News And Blogs

Mat Diafos Sweeney is a true multi-hyphenate creator: a composer-director-writer-designerchoreographer who makes theatre and performance pieces that defy easy characterizations. “I talk about the work that I make as ‘junkyard opera,’ both because of the different mediums that I’m working with in visual art and choreography and music and tex...

And the 2020 Sherwood Award Goes to…Performance Maker Mat Diafos Sweeney

“What’s it like to punch someone in the face?” playwright Ngozi Anyanwu asked mixed martial artist Ashlee Evans-Smith. They were sitting in the Kirk Douglas Theatre rehearsal room, where the 2019/20 L.A. Writers’ Workshop had just kicked off with its annual Salon. From a clinical psychologist and Jesuit priest to an anthropologist and Afric...

Behind Salon Doors

The following letter is excerpted from Reflections, The Taper at Twenty, a publication produced by Center Theatre Group in recognition of the Mark Taper Forum’s 20th Anniversary. In this section, actor René Auberjonois, who appeared at the Taper regularly over its first twenty years and was a founding member of the Mark Taper Forum Repertory Com...

Within This Concrete O

For any playwright, the opportunity to create and converse in a collaborative setting is a golden one. Especially unique is an environment as immersive and supportive as the L.A. Writers’ Workshop, now beginning its 14th year at Center Theatre Group.

Diverse Stories and Remarkable Talents

"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...

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

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