Center Theatre Group News & Blogs

‘We Are All Morons’

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 27 Sep 2019 10:45:00 -0700

The craft of universal storytelling was just one subject Leguizamo and Latin History for Morons director Tony Taccone dived into during a free, open-to-the-public Q&A hosted by Center Theatre Group and the USC Center on Public Diplomacy on September 11, 2019 at Wallis Annenberg Hall. Jay Wang, Director of the Center on Public Diplomacy, kicked off the conversation with a question for Leguizamo: what’s the story behind the show?

Initially, Leguizamo, a self-proclaimed former “ghetto nerd,” was trying to empower his son, who was being bullied (“racially profiled”) at school. His research on Latinx history quickly took on a life of its own, and he realized there was a piece there. “I tried to make it like a class,” he recalled of his first forays into creating what would become Latin History for Morons. “I look back at my favorite points in my life with my favorite teachers and professors, and they were always the most outrageous, the funniest.”

Taccone and Leguizamo decided the “exaggerated” teacher persona was the way to create a compelling piece of theatre that would entertain audiences of all ages and backgrounds. “Even if it’s your own history, kids don’t want to hear it,” Leguizamo chuckled. “When I was doing this stuff in comedy clubs, people were like, ‘I thought you were going to be funny—this is like a history class!’” So as he continued developing Latin History for Morons, Leguizamo used wacky humor to “smuggle the information” to audiences.

L–R: Jay Wang, John Leguizamo and Tony Taccone at USC. Photo by Olivia Mowry and Spencer Quinn.

“It’s the power of comedy—to make it seem like the information is easy to access, to absorb, to change people and their minds,” he added.

As they continued developing the piece, he and Taccone regularly considered finding the right balance of information and humor for the audience. With each new draft—Taccone said Leguizamo sent him at least 200—they played a game of push-and-pull. “It was a meticulous process of going too far, pulling back, pulling back too much,” Leguizamo said.

But while he’s comfortable playing the role of teacher and entertainer, he’s cautious about taking on too much. A student in the audience asked Leguizamo about representing Latinx people as a “cultural ambassador.”

“I don’t go into it thinking I’m representing my people,” he said. “But I do go into it thinking that I’m talking to my people—not representing, but talking. I’m just John. I’m very linked to my culture, but I can’t speak for everyone. What I can do is talk to everybody about my experience and hope it’s enlightening. It’s not that I think my life is so freaking interesting—it’s not—but my life is a tool to get information out.” He added that he thinks of his perspective as a “mirror” for Latinx people: “So we can see ourselves, that we have value, that we matter, that we’re funny and culturally relevant—that’s the message I want to give.”

Theatre is the only place that allows me to tell my stories the way I want to tell them, the way they should be told.

Why, asked a fellow artist in the audience, choose theatre as the medium for that message? After all, Leguizamo has a successful onscreen career as well.

“Theatre is the only place that allows me to tell my stories the way I want to tell them, the way they should be told,” Leguizamo said. “If Lin-Manuel pitched Hamilton to a studio, streamer, or network, it would have never seen the light of day. I know because I’ve been pitching to studios, streamers, and networks for 30 years—and they always have Hollywood wisdom excuses for not telling Latin stories just like they did with women’s stories.”

There’s a particular freedom in theatre, added Taccone. It offers “the immediacy, the liveliness” of being in a house and sharing a perspective, he said. “In theatre, you can get people to experience collective joy—especially right now, when times are so dark and everyone is so aware of what’s going on, they have to be reenergized and reconnect with each other. As many geniuses as there are doing film, I feel like the ability to collectively raise awareness and empathy is higher in theatre—that’s why I do it.”

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

Center Theatre Group — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 10:30:00 -0700

“A lot of people used to write one-act plays,” explained A Play Is a Poem director Neil Pepe. “In fact, a lot of the writers that I kind of knew and grew up with, like Sam Shepard and Lanford Wilson—and lots of writers who started out in the ’60s—wrote them. Back then, the one-act form was sort of a cool one.”

Along with being “cool,” the one-act form was considered challenging. “The one-act, because of its brevity, is much more difficult a form than the more leisurely full-length play,” wrote Los Angeles Times theatre critic T.H. McCulloh in a 1996 review of an evening of Lanford Wilson one-acts. In both character- and plot-driven stories, “the one-act requires a strong core,” McCulloh noted.

