro basilon. Puro pachuco el paisa!

Mexican-American kids of the late 1940s were soaking up the eternally cool Mexican comics like Resortes at Saturday matinee movie houses all over the Southwest where "Spanish" films were shown. Post-war American chavolos with shoeshine boxes ready to shine the calcos of their older pachuco brothers and uncles, many of whom returning home from The War, where they served with uncommon valor and honors. These pioneering pachucos left indelible impressions on the young minds of a generation that literally looked up to and followed them.

Noun 1. Pachuco

A Mexican-American teenager who belongs to a neighborhood gang and who dresses in showy clothes.

Though we may quibble with Webster’s un-flowery definition, I urge you instead to read a poem by Raul Salinas, a pachuco/pinto/poeta who tripped through the complexities of barrio streets and jails with graceful elegance.

Or consider the genius of Lalo Guerrero, who shone a bright ballroom light on our ability to sing, shout, and code switch all night long and in rhythm! Don Lalo bending his bolero guitar chords toward boogie-woogie and laying them at the doorstep of rhythm and blues while never forsaking his Barrio Viejo roots as he strode proudly alongside Cab Calloway.

Of Octavio Paz we read in Montoya’s pachuco elegy where he poetically challenges the Literary Lion of Mexico: “…Octavio Peace Brother didn’t get us into his Labyrinth and was made the nobler?" A reference to Paz’s monumental The Labyrinth of Solitude. That this literary pairing took decades to gestate and unfold is remarkable. Writers wrestling with the exact moment when Mexicans became Chicanos, it may be contested but most agree that the molecular moment happened at the border of El Paso, Texas, or better known as El Chuco! And the vatos certainly wore modified zoot suits with jazz-like improvisation but always with our own unique sense of rasquachismo. It is with no irony that the best tailors of the region in those times resided across the Rio Grande in a place called Juarez, Mexico!

Who copied whom matters little in the final analysis. Like the origins of our entire history, it is complex. Akin to uncoiling the riddle of who created film noir: was it Bogart's smile staring down a barrel of a gun, the fog of London, or the moment French existentialist writer Jean Paul Sartre stepped off a plane in the New York mist turning up his collar and pulling down his fedora? (Which Bogart immediately copied.)

The Old Poets would be happy to know that we’re back on the mainstage and finally into an elusive "Labyrinth." Valdez’s landmark revival is living, breathing, poetic proof of it. The tectonic plates of a hemisphere shift slightly as Mr. Bichir carries nearly a century of conversations on his broad pachuco shoulders. Don’t worry he can handle it ese! That’s part of the beauty and blue-collar barrio practicality of the zoot armor.

Before there was a divisive line we were one. Following the brutal and bloody winter of our presidential election, where nearly all who came from Mexico were vilified, now thanks to Valdez and crew we can delight in adding an important vocation that also journeyed north from south: one of Mexico’s finest actors. It makes perfect poetic sense. Prologue is epilogue and in the words of Cesar Chavez, who was also known to wear a zoot suit in his youth: "It doesn’t matter when you get there, only that you do get there…" Now we are there thanks to the ancestors and to the singular genius and tenacity of El Maestro Luis Valdez. Todos Somos Pachucos!

Investing in New Talent

Center Theatre Group — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 12:57:00 -0800

The question of how to tap into one of this city’s great natural resources—its pool of writing talent—is in part what drove Center Theatre Group to collaborate on last year’s Humanitas Playwriting Prize recognizing the best new unproduced play by a writer based in Southern California.

In February 2016, Ngozi Anyanwu, a recent UC San Diego graduate, became the first Humanitas winner. Her debut play, Zoot Suit made its World premiere at the Mark Taper Forum in 1978, the Chicano story had long been part of the American story and the L.A. story. But that hadn’t been reflected on the nation’s stages. Zoot Suit became a major hit and the first Chicano play on Broadway. We’re proud to be bringing this important play back for its first Los Angeles revival as part of our 50^th Anniversary Season. Unfortunately, this story of racial injustice remains all too relevant; fortunately, we are once again able to provide a forum for it at the Taper.

Over the past decade, Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir 50^th Anniversary timeline.

Passing the Baton of Art and Activism

Center Theatre Group — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 15:26:00 -0800

"Zoot Suit is a quintessential Los Angeles play," said Valdez. "It represents the fabric of this city, the internal strife, the Sturm und Drang of Los Angeles, what forced it to be the city that it is today: human confrontation, but eventually resolution." He added that for Americans, "cultural expression is your most basic human right, so it is my privilege to be back at the Mark Taper Forum to celebrate the resurgence of Zoot Suit and…of a certain kind of social consciousness in Los Angeles that takes us into the future."

Ritchie then introduced Culture Clash and their relationship to Valdez. "In some ways, you are inheritors of an art, and you had a mentor as artists and activists," said Ritchie. "Luis had an influence on your careers, individually and collectively. Had you seen Zoot Suit originally? And where are you today in bringing this art form and this activism even further into the 21^st century?"

"We’re all alumni of El Teatro Campesino," the theatre company Luis Valdez co-founded, said Richard Montoya, adding that they learned their work ethic there. "In terms of Zoot Suit being an inspiration, it’s haunting for me. El Pachuco is our founding father in many ways."

Herbert Siguenza called Valdez "immeasurable and essential…for Latino theatre makers." When he was starting out in theatre in the 1970s, "the only scripts that were out for us as Latino writers were Luis Valdez’s early works." In a sense, he said, Valdez "is our Shakespeare."

(L-R) Ric Salinas, Herbert Siguenza, Sabina Zuniga Varela, and Richard Montoya in "Chavez Ravine: An L.A. Revival” at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Photo by Craig Schwartz.

Ric Salinas echoed his partners. "There would be no Culture Clash without Luis and El Teatro Campesino," he said. He said that when Culture Clash writes and performs Chicano stories "that are very specific, they become universal. That’s what Zoot Suit does…I think our strength as writers and as a group is that we’re able to take that baton that Luis gave us, and keep with it. We’re actors and activists simultaneously."

Valdez recalled a gathering of fellow Chicano artist-activists at El Teatro Campesino to talk about what they could do to change California. "One of the things that we all agreed on, we realized, was that we’re very angry, we’re very political—we need humor." The artist, curator, and producer René Yañez went back to San Francisco and staged a comedy concert starring Culture Clash in 1984 as a direct result of that meeting. "We needed to laugh. These guys made us laugh, and it was a tremendous release and a revitalization of the community," said Valdez.

The connection between art and activism—and having a good time—remains vital to Zoot Suit as well. "The fact is, I’m trying to recapture American history. I’m singing the song of America, and Zoot Suit happens to be one of the most catchy tunes I’ve ever put together," said Valdez.

Center Theatre Group News & Blogs

First Love, Rendered in the Stars and on our Stages

'The Mystery of Love & Sex'

'different words for the same thing'

'The Cripple of Inishmaan'

'Spring Awakening'

'Edward Scissorhands'

'Romeo and Juliet'

'Les Misérables

Pachuco: A Conversation of The Americas

Investing in New Talent

Passing the Baton of Art and Activism