https://www.centertheatregroup.org/news-and-blogs/news/2019/august/ The latest news from Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, home of the Ahmanson Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, and the Kirk Douglas Theatre. https://www.centertheatregroup.org/news-and-blogs/news/2019/august/bill-irwin-makes-beckett-pure-pleasure/ Wed, 07 Aug 2019 14:24:00 -0700 Center Theatre Group https://www.centertheatregroup.org/news-and-blogs/news/2019/august/bill-irwin-makes-beckett-pure-pleasure/ <p>Irwin, who created and performs <em><a href='https://www.centertheatregroup.org/tickets/kirk-douglas-theatre/2019/on-beckett/">On Beckett</a></em> at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, has appeared in four different versions of <em>Waiting for Godot</em> (alongside Robin Williams, Steve Martin, and Nathan Lane), adapted Beckett’s <em>Texts for Nothing</em> prose pieces for the stage, and met Beckett in Paris in the 1980s.</p> <p>But it’s his passion and playfulness above all that make <em>On Beckett</em> a pleasure for everyone in the theatre&mdash;himself included&mdash;for every single one of its 89 minutes.</p> <p>“The part of the evening that I’ve perhaps thought most about is the first two and a half minutes,” said Irwin, “where it’s laid out what we’re up to— and I try to return to the question of why this stuff stays in my head, what kind of relationship I have to this language.” He added, “It’s all part of the mission when you step out and start one of these evenings: what does it feel like tonight, and what are they making of me tonight? And how can I connect with this audience, person to person, to start the evening off...?”</p> <p>The impetus for creating <em>On Beckett</em> was fairly simple: “I found I had this repository of Beckett stuff in my head. It was important to me, it wouldn’t go away, and I didn’t want it to go away. And I was looking for a way to share the place that this language has had in my noggin and in my life,” he explained. “It’s a coping mechanism as well as a celebration and an investigation of the language. I’m looking for both. So I began to think about it as an evening, and an invitation to people to look at this language with me.”</p> <p><em>On Beckett</em> “bounces back and forth between passages from Samuel Beckett’s work and personal reflections on his language,” Irwin said. “It’s a personal evening. To do one of Beckett’s plays is a certain kind of adventure, and I’ve done that. To do solo delivery, or recitation, of some of his prose is another particular kind of adventure.” <em>On Beckett</em> is something entirely different, and it draws on all of Irwin’s varied talents, including those he picked up in his training as a master clown. “I’m sort of pulling on my whole bag of shtick,” he said of his extremely physical performance.</p> <p>Although Irwin started out wondering if he had enough material, he soon ran into the opposite problem. “I like to look at new stuff. Sometimes I’ll think, ‘Oh, this should go in the evening’ because I’ll hit some stretch of Beckett’s writing&mdash;which by the way, is the most varied writing of any author I know,” he said, listing the many tones Beckett can take. Irwin’s enthusiasm is infectious. “But it needs to stay compact,” he added.</p> <p>All this is why, if you see <em>On Beckett</em>, you can’t help agreeing with Irwin on the play’s basic premise: “This guy’s voice, this writer’s voice, is one that’s going to last way into the future. People are going to be reading Beckett’s stuff and performing Beckett’s stuff the way they have Shakespeare’s. It’s coming to the center of the culture.”</p> https://www.centertheatregroup.org/news-and-blogs/news/2019/august/community-workshops-bring-angelenos-together/ Wed, 07 Aug 2019 14:00:00 -0700 Center Theatre Group https://www.centertheatregroup.org/news-and-blogs/news/2019/august/community-workshops-bring-angelenos-together/ <p>“Making and sharing stories with our community is the DNA of our company,” explained Director of Social Strategy, Innovation &amp; Impact Leslie K. Johnson. Over the past few years, our education and community engagement efforts have included student workshops; programming in Boyle Heights with library partners; Family Sundays at the Ahmanson in partnership with local nonprofits; and public programs like Community Conversations and post-show talks&mdash;all of which are offered free of cost. </p> <p>“Now we are excited to offer a full season of ongoing ways for people of different ages, backgrounds, and experience levels to come and create with us.’” said Johnson. “We want to bring folks together to not only experience great stories, but to learn, gain skills and have fun telling a few of their own.”</p> <p>The bilingual <strong>Adventures in Creating &amp; Storytelling for Theatre/Aventuras en Como Crear y Narrar para el Teatro</strong> workshop on June 15, 2019 invited families to come to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at The Music Center for a reading of Naomi Iizuka’s <em>The Last Firefly</em> and origami- and prop-making inspired by the story. “We love providing ways for families to interact with each other through theatre, and wanted to play with how we expand bilingual programming, both of which we’ve done in Boyle Heights,” said Johnson.</p> <p>The inspiration for the next workshop, on June 27, 2019, at the Women’s Center for Creative Work in the Elysian Valley neighborhood near the L.A. River, came directly from the work onstage at the Ahmanson at the time&mdash;the scandal and censorship portrayed in <em>Indecent</em>. <strong>Share Your Most ‘Indecent’ Stories: A Zine-Making Workshop</strong> invited participants to create zines to tell their most salacious stories&mdash;then to redact the parts that might not be fit for public consumption.</p> <p>Playwright Marcus Gardley led the June 29, 2019 workshop at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, <strong>Creating Your Personal Story for the Stage</strong>, which “was designed to tap into Center Theatre Group as a home for playwriting, for discovering voices,” said Johnson. Held the morning of the <a href='https://www.centertheatregroup.org/tickets/kirk-douglas-theatre/also-at-the-douglas/l-a-writers-workshop-festival-2019">Los Angeles Writers’ Workshop Festival</a>, participants were invited to attend three play readings by members of that professional playwriting community (to which Gardley himself belongs). “Los Angeles is a community of storytellers. This was a great opportunity to bring them together to learn and inspire each other.”</p> <p>Our partners at East Los Angeles College provided the space for <strong>Telling a Story with Light and Sound</strong> on June 29, 2019. “We’ve learned that many people of different backgrounds want to develop technical skills around theatre,” said Johnson. “We’ve done many workshops for students and educators on lighting and sound design, but it was great to see people of all ages and experience levels really digging in together.”</p> <p>That, in fact, was one of the key takeaways of these workshops: “The group teaches the group, and part of our role is just to bring people together so they can learn from each other,” said Johnson. “You don’t always have to divide people up by age or beginner, intermediate, and advanced.”</p> <p>She added, “Storytelling is for everyone. Discovering theatre, honing a skill, meeting new people, exploring and sharing our unique voices through creativity, dialogue, and art making—and celebrating the artists in all of us—that is part of Center Theatre Group’s mission.” She’s excited to continue to expand this kind of programming, both on-site and at partner organizations around Los Angeles. “This was our first real foray into how do we draw people all over the city to come take workshops with us, whether they know Center Theatre Group or not,” said Johnson. “And I’m looking forward to more.”</p>