L-R: Sam Vartholomeos and Micaela Diamond in the World premiere of “A Play Is a Poem.” Photo by Craig Schwartz.

In a few pages of dialogue, you’re in and you’re out. In between something has to happen. Some character has to make a journey.

There is “no time for preambles, subplots or the confluence of several big ideas” when it comes to one-acts, noted Arthur Hirsch of The Baltimore Sun in 2001. “In a few pages of dialogue, you’re in and you’re out. In between something has to happen. Some character has to make a journey.”

Throughout the 20th century, writers who have taken characters on such short journeys include everyone from George Bernard Shaw and Thornton Wilder to Susan Glaspell (whose feminist murder mystery Trifles is frequently anthologized) and Tennessee Williams, who famously wrote over 70 one-acts in his lifetime.

Wilder was especially fond of the form. “I had discovered a literary form that satisfied my passion for compression,” he wrote in 1928. He didn’t think any idea was “too grandiose” for the one-act play, and he felt compelled to “try and invest in the strange discipline.”

In addition to being published in numerous collections and anthologies, many of these one-acts were collected in evenings not unlike A Play Is a Poem. In fact, the playwrights who inspired Pepe’s beginnings paved their own early paths with collections of one-acts. Shepard’s first production, in 1965, consisted of Dog and The Rocking Chair, two one-acts presented together at New York City’s La MaMa; a year later, he won his first Obie Award for a night of three one-acts (Chicago, Icarus’s Mother, and Red Cross). Wilson, likewise, had over 20 one-acts produced from the 1960s through the 1980s, including the 1966 Off-Broadway double bill of Ludlow Fair and The Madness of Lady Bright and a 1986 evening of one-acts collectively titled Hall of North American Forests.

The one-act form was met with continued popularity into the late ’90s. Playwright David Ives—dubbed the “maestro of the short form” by The New York Times—created an evening of six one-acts, All in the Timing, which premiered in 1993 Off-Broadway at Primary Stages and ran for over 600 performances. In 1995 and 1996, it was the most performed play in America (after Shakespeare).

L-R: Michael Lerner, David Paymer, and Ed O’Neill in “Two Unrelated Plays by David Mamet.” Photos by Craig Schwartz.

Center Theatre Group has produced a number of notable evenings of one-acts over the years. In 1988, George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum, a play of 11 one-act “exhibits” and winner of the NAACP Theatre Award for Best Play, appeared at the Taper. A few years later, Robert Schenkkan’s saga in nine one-acts, The Kentucky Cycle, had its World premiere at the Taper and went on to win the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. More recently, Pepe himself directed an evening of two one-acts at the Douglas: 2008’s Two Unrelated Plays by David Mamet.

As Center Theatre Group embraces the one-act play yet again with A Play Is a Poem, the form’s refreshing peculiarities—including actors double and triple cast in different plays—return to the Taper stage. “There’s something fantastic about watching how the actors adjust to playing multiple roles and ride the writing, especially when each play exists in a completely different place,” said Pepe. Indeed, A Play Is a Poem offers plenty of surprises that a single play simply couldn’t contain. “Hopefully we can keep audiences guessing,” said Pepe.

John Leguizamo’s Pan-Latinx Vision

David Román — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 12:12:00 -0700

What is that history and why has it been written out of the books? Latin History for Morons is many things, but it’s essentially a revisionist historical project. The show’s pan-Latinx historical overview covers the contributions of the ancient Aztec, Mayan, and Inca civilizations, and the genocide of these cultures by conquest and colonialism. The show’s basic theme: knowledge is power.

Born in Colombia, Leguizamo is one of the most visible Latinx artists in theatre, and he has consistently critiqued Latinx stereotypes throughout his career, even while being accused of perpetuating them along the way. With titles like Mambo Mouth, Spic-O-Rama, Freak, Sexaholix, and Ghetto Klown, his work is intentionally provocative. Today, these titles could easily be mistaken as anti-immigrant tweets. Yet Leguizamo’s brilliant combination of politics and entertainment speaks truth to power without dividing audiences into competing constituencies. In his view, we are all morons.

This is not the first time Leguizamo has placed himself within a historical context. In his first Broadway show, Freak, he told the story of sneaking into A Chorus Line, Michael Bennett’s 1975 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, and hearing Diana Morales sing “Nothing,” which tells her story of being taunted by her high school theatre teacher and classmates for being different—for being a Puerto Rican woman. Eventually, she succeeds despite the cultural biases against her. Morales became a role model for Leguizamo, and seeing her story onstage transformed him. Latin History for Morons picks up on this theme, and asks: Who are our Latinx role models? What Latinx figures can guide us into self-love and self-affirmation?

