Scenes From the Vault—Popol Vuh: Heart of Heaven

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 25 Sep 2020 12:34:00 -0700

In October 2015, Center Theatre Group, El Teatro Campesino, and members of the Boyle Heights community transformed Grand Park in Downtown Los Angeles into a giant puppet theatre to tell the epic Mayan creation story—the story of Popol Vuh: Heart of Heaven. The show was produced under the guidance of Center Theatre Group’s late Associate Artistic Director Diane Rodriguez and the direction of El Teatro Campesino’s Producing Artistic Director Kinan Valdez. It was essential that the show not only showed an authentic representation of L.A.’s culture, but also was a community-based effort from start to finish.

With the help of Estela Garcia, Tiana Alvarez and other integral members of the Boyle Heights community, Center Theatre Group and El Teatro Campesino were able to find local community members to not only create music and puppets for the show, but also cast the show with nearly 40 Boyle Heights residents varying from children to adults. The music was created with ETC’s Music Director Emiliano Valdez and members of L.A.-based bands Ozomatli, Quetzal, and Mariachi Divas in what Valdez describes as their “Mayan Orchestra.” Together, the Mayan Orchestra blended the pre-written score with the sounds of Los Angeles—salsa, jazz, funk, reggae, and rap. During workshops at our Costume Shop and our partner space, Self-Help Graphics, members of the Boyle Heights community gathered to design and create puppets for the production. Staff members described seeing participants more engaged than ever before. In fact, many of those who participated in the workshop also auditioned to perform in the show and don their creations alongside the 14-foot puppets of the Mayan gods. Between the uniquely L.A. vision and community enthusiasm, Center Theatre Group and El Teatro Campesino’s production of Popol Vuh: Heart of Heaven became an artistic celebration of Los Angeles’s Latinx culture and history.

As we continue reflecting on the power of Popol Vuh, we have been continuing our work in the community with Jesus A. Reyes, Center Theatre Group’s Community Partnerships Director, through the soon-to-launch Community Stories program and long-standing ongoing free workshops and events through our shop in Boyle Heights, local libraries, and beyond.

Scenes From the Vault—A Soldier's Play

Center Theatre Group — Fri, 04 Sep 2020 12:34:00 -0700

Before its Academy Award-nominated film adaptation in 1984 and its Broadway debut in February this year, A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller opened the Mark Taper Forum’s 16th season in 1982. The show was produced in collaboration with the Negro Ensemble Company with a star-studded cast including Adolph Caesar and Denzel Washington. Just months before the Taper’s production, Fuller’s play was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, making Fuller the second Black playwright to win the award. The show also won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Play, a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best American Play, as well as three Obie Awards. Despite the play’s success, Fuller “never thought it would be on Broadway.” Forty years later, the play finally had its long-overdue place on the Broadway stage.

A Soldier’s Play is a chilling murder-mystery that explores internalized racism, colorism, and tensions within the Black community. The story is set in 1944 in Fort Neal, Louisiana—a United States Army base—when the military was still segregated. The play centers around the murder of black Sergeant Vernon Waters and the ensuing investigation by a black Army officer, Captain Richard Davenport. Although the original suspects were Klansmen, Captain Davenport later discovers how Waters detested other Black men who conformed to stereotypes and how he projected his own internalized racism onto his men, ultimately leading to the suicide of a fellow soldier and his own demise.

Fuller intended to create “what may be the first Black murder-mystery” play that centered around the Black experience with three-dimensional characters. In a 1982 interview with Center Theatre Group, Fuller noted that,

“In the 60s and early 70s, many Black plays were directed at whites [and] were primarily confrontational pieces whose major concern was to address racism and white-black relationships in the country. Now we are much more concerned with examining ourselves, with looking at our own situations... Addressing white people about racial problems is not our only concern... I also think we’re now seeing [Black] characters who are more complex, ones who have bad qualities as well as good ones.”

Center Theatre Group News & Blogs

Scenes From the Vault—Popol Vuh: Heart of Heaven

Scenes From the Vault—A Soldier's Play