2019 | Center Theatre Group

To portray the vast canvas of American periods and locales on display in A Play Is a Poem—Ethan Coen’s World premiere collection of short plays onstage at the Mark Taper Forum September 11 – October 13, 2019—it takes a large and capable cast. In just under two hours, the action onstage goes from the East Coast to the West Coast—twice—an...

Play or Poem; It Takes a Village

Is there anything Sting can’t do? This winter, the renowned songwriter, musician, and actor will have all of his prodigious talents on display at the Ahmanson Theatre in The Last Ship, the musical he created and stars in, which is based on the story of the town where he grew up....

Sting Is Sailing into the Ahmanson

According to John Leguizamo, “we are all morons”—himself included, as he explains in his new show Latin History for Morons (onstage at the Ahmanson September 5 – October 20, 2019). In a classroom-like setting, the play hashes out a chronicle of Latin culture, one that is absent from the pages of conventional American textbooks—and both La...

‘We Are All Morons’

Five short plays wrapped into one evening, Ethan Coen’s A Play Is a Poem—onstage September 11 – October 13, 2019 at the Mark Taper Forum—celebrates the one-act play, a form that, over the last century, has endured the ebb and flow of theatre’s evolving landscape....

Revisiting the One-Act Form with Ethan Coen’s ‘A Play Is a Poem’

John Leguizamo’s Latin History for Morons, his new solo show onstage at the Ahmanson September 5 – October 20, 2019, has a simple premise: Leguizamo’s young son has been bullied at his upscale private school. According to the bully, there are no Latinx heroes in the history books. Leguizamo sets out to rectify this problem by excavating the l...

John Leguizamo’s Pan-Latinx Vision

For nearly 30 years, John Leguizamo has been creating and starring in landmark solo theatre productions that draw on his life to bring audiences around America laughter, understanding, and even catharsis. At the same time, of course, he’s graced our screens in everything from his recent Emmy®-nominated turn in When They See Us and roles in To Wo...

John Leguizamo Is Going to Rock You

“If you don’t see yourself represented outside of yourself, you just feel f*cking invisible,” explains John Leguizamo in Latin History for Morons (onstage at the Ahmanson September 5 – October 20, 2019). Though we’ve never said it in quite this way ourselves, that’s one of the central values of Center Theatre Group’s Student Matinee P...

2019/20 Student Matinees Showcase the Power of Representation

Some of Samuel Beckett’s most renowned interpreters have appeared on our stages in a number of his iconic works. As Bill Irwin takes the stage of the Kirk Douglas Theatre September 13 – October 27, 2019 in On Beckett, here is a look back at the history of our mainstage Beckett productions....

Samuel Beckett at Center Theatre Group

From Appalachia to Hollywood, drama to comedy, A Play Is a Poem is a cross-country cross-section of American theatrical history. Consisting of five short plays of disparate settings and genres, the fundamental connection these pieces share doesn’t begin onstage. Rather, it all starts with over a decade’s worth of collaboration between playwrigh...

Collaboration, Cast, and Poetry: What Makes a Play?

He’s regularly called a virtuoso, a master of his craft, and even a genius (per the MacArthur Foundation) and a clown prince (by no less than PBS). You’ve seen him in everything from TV shows like CSI and Sesame Street to his Tony Award®-winning stints in plays like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Fool Moon (roles he reprised with Center...

Bill Irwin Makes Beckett Pure Pleasure

Lighting and sound design. Origami and storytelling. Playwriting and play readings. Zine-making and redacting. Angelenos from across the city engaged in these activities over the course of four free, open-to-the-public workshops Center Theatre Group hosted over the summer to pilot expanding the reach, scope, and audience of our community programmin...

Community Workshops Bring Angelenos Together