Rather than focusing on the success of one particular national tradition, he posits that all Latinx people share a common bond.

Leguizamo’s exhaustive research tells a story of pan-Latinx achievement and resilience. Rather than focusing on the success of one particular national tradition, he posits that all Latinx people share a common bond. In this sense, the history of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Nicaraguans, Ecuadorians, Colombians—all cultures from the Spanish-speaking Americas—needs to be recovered, studied, and celebrated.

Pan-Latinx is a term to describe the mobilization of Latin people from different national origins and cultural backgrounds into a collective group. Sometimes it’s used as a marketing device, stripping away historical and cultural differences; at other times it’s used as a way to bring together a set of disenfranchised groups for more collective political power. Leguizamo is more drawn to the latter (although sometimes accused of the former).

I see his efforts to bring distinct Latinx communities together as a good thing. All Latinx people, regardless of national origin, will benefit. The only time Leguizamo differentiates between nationalities is through dance. He busts into salsa, cumbia, and meringue, among other Latinx dance forms, to honor the cultures in the audience who are most associated with each move. The fact that he himself can dance these different styles so spectacularly models the pan-Latinx affinities Latin History of Morons celebrates. While Leguizamo plays into the stereotype of the rhythmic Latinx he does so with virtuosity and wit. These moments always bring the house down.

Leguizamo’s charisma wins over audiences suspicious of his ability to stand in for all Latinx people, or his appropriation of ancestral stories and iconic images that are not his own. He asks us to find solidarity and community across national differences so that we can obliterate the damaging whitewashing of history and generate Latinx cultural pride. While Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton casts people of color to tell the traditional story of America’s “Founding Fathers” and the period of the American Revolution, Latin History for Morons insists that Latinos themselves be “in the room where it happens,” that our stories merit telling, too.

I’ve been following Leguizamo’s career since his earliest days in the downtown performances spaces of New York’s East Village. I’ve seen everything he’s done several times if not more. As a fellow Colombian, I am drawn to his inclusionary open-armed embrace of all Latinos. Latin History for Morons serves as a powerful rebuttal to the current hateful rhetoric against Latinx immigrants and refugees, and a respite from the violent hate crimes for which we have been targeted. Leguizamo celebrates the diversity of Latinx people from our ancestors to our children, and returns our stories to the front and center stage where they belong.

David Román is a Professor of English and American Studies at the University of Southern California.

John Leguizamo Is Going to Rock You

Center Theatre Group — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 09:02:00 -0700

Somehow, in between his time onstage and on-screen—not to mention raising a family—he found the time to become an expert in Latin history. In the midst of a national tour for Angels in America [at the Mark Taper Forum at Center Theatre Group]. He ran Berkeley Rep for 20 years. I fell in love with this storyteller guy, because we all love the same thing: a great story. So I asked him to be the director for Latin History for Morons, and we’ve had such a blast. We’re like Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello when we get into a room.

How have Latinx audiences responded to the show on this tour?

I’ve toured with this show all across the country, and for the most part Latinx people respond to it the same way, which is really incredible because you’d think that all the different Latin ethnic groups would respond differently. But no. Everybody’s so vocal. They get so rowdy, they get so outraged. People weep. People get really angry. And then they walk out incredibly proud of being Latinx and knowing that their contributions to America and the world have changed the world.

How did your son react the first time he saw the show?

I was terrified. I was stammering and stuttering; I forgot lines. I was too emotional; I couldn’t function. But afterward my son said he loved it. My wife said he laughed through the whole thing. He of course had notes—he criticized my portrayal of him. I’m a 50-year-old man doing a 12-year-old. It’s not really my wheelhouse.

Anything else you want to make sure audiences know going in?

It’s a raunchy, historical, informative, elevating night. So be ready to be rocked to the core. It’s not for the light-hearted.

2019/20 Student Matinees Showcase the Power of Representation

Center Theatre Group — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 12:31:00 -0700

The 2019/2020 Student Matinee Season “is full of shows that demonstrate the power, for young people, of seeing people onstage who are like them,” said Center Theatre Group Director of Social Strategy, Impact and Innovation Leslie K. Johnson. “We hope this season will resonate deeply with the students of Los Angeles, and help them think about who they are.”

