News And Blogs

Dear Community Member, If you’ve never been to Center Theatre Group before, I want to welcome you to what I hope will be a wonderful experience. For those of you who are returning…it’s nice to have you back here with us!

A Letter from Michael Ritchie: October 2018

It’s hard to imagine that less than a generation ago, Cupertino, California was an agricultural town. Today, it is home to Apple Inc.’s headquarters—a vast, ring-shaped structure made of glass and steel—and one of the wealthiest cities in the country. Yet for playwright, director, and El Teatro Campesino founder Luis Valdez, Cupertino will...

‘Zoot Suit’ Creