Center Theatre Group News & Blogs

Lindsay Allbaugh’s Dear Directorial Debut at Center Theatre Group

Jessica Doherty — Mon, 28 Aug 2023 11:54:00 -0700

For Lindsay Allbaugh, as a high schooler, she found her people while sneaking out of class and into the theatre department and staying after school to dance onstage to Cirque du Soleil and Broadway musicals while no one was watching.

“The theatre department was an escape from the horrors of high school,” she reminisced. “I felt very alone until I found this group of overly dramatic and deliciously weird kids. We didn’t fit in anywhere else— this was the first time I felt like I could really, truly, be my full self.”

Our Dear Dead Drug Lord resonated with Allbaugh immediately. “There’s something inherently magical about the setting, about how Playwright Alexis Scheer puts us in that treehouse, and all the feelings of nostalgia and youthful possibility it implies, combined with the way that they speak to each other. It takes me right back to my high school days with my best friends and all of the deep feelings, angst, rage, and desire we were feeling,” she said.

Allbaugh is tapping into her high school experiences as she directs Our Dear Dead Drug Lord at the Kirk Douglas Theatre this summer. But she also brings with her the wisdom of her many years working in Los Angeles theatre, and right here at Center Theatre Group. The production will mark her directorial debut with the company—after 19 years of working here.

Allbaugh began working at Center Theatre Group as an assistant to the Managing Director. Outside of work, she became heavily involved in the 99-seat theatre scene in Los Angeles. She joined the Elephant Theatre company, founded by alumni of California State University Long Beach, her alma mater, and became a Co-Artistic Director during her ten-year tenure there. She directed and produced work across Los Angeles, and eventually shadowed former Artistic Director Michael Ritchie. As an Associate Artistic Director, Allbaugh was able to bring her experience at Center Theatre Group and beyond together to start the Block Party program, in which companies from smaller theatres in Los Angeles would have their work produced at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.

But it’s not as though Allbaugh’s high school self has ever really left—she believes a part of our teenage selves still lives in us all.

“I still have a little bit of that shyness or awkwardness that I had as a teenager, I still feel like I live within this group of ragtag thespians because in a sense, we’re all still some version of our younger selves,” she said.

The characters in Our Dear Dead Drug Lord are discovering the untapped power within themselves. Allbaugh finds this as another common experience of adolescence—laying claim to power after years of living by the established rules of family, school, and the world. Allbaugh herself had a brief Wiccan phase, which she feels was a way for her to try and “find my own voice and some control in my life.”

Allbaugh has always been drawn to stories about young people, especially young girls becoming women. She is particularly fascinated by what it means to wrangle with one’s identity, outside of the many external factors that can influence it.

“Society tells you what to do as a young girl, what you are, and what you’re capable of,” Allbaugh said. “And you may feel differently inside about who you feel you are and what you are capable of.” There is also the added layer of how the patriarchy impacts our society and institutions which can help explain why these young women are so drawn to the male leaders their club attempts to resurrect.”

Allbaugh as a director and Scheer as a playwright ask the actors and audience alike to wonder about what happens when women tap into the dangerous parts of themselves suppressed by the patriarchy.

Although this play is set just 15 years ago, in 2008, Allbaugh considers this a period piece. The play’s characters have drastically different political views, illustrating the beginning of much of the political polarization seen in the United States today.

But despite this story being about adolescent experiences, the journey of self-discovery is lifelong. Allbaugh said that these characters ask the audience a multitude of questions: “What does it look like to be feminine and brutal? What does feminist power, rage, and grief look like? And at what point do you, as an adult, start to think for yourself?”

No matter the age of the audience, Allbaugh finds that this play will frighten and shock everyone in the house. “What if the scary things in the world, are actually us?,” she said. “The monster under our bed is actually the monster inside of us.”

