‘The Humans’ Is in Good Company at the Ahmanson

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 13 Jul 2018 11:14:00 -0700

More Stately Mansions

Center Theatre Group’s very first show at the Ahmanson brought Ingrid Bergman back to the American stage after an absence of more than 20 years. More Stately Mansions headed to Broadway 10 days after its Ahmanson run (September 12 – October 21, 1967), directed by Jose Quintero and also starring Arthur Hill and Colleen Dewhurst (who received a Tony Award^® nomination for Best Actress in a Play).

Ingrid Bergman in "More Stately Mansions."
A Streetcar Named Desire

The 25^TH anniversary revival of A Streetcar Named Desire (March 20 – April 28, 1973) brought two of America’s greatest young stars, Jon Voight and Faye Dunaway, to the Ahmanson stage, wrote Managing Director Robert Fryer in the program. The production had all the heart I ever invested in a work for the theatre or screen, Williams reflected. All involved in this revival make theatre worth living again for a playwright and audiences, too.

Faye Dunaway and Jon Voigt in "A Street Car Named Desire."
Macbeth

Charlton Heston and Vanessa Redgrave starred as the Macbeths in Heston’s second star turn (of six) at the Ahmanson. It took over two years to bring together this all-star team—juggling Heston and Redgrave’s busy film schedules as well as that of director Peter Wood—at the Ahmanson for its January 28 – March 8, 1975 run.

Charlton Heston and Vanessa Redgrave in "Macbeth."
The West Side Waltz

Academy Award^®-winning screenwriter George Seaton (Miracle on 34^TH Street), who served for many years as Executive Vice President of Center Theatre Group, commissioned the young playwright Ernest Thompson (On Golden Pond) to write a new work for the Ahmanson that became The West Side Waltz. Katharine Hepburn starred as an aging pianist in the World premiere (January 21 – March 14, 1981), and earned a Tony nomination after the production moved to Broadway in the fall.

L-R: Ernest Thompson. Dorothy Loudon and Katharine Hepburn in rehearsal for "The West Side Waltz."
The Little Foxes

Elizabeth Taylor received a Tony nomination for her Broadway debut in Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, which headed immediately to the Ahmanson three weeks after closing in New York, playing in Los Angeles September 25 – December 5, 1981. You wouldn’t know it was [Taylor’s] first play. She’s relaxed. She moves with confidence. She listens to the other actors, wrote the Los Angeles Times of her performance alongside Maureen Stapleton.

L-R: Maureen Stapleton, Nicolas Coster, Lillian Hellman and Elizabeth Taylor at "The Little Foxes."
Brighton Beach Memoirs

Matthew Broderick starred in the World premiere of Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs (December 10, 1982 – January 29, 1983). It was one of 14 of Simon’s works, including six World premieres, to appear at the Ahmanson, and one of eight directed by Gene Saks, who won a Tony Award for the Broadway engagement that followed. Broderick also won a Tony for his portrayal of Eugene Jerome, a character he reprised at the Ahmanson in the 1984/85 World premiere of Biloxi Blues and again at our 50^TH Anniversary Celebration in 2017.

Matthew Broderick in "Brighton Beach Memoirs."
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby

Los Angeles Times theatre critic Dan Sullivan called The Royal Shakespeare Company in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, a theatrical journey the likes of which this reviewer has not taken before. Ahmanson audiences spent the summer of 1986 (June 15 – August 9) on this epic ride, which lasted over 510 minutes (or, 8.5 hours), not including a break for dinner. The heroic cast featured 36 actors portraying over 130 characters under the direction of Trevor Nunn and John Caird.

Members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby."
Sweet Bird of Youth

Following her triumphant appearance as Alexandra del Lago in the London and Australian productions of Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth, Lauren Bacall is re-creating this role for the United States with an entirely new American cast and production, declared Bacall’s program biography, which (with a stunning photo) encompassed an entire page. Fully appropriate considering that Bacall was an aging film star playing an aging film star in the December 5, 1986 – January 25, 1987 run at the Ahmanson.

Lauren Bacall and Mark Soper in "Sweet Bird of Youth."
Seven Guitars

Center Theatre Group partnered with regional theatres around the country to help develop seven of August Wilson’s American Century Cycle plays beginning in the 1980s through Wilson’s death in 2005. Seven Guitars traveled to Connecticut, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco before heading to the Ahmanson January 17 – March 10, 1996; its first Broadway preview was March 17. Seven Guitars featured an all-star cast of Center Theatre Group favorites including Keith David, Viola Davis, and Ruben Santiago-Hudson (who won a Tony on Broadway).