The Student Matinee experience includes a pre-show educator conference, resource materials for educators and students, in-school visits from our teaching artists, and a post-show Q&A with cast and creative team members. At the center of it all is the students’ experience at the theatre.

“We want to bring young people to shows where the content and theatrical styles are varied and sophisticated, and where they can hear stories that are deep and sometimes hard—and present rigorous ideas about the real world,” said Johnson.

The season kicks off on October 17, 2019 with Latin History for Morons—and John Leguizamo couldn’t be more excited to “smuggle information” to L.A. students. Plus, student audiences “dig the dancing more than anybody else, and they dig the jokes,” he said. “It’s so great to turn them on to theatre. They all leave going, ‘I didn’t know theatre could be so much fun, so relatable.’” That is key for local teens; over 70% of the students we serve in this program identify as Latinx.

Next up, on December 3 and 4, 2019, is National August Wilson Monologue Competition, we have many students in our midst who are growing increasingly familiar with Wilson’s canon,” said Johnson. “Our youth understand, want, and need opportunities to explore Jitney’s themes of family, race, and changing communities.”

at the Taper. “This is such an opportunity for us to partner with educators to create more ways for young people to see and study theatre and to think about the big ideas it presents. Experiencing and making art are essential ways that young people can express themselves and enter into the important civic discourse taking place in our country,” she said.

The final show of the season, on April 30, 2020 is performed a solo show at the Taper—adapted “with the approval and advice of Samuel Beckett”—titled The Works of Beckett.

Jack MacGowran in “The Works of Beckett.”

1990

The Taper hosted 50/60 Vision, a festival of “plays and playwrights that changed the theatre!” and included four works by Beckett. Charlotte Rae played the legendary role of Winnie in Happy Days: “Because of her association with TV sitcom, casting Rae in the role was risky, but it was a brilliant stroke,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

Charlotte Rae in “Happy Days.” Photo by Jay Thompson.

“It’s a fun play; it’s strange, avant-garde stuff,” Teri Garr told Orange Coast Magazine of Play, which she appeared in alongside John Nesci and Gloria Mann. “The lights come up on it and people laugh, because they can’t believe there’s three heads in an urn.”

Teri Garr in “Play.” Photo by Jay Thompson.

Nesci also appeared in 50/60 Vision’s Krapp’s Last Tape, a one-man, one-act monologue. “Nesci plays Krapp as a booming King Lear, sneaking bananas and stealing nips from a bottle he keeps under lock and key,” wrote the Los Angeles Times of his performance.

John Nesci in “Krapp’s Last Tape.” Photo by Jay Thompson.

Variety's review of Eh, Joe lauded Peter Brosius’ direction and the performances: “Paton’s eerily accusing voice and Campbell’s taut visage make a startling effective combination.” Originally written for TV, the play features a mute Ron Campbell doing battle in his mind with a memory of a former lover’s suicide (given voice by Angela Paton).
Ron Campbell in “Eh, Joe.” Photo by Jay Thompson.

2012

Our celebrated production of Waiting for Godot featured Alan Mandell and Barry McGovern, both of whom have long histories performing Beckett’s work. “Mandell brings a childlike wonder to his role,” said the Los Angeles Times, while “McGovern’s performance readily captures the tone of Beckett’s humor.”

(L–R) Alan Mandell and Barry McGovern in “Waiting for Godot.” Photo by Craig Schwartz.

2012

For Krapp’s Last Tape at the Douglas, John Hurt's performance was called “career-defining” by Backstage. Krapp “is one of the loneliest in classical drama, and Hurt—his head twitching occasionally to see whether somebody might finally be coming—makes us feel every pang.”

John Hurt in “Krapp’s Last Tape.” Photo by Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging.

2014

Barry McGovern returned to Center Theatre Group with his solo show I’ll Go On—based on three Beckett novels—at the Douglas. Timeless and profound, the performance was applauded by The Hollywood Reporter: “McGovern has been performing this piece nigh onto 30 years, yet in his fulminating glory he seems utterly fresh, like an improvising musician who never plays a tune the same way twice.”

Barry McGovern in “I’ll Go On.” Photo by Craig Schwartz.