Getting Intimate with Veronica Sofia Burt

Michelle Teh — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 16:29:00 -0700

If you have never heard of an intimacy coordinator, that’s because it is a relatively new role in rehearsal rooms and on film and television sets. The position became increasingly popular after the Weinstein scandal and Me Too movement. Both of these events illuminated the disturbingly common and imminent issue of sexual misconduct throughout the entertainment industry. However, Burt pointed out that people have been doing this work for a long time—the only difference is that now, it is a formalized role.

SAG-AFTRA defines an intimacy coordinator as “an advocate, a liaison between actors and production, and a movement coach and/or choreographer in regard to nudity and simulated sex and other intimate and hyper-exposed scenes.” Burt’s own personal definition of an intimacy coordinator is someone who helps maintain actor boundaries while supporting the director's vision and creating choreography for intimate moments in a show. “Every intimacy professional that I am in community with is interested in this work so that we can have that much more specific and detailed and real depictions of sex,” she said. “It is not about limiting the sensual energy at all.”

Born, raised, and based in Los Angeles, Veronica Sofia Burt is an interdisciplinary theatre artist who has been trained in dance, intimacy choreography, teaching, directing and doula work. Burt herself “stumbled into” intimacy work simply by showing up as a friend. “I was always the friend that went with other friends of mine to photoshoots to make sure that they were going to be safe,” she recalled. After reading about intimacy coordinator roles on the internet, Burt realized that they were essentially what she was doing. Since then, Veronica has done intimacy work for productions at The Muny, Northern Stage, The Tank, NYMF, Williams College, Dartmouth College, Georgetown University, and USC School of Cinematic Arts. Burt is particularly excited to now work on Our Dear Dead Drug Lord because this production is in her very own city. “This place is really special to me,” she said. “Center Theatre Group was the place where I experienced so much of my first moments with theatre.”

So, what does intimacy work actually look like? She said that the students were having a hard time being vulnerable enough in the room to try to mimic the sounds of an orgasm with their peers. So she reduced the task down to technical terms. “You think about the duration of the inhale and the exhale... the speed at which they're happening. And then where is that breath coming from in the body? Is it a higher breath up here? Or is it a lower breath down here?” By breaking down an orgasm into inhales and exhales, Burt made something as scary and vulnerable as an orgasm much easier to access by turning it into a breath exercise.

Our Dear Dead Drug Lord follows a group of teenage girls navigating through the struggles of adolescence: from childhood trauma to discovering sexuality. Burt finds that the show asks a lot of actors somatically. She noted, “There’s just a lot happening physically to people of this age. So placing those characters in a space of grief... it's intensive. We're really building right now: How can we go there and really tap into that power, that shame, that grief? And then how do we release that as well?”

Burt is helping the team tap into their power by starting every rehearsal with a ritual. “Because there's so much ritual in the show, we wanted to build that into our rehearsal time,” she said. “We brought items to build into a shrine... at the top of rehearsal every day, we light a candle, we set our intentions for the day, and that is there on our shrine with all of our personal items.”

She adds that, especially with such a short and rigorous rehearsal process, “It's helpful that we all take a breath beginning of the day... to have that moment of intention at the start of the day, so that at the end of the day, it's also much easier to release.”

Due to certain scenes in the show, she will run intimacy calls—which are comparable to fight calls but for intimate moments—before each performance. “Because [the show] is very physical, these moments are hyper-choreographed... [intimacy calls are] helpful for the actors… so that when they have their adrenaline raging, their body is able to set back into the choreography that we've established,” she explained. Burt is excited about a particular dance scene that she is choreographing alongside Samantha Miller, who plays Squeeze. While choreographing the scene, Burt asks her team, “Where can we create our own, sort of, releases in our voices? Where can we be pounding our bodies just really sort of spellcasting this dance?”

Looking beyond Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, Burt has many hopes and aspirations for the future of intimacy work. She is a large believer that changing the industry starts with education and hopes to bring intimacy work to more theatre students. As a former dancer herself, she also aims to continue melding her movement and dance work with intimacy work.

