Center Theatre Group News & Blogs

Join Us Off Center for Incredible Work Inspired by Incredible Works of Literature

Center Theatre Group — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 11:05:00 -0700

Both works were developed at Center Theatre Group with the support of a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Gob Squad is an arts collective based in England and Germany, while Jan lives and works in Los Angeles. International and local are coming together through Off Center this season thanks to the Mellon grant, said Center Theatre Group Associate Artistic Director Diane Rodriguez. Gob Squad, a Berlin company who finds their muse in Los Angeles, would never have found their way here had we not been able to have the resources to bring them to L.A. and affect and impact their work. And on the other hand, Lars [Jan] is a local artist whom we’ve helped make a profile nationally and internationally.

Creation (Pictures for Dorian) is onstage at REDCAT October 18–21, 2018, and is inspired by the themes of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray: “beauty, aging, and the moral choices we all make,” explained Gob Squad.

Gob Squad’s previous show with Center Theatre Group, Western Society (which made its U.S. premiere at REDCAT in 2014) was inspired by Venice Beach, and the idea that this is where western society had ended up. For this new work, they were obsessed with aging and beauty, said Rodriguez. And what better place than Los Angeles to explore that?

With the help of Center Theatre Group, they interviewed people who are a lot older than us—senior citizens—and people who are lot younger than us—late teens, early 20s, said Gob Squad. They focused on people who have spent time onstage and in the public eye (dancers, singers, magicians, models). The exciting thing about this residency is meeting these people, said Gob Squad. How people are with their bodies and how they present themselves is very inspiring. The people we meet always bring an element of ‘place’ into the work; they represent Los Angeles.

They also appeared in the piece alongside Gob Squad, who have been performing around the world together for 25 years, and represent middle age. It’s a lovely, emotional show about people in the middle who see their youth quickly fading and their age creeping up on them, said Rodriguez. Is there a better place? Is the middle better? Is it all good? They’re asking all of those questions.

"The White Album."

The White Album is onstage at UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance April 5–7, 2019, and also finds inspiration from a seminal work of literature: Joan Didion’s essay about 1960s California. Jan first read the essay at 16, and it’s the piece of writing I’ve returned to most in my life, he said. I used to feel like I was embracing the first sentence, ‘We tell ourselves stories in order to live,’ as a mantle under which I worked, and it sort of spoke to the power of artists and art to create meaning out of the incomprehensible world that surrounds us all. As I’ve aged, that sentence has taken on a different hue, and I’ve realized its double-edgedness, in the sense that, ‘We tell ourselves stories in order to live’ can be understood as, ‘We create illusions in order to get by.’

The White Album explores this double edge, as well as Jan’s relationship to the piece and to the audience, with two performances in one. It features an audience that’s actually sitting in the theatre in the seats, and then there’s another smaller audience, which receives free tickets, that will be inside of a really unique soundsealed room onstage, he explained. That second audience is going to experience a different dramaturgy, a different storyline, a much more interactive experience, but it interlocks with the experience of the audience sitting in the theatre seats.

Center Theatre Group offered major technological assistance in addition to dramaturgical and material support. We built a whole set for him in the rehearsal room, said Rodriguez We used as many tools as we had to make it as soundproof as possible, and we were able to help get the cost of creating the final set down. There’s many things that innovate in the piece, and one of them is the architecture of that room.

Although Jan has loved the essay for many years, the Center Theatre Group commission launched the process of creating the piece. It was an amazing moment to really be asked what it was that I wanted to work on, he said, adding Center Theatre Group is a Los Angeles institution, and it was a necessity to have an incredible partner in L.A. for the development and presentation of this work.

Partnerships—with these artists as well as REDCAT and UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance—are crucial to Center Theatre Group’s efforts to raise L.A.’s profile as a theatre destination. Our Off Center collaborations are designed to be exciting for everyone involved: artists, companies, and of course our audiences, who embrace the incredible diversity and breadth of the work we do.

Works-in-Progress at the LAX Festival

Two other L.A. artists received support and a platform from Center Theatre Group this fall thanks to a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. We partnered with the 2018 Los Angeles Exchange [LAX] Festival to present a Works-in-Progress Series featuring new theatre from Tiffany Lytle and Estela Garcia. The series was designed to provide a critical opportunity for local theatre artists to develop their work, with an emphasis on pieces that reflect and connect to the unique histories, environments, communities, issues, and artistic legacies that define our contemporary moment.