2016

Barry McGovern, Charlotte Rae, and Alan Mandell returned to our stages alongside James Greene in Happy Days at the Taper—a role she wanted to play “over and over again” because “nothing comes near it,” she told Charles McNulty of the Los Angeles Times. Wiest's performance was described as “enthralling” by Los Angeles Daily News: “She has flawless comedic timing and a voice she plies like a musical instrument to make us listen to every note.”

Dianne Wiest in Samuel Beckett’s “Happy Days” at the Mark Taper Forum. Photo by Craig Schwartz.

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

Center Theatre Group — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 10:54:00 -0700

The roots of the duo’s collaboration go back to the mid-2000s, when Ethan and his brother, Joel Coen, co-wrote a radio play that was staged in New York. “I’ve always loved not only the richness of their writing but the surprise of their storytelling,” said Pepe. “I was intrigued that they were getting into something near playwriting.” Connected by mutual friends for a lunch meeting, Coen later shared some one-act plays he had been working on with Pepe, who was instantly smitten: “I read them and I loved them. They were incredibly funny and irreverent, just sort of bite-sized pieces of the brilliance of Ethan’s writing for film but applied to a theatrical form, which was exciting to me.”
Three of those one-acts eventually turned into 2008’s Almost an Evening at Atlantic Theater Company, where Pepe, who directed, is Artistic Director. Pepe and Coen quickly followed up their first collaboration with 2009’s Offices and 2011’s Happy Hour (also evenings of three plays). Now on their fourth collaboration with A Play Is a Poem, the duo have developed a comfortable rhythm together.
“Neil has a hyper-developed ear for what’s working, what’s not working, and a perfect touch with the actors, a way to show them how they can make it go better, keep the hoop rolling,” said Coen of the rehearsal process. “I’ve spent hours and hours over the years in a rehearsal room with him, and I still don’t know how he does it.” Pepe, for his part, feels the same. “He’s so used to working with actors and has such an inherent understanding of story and dramaturgy, it feels completely collaborative—where the writer begins and the director stops,” said Pepe of Coen.
There’s something inherently iconic about the plays in an American way.

They are also in basic agreement about the format and subject of A Play Is a Poem. “This play is five different stories, five little jaunts, the scenery different in each, the setting different—Neil and I haven’t talked about what ties them together; I don’t think either of us thinks about it,” explained Coen. “The aim is to get the play to that point, where it’s become a great big joyride for actors and audience. Neil knows how to get it there, but it’s an elusive place.”
Pepe offered a hint of how he sees that journey. “There’s something inherently iconic about the plays in an American way,” said Pepe. “But I think the thing that is of course surprising and deeply funny is Ethan’s take on it. So in a certain way it’s both his take on these stories and America, but also a take on some of the forms that these stories have taken over the years.”
They both prefer to keep the work uncategorizable. “It doesn’t matter where you put the play on that spectrum, high or low, tragedy or comedy—Neil cares about that as little as I do,” said Coen. “We’ve never even talked about that, over the course of many years of working together—whether what we’re working on is a comedy or not. Or what the play is in any generic sense. It’s a play, and it’s either working or not working, either going or not going.”
L–R: Sarah Laux, Micaela Diamond, Ro Boddie, Saul Rubinek, Sam Vartholomeos, and Jacob A. Climer.

The aim is to get the play to that point, where it’s become a great big joyride for actors and audience.

One asset they have in getting the play going is a robust ensemble that includes many actors who have worked with both Pepe and Coen previously in both theatre and film. “Doing one-acts with a great ensemble of actors, I feel like it’s where I come from—having come of age in a theatre company with a closely knit acting ensemble,” said Pepe. “I think Ethan also comes from a background and aesthetic of great ensemble actors, and that’s how we approach these.”
But of course theatre has its limitations as well, which just might be part of the appeal. “In my mind, in theatre there’s an essential truth and simplicity to the form, which allows the words to kind of spark the imagination as opposed to having the capacity to show and realize everything, which I think you can really do very effectively in film,” said Pepe. “There’s something about poetry and language and the essential nature of a poem and the essential nature of a short play that is exciting in its economy.”
With all of that in mind, for both collaborators, at the end of the day, the crux of the piece—or any piece—is trying to coax out the essence of theatre; the thing that keeps an audience engaged with the art. Coen describes it as “the mad state that joins actors and audience when the play’s working; a mad thing that makes sense in the moment but nobody can describe it afterward.”
Or, as Pepe put it: “We do the best we can with the words that we can and we hope everybody enjoys the evening.”