Viola Davis and Keith David in "Seven Guitars.
God of Carnage

After a heralded Broadway run including three Tony Awards, stars Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini, and Marcia Gay Harden reunited at the Ahmanson under director Matthew Warchus for the West Coast premiere of Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage (April 5 – May 29, 2011). The production broke every box office record ever set for a play at the Ahmanson, selling 97,567 tickets and grossing nearly $8 million in eight weeks.

L-R: Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels and James Gandolfini in "God of Carnage." Photo by Craig Schwartz.
The Trip to Bountiful

The legendary Cicely Tyson—after a 30-year absence from the stage—reprised her 2013 Tony Award-winning Broadway performance alongside Vanessa Williams and Blair Underwood in the critically acclaimed revival of Pulitzer Prize winner Horton Foote’s American masterpiece at the Ahmanson (September 17 – November 2, 2014).

L-R: Cicely Tyson, Blair Underwood and Vanessa Williams in "The Trip to Bountiful." Photo by Craig Schwartz.
Blithe Spirit

A month after The Trip to Bountiful closed, another legendary actress arrived at the Ahmanson: Angela Lansbury playing a medium in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, directed by Michael Blakemore (December 9, 2014 – January 18, 2015). Lansbury had won a Tony Award in 2009 in the role, and decided to take it on the road in the year before she turned 90!

L-R: Susan Louise O-Connor, Jemima Rooper, Charles Edwards, Angela Lansbury, Charlotte Parry and Simon Jones in "Blithe Spirit." Photo by Joan Marcus.

But wait, there’s more! Check out our timeline for the many iconic plays and screen and stage stars we couldn’t fit on this list…

From Epics to Clerics

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 16:01:00 -0700

The natural response for Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare—the creative duo behind the critically acclaimed An Iliad—was aim higher. Together, the two have set their sights on the Bible in The Good Book, which received a Center Theatre Group Straight White Men, which became a 2015 Douglas production and heads to Broadway this summer.

Peterson and O’Hare agreed that the completion commission helped give them the security they needed to dive deeper into a daunting writing project. It’s a combination of having an institution focus on you—give you a form of legitimacy—and give you a goal, explained O’Hare. You have to be brave enough to fail ugly early…then you can build on these things, he added.

In their earlier work, the two shied away from identifying as writers. I think we both respect writing enough to have not felt comfortable saying we’re writers, explained O’Hare, an Emmy-nominated actor who was a series regular in True Blood and has had recurring roles on American Horror Story and The Good Wife. Peterson is an Obie Award-winning director who has worked across the country, including 10 years as Resident Director at the Taper, where she’ll return this fall to direct Lynn Nottage’s three 2018 Block Party productions—and for five students studying product design at the Otis College of Art and Design, five homework assignments.

Otis professors Perri Chasin and Karen Regoli-Arthur reached out to Center Theatre Group in the fall as they began to develop their spring course, “On Prop Design.” A brain-picking session quickly evolved into a partnership where Center Theatre Group staff helped introduce the students to prop design for theatre.

The partnership began with a class field trip to The Shop, our costume and prop warehouse in Boyle Heights. Associate Prop Manager Merrianne Nedreberg gave the students a tour and explained the process of creating props for a show. Students also saw the set for Student Ambassador Program. Over the course of seven months, participating L.A. County high school students take part in workshops, exercises, and projects designed to transform them from passionate students into arts leaders, team players, and advocates.

Our goal is for every student who participates to come away with more confidence in themselves as leaders and the knowledge that they can do anything, said Program Director for Next Generation Initivatives Camille Schenkkan.

This year, 14 Student Ambassadors served on two teams: Arts Advocacy: Making an Impact and Marketing & Social Media: Peer Engagement. They collaborated to organize and promote the Center Theatre Group Youth Summit. The students chose to title this year's Summit Reimagine Your American Dream, inspired by our production of What's Our Future, and Cultural Appreciation vs. Appropriation for the event, which included a talk with playwright David Henry Hwang. Through writing and physical theatre-based sessions, participants practiced their storytelling while discussing cultural issues and envisioning a future America.

The Marketing & Social Media group produced digital communication resources and outreach strategies to engage students with ideas about art and democracy. Ambassados Sophia Reyes, Julia Nieto, Daniel Najera, and Giselle De Paz arranged social media takeovers where they asked their peers and teachers questions like, What emoji would you use to represent democracy?

The Youth Summit is a great opportunity to empower students to use theatre as a way to discuss themes of culture, identity, and social responsibility, said Director of Education and Engagement Tyrone Davis.

Additionally, Student Ambassadors put their newly learned skills to use in the community. Many of them acted as student concierges at the

Center Theatre Group News & Blogs

‘The Humans’ Is in Good Company at the Ahmanson

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby

From Epics to Clerics