Making Working in Theatre Work for Everyone

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 19 Oct 2018 12:23:00 -0700

More than a dozen colleges and universities were involved as planning partners for the event, and over 30 higher education institutions from across L.A. were represented among the educators and administrators who attended. The goal, explained Center Theatre Group Next Generation Initiatives Director Camille Schenkkan, was to provide a time and place for this group to gather and have a robust conversation about the hard and soft skills students need to succeed in professional theatre.

The event began with opening presentations from theatre artists, professors, career center representatives, and others, all focused on what theatre students need before graduation. Speakers included Celebration Theatre Co-Artistic Director Michael A. Sheppard, who spoke on representation and diversity, and Chapman University Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies Dr. Jocelyn L. Buckner, who provided a snapshot of the university’s senior theatre seminar. Playwright Luis Alfaro delivered a keynote reflecting on his experience as both a practicing artist and university educator.

Representatives from Center Theatre Group provided an employer perspective, discussing hiring trends and fieldwide needs. Attendees also reviewed the results of the Southern California Theatre Alumni Survey, conducted by Center Theatre Group this summer, which asked local theatre alumni to weigh in on the career training they received, as well as what training would have been helpful to them as they embarked on their careers.

I felt like I belonged to a community that is so in love with the art, the mentorship of this field, and this vision of supporting our performers, artists, and creatives.

The consensus among all presenters was the need to emphasize more general skills—especially financial skills, both personal and professional. They also agreed that there is a tremendous breadth of opportunities available to young people. Attendees then split into groups to discuss career training within specific theatre disciplines, such as acting, stage management, and design, and topics such as how best to support diverse students, as well as institutions’ hiring needs and requirements.

Each group was tasked with creating a list of what a student studying a particular discipline would need to learn to prepare them for the professional world. Schenkkan said she is excited to share these lists, as well as the survey results and other findings from the day: Rather than coming only from Center Theatre Group, these lists and consensus are coming from all of these schools and institutions collectively.

A number of the attendees made it clear that educational institutions are excited to collaborate closely with one another and with the greater Los Angeles theatre ecosystem. I left so inspired by the words of our faculty and allies in the arts, said Rosa Trujillo, a Career Counselor at California State University, Long Beach. I am not a practicing artist in theatre, but that day, I felt like I belonged to a community that is so in love with the art, the mentorship of this field, and this vision of supporting our performers, artists, and creatives.

A Letter from Michael Ritchie: October 2018

Michael Ritchie — Mon, 15 Oct 2018 16:30:00 -0700

At Center Theatre Group, we believe theatre creates an extraordinary connection between artists and audiences, and helps to create an energy that feeds a city, a culture, and a society. Theatre, at its best, reflects the community it serves. As one of the nation’s most influential nonprofit theatre companies, we proudly continue our 52-year tradition of using the art of theatre to broaden horizons and illuminate new perspectives.

Both of this month’s shows do just that. Dear Evan Hansen is a Broadway phenomenon that recently launched its national tour to 50 cities around the country. We feel very lucky to be presenting this production—with beautiful music, a top-notch company, and an important message—in Los Angeles.

Quack is a brand-new play by the wonderfully talented playwright Eliza Clark. It began its life in our Zoot Suit reimagined Los Angeles’ 1942 Sleepy Lagoon trial—which unjustly convicted a group of young Latino men of murder—and the racially charged riots that followed. Zoot Suit made its World premiere at the Mark Taper Forum in 1978, just a few decades after the events it portrayed had taken place, and went on to become Broadway’s first Chicano play.

I feel a sense of basic responsibility as a playwright born and raised in California to reflect [our] reality to the rest of the world, Valdez said, to say, ‘Look we’re all the same. We’ve all had our common struggles.’ I use the theatre not just to enlighten but to touch the hearts of people. If we can touch the heart, maybe we can do something to bring justice to our lives.

Valdez’s broad and highly celebrated body of work—which also encompasses films such as La Bamba and the screen adaptation of Zoot Suit—has not only contributed to greater representation of Latinos in entertainment but spurred a theatre movement, with a new generation of Latino theatre groups springing up on college campuses and in communities throughout the country since the 1970s. In honor of his accomplishments and historic cultural influence, Valdez has been awarded the Governor’s Award from the California Arts Council, the George Peabody Award for excellence in television, and the National Medal of the Arts from President Obama.

The cultural fusion we see in L.A. is the wave of the future. It’s a place where you see people being accepted for who they are and being allowed to contribute what they can give from their souls.

Like Zoot Suit, his latest play,