“I'm really curious about being the intimacy director for a ballet company,” she said. “As a dancer, I would have benefited so much from having these tools in the room, and I think intimacy choreographers are becoming more and more prevalent in TV film, but not necessarily in the dance world.”

No matter the medium, Burt finds intimacy coordination is beneficial for artists, “not only for [their] environment and sense of collaboration and safety in the space, but for [their] art as well.”

Continuing the conversation

Center Theatre Group — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 17:10:00 -0700

If you have been triggered by the content of Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, or would like more information on these topics, please utilize the resources listed below.

National Sexual Assault Hotline
rainn.org/resources

National Sexual Violence Resource Center
nsvrc.org

Hope Clinic for Women
Post-Abortion Support Groups and Counseling
hopeclinicforwomen.org/services/counseling/post-abortion-counseling

MyLife Medical & Resource Center
Post-Abortion Counseling
mylifemrc.com/services/post-abortion-counseling

Planned ParenthoodSupport and Resources After a Miscarriage or Abortion
plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-orange-san-bernardino/patients/miscarriage-support

Other Resources

Inclusive Therapists

Matching people with therapists, centering the needs of Black, Indigenous and People of Color and the 2LBGTWIA+ community.
https://www.inclusivetherapists.com/

WILA – Affordable Therapy for Everyday People

WILA is at the forefront of a therapy movement, changing the ways people are treated when they need help but are held back by financial, cultural and systemic barriers. WILA serves the diverse communities of Los Angeles by providing affordable high-quality psychotherapy services while training the next generation of socially conscious mental health professionals.
Fees for therapy are based on a sliding scale, determined by each individual’s income, expenses, and specific life situation. If you are in need of no-cost services, WILA can provide referrals.
PHONE: 424-371-5191, EMAIL: info@wila.org, WEBSITE: https://wila.org/
Address: 11845 West Olympic Blvd Suite 505 W, Los Angeles, CA 90064

Open Path Psychotherapy Collective

Non-profit nationwide network of mental health professionals dedicated to providing in-office and online mental health care at a steeply reduced rate to individuals, couples, children, and families in need.
Approximately $30 - $60 per session
https://openpathcollective.org/

UCLA Psychology Clinic

Provides therapy and assessment services by graduate students in the UCLA Clinical Psychology PHD program, closely supervised by UCLA facility and licensed clinical psychologists. Call to complete a brief screening and you will be matched with a counselor.
Fees range from $30 - $150 an hour for individual therapy on a sliding scale according to monthly gross income and number of dependents. Group therapy ranges from $5-$10 per session.
PHONE: 310-825-2305
https://www.psych.ucla.edu/centers-programs/clinic/
Address: 2191 Franz Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90096

USC Psychology Services Center (PSC)

Provides high-quality training for doctoral students in the clinical sciences program at USC while providing high-quality and affordable services to the Los Angeles community.
Provided by tele-health currently.
$20/individual session, $5/group therapy session
PHONE: 213-740-1600
https://dornsife.usc.edu/usc-psc

Yoga/Movement

Radha Yoga (https://www.radhayogala.com/)

Woman of color owned and teacher run organization.
“Radha Yoga LA’s focus is to amplify & empower through the transformative practice of yoga as a tool for living in true freedom from mental stress, physical pain, and spiritual disturbances. We are all a work in progress. We leave the energy of competition at the door. We believe that when we feel more full of joy, peace, and connection in our lives, we heal. Radha Yoga LA provides access to an inspiring practice in a safe nurturing space that encourages yogic education & energetic liberation through the strengthening of mind, body, and soul.”
$18/class drop-in rate, 6 classes for $80, $36 two-week membership, $108 monthly membership.

Walkgood LA
- Free yoga every Sundays, run clubs, Black-led collective
Movement Meditation
- @ Pieter Performance Space
- Sliding scale $11-$22

Meditation

Black Zen (https://www.blackzen.co/)
The Relational Center
UCLA/Hammer Museum
Breathwrk app- breathing exercises

Acupuncture

Yo San University (Mar Vista, $40-$50/session)