News And Blogs

How does a new (play with a) musical get made? To quote Soft Power, It Just Takes Time. In this case, that’s four years, 13 readings and workshops, and the partnership of a crackerjack creative team of American theatre all-stars. But before all that, there was breakfast, as Center Theatre Group Artistic Director Michael Ritchie and playwright Dav...

Four Years, Two Breakfasts, and One Big Commission

Almost every performance you see onstage at Center Theatre Group is a collaboration. And we’re not just talking about the obvious—the team of actors, writers, directors, producers, designers, and artisans who have come together for the show’s run. More often than not, the production you’re seeing took collaboration among theatre compani...

Center Theatre Group Hits The Road

2016/17 is a season of firsts at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. The 13th season at our space in Downtown Culver City is jam-packed with five World premieres, one American premiere, and our inaugural Block Party. It is also a season that reflects the diverse and innovative ways regional theatres like Center Theatre Group commission new work, collaborate...

Raising Collaboration to an Artform

Throughout the summer and early fall of 2016, Center Theatre Group’s artistic staff worked hard to prepare for the 20 productions that will play our Los Angeles stages in the upcoming season. But they were also traveling 2,500 miles across the country to New York City to participate in workshops and readings of nine different plays and musicals i...

The Center Theatre Group Plays you Haven’t Heard of—Yet

Andrew Thiels has bought, built, and hunted down everything from dead bodies and antique refrigerators to handmade Amish wheelbarrows and vintage motorcycles for Center Theatre Group’s stages. Thiels, who became Properties Manager in 2013 and began freelancing for us in 2004, sat down with us to share some fun facts about his craft.

Prop Manager Andrew Thiels on 'Wild Goose Chases' and 'Making Fantasies Realities' Onstage

The name “Ivo van Hove” doesn’t flow off the tongues of Angelenos yet—but it will soon. (For the record, it’s pronounced “EE-vo van HOE-va.”) The 57-year old Belgian director of A View From the Bridge, which plays the Ahmanson Theatre September 7 – October 16, 2016, has been called avant-garde, minimalistic, provocative, and...

Meet Ivo van Hove

Steeped in anti-war and civil rights movements as a young man, Robert Egan was ﬁrst drawn to theatre because it could help combat the racial and political injustices of the social world in which he found himself. So he threw himself in. He was a Producing Director here at the Mark Taper Forum for 20 seasons. He launched the Taper’s New Work Fes...

A Road Map to Gentleness

Poets and playwrights Jerry Quickley and reg e gaines return to the Douglas on February 8, 2016 with Through the Looking Glass, a collaboration with community members from Leimert Park and Montebello that explores their lives and neighborhoods....

Jerry Quickley and reg e gaines Return to the Douglas

Experimental animation, abstract shadow dancing, trippy science—is it theatre? If it’s the work of animator and performer Miwa Matreyek, the answer is yes. Whether through her solo work or with L.A.-based theatre company Cloud Eye Control, Matreyek is breaking artistic boundaries. Which is exactly why she is this year’s Richard E....

Coming at Theatre Sideways: The Innovative Art of Sherwood Award Winner Miwa Matreyek

When The Christians comes to the Mark Taper Forum from December 2, 2015 to January 10, 2016, it will mark Obie Award-winning Director Les Waters’ third Center Theatre Group play in 15 months. In September 2014, he directed the world premiere of Marjorie Prime at the Taper, and in July and August of this year, he directed Girlfriend at the Kirk Do...

L.A. Feels Like an Artistic Home to Director Les Waters