2019 | Center Theatre Group

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

"You're listening to "30 to Curtain," a Center Theatre Group podcast. I'm Doug Baker, Center Theatre Group's Producing Director and I'll be your guest host for this episode. I work closely with Artistic Director Michael Ritchie to bring productions to our three theaters, the Ahmanson Theatre, Mark Taper Forum and Kirk Douglas Theatre. Joining us fo...

30 to Curtain: Kevin McCollum and 'The Play That Goes Wrong'

Do you remember your first real payday? The work leading up to it probably (hopefully) involved some kind of learning experience and skills acquired, but probably didn’t teach you event planning and production, marketing, and audience engagement, plus offer professional development opportunities in group consensus, time and budget management, mee...

The Next Generation of Arts Leaders Starts Here

In the midst of their June 5 – July 7, 2019 Ahmanson run, the company of Indecent celebrated their 300TH performance of this production, which has moved from New York to Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company and finally to Center Theatre Group over the past few years. A number of cast members, as well as playwright Paula Vogel and director Rebecc...

The Woman who Knows the Sounds of ‘Indecent’ Better than Anyone

From the earliest productions of God of Vengeance to the similar rediscoveries of the work by both playwright Paula Vogel and director Rebecca Taichman, Indecent represents the culmination of over 100 years of social, cultural, religious, and theatrical history. For greater context, here are some of the milestones of the creation and production of...

A Journey of Passion

Dear Evan Hansen. Something Rotten!, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder. Three of the most delightful Broadway shows of the past few seasons have two things in common: they made their Los Angeles premieres at the Ahmanson Theatre, and they were made possible by donations given to a discretionary fund to invest in Broadway-bound shows to ens...

Center Theatre Group Invests in Broadway

How many adults in the United States today identify as trans? What’s the difference between gender identity and gender expression? What does cisgender mean? What’s the best way to find out a colleague, friend, or patron’s gender pronoun?

Building a More Inclusive Company with TransCanWork

On April 29, 2019, 250 local elementary school students sang and danced their hearts out on the Ahmanson Theatre stage for their friends and families, performing some of the tunes most beloved by children around the globe: songs from Disney musicals. Their journey to the Ahmanson for our 2019 Student Share Celebration began months ago, when their s...

Disney Musicals in Schools Spreads Magic across L.A.

“It was almost like talking into the mirror,” said Wayne Mackins of being on the “A” side of a post-show Q&A session with high school students from around the country on a rainy spring night in New York City. Mackins, a senior at Fordham University, is currently making his Broadway debut as an ensemble member in The Prom. But in 2014, h...

Young Artists Inspiring Young Artists

It took 20 years—or 100 years, depending on how you count—for Indecent to get to Broadway. It all started in Poland in 1907, when a young Yiddish writer named Sholem Asch wrote a play called God of Vengeance. Or perhaps it all started in the stacks of the library at Yale Law School in the late 1990s, when a graduate drama student encountered th...

An Extraordinary Journey to Broadway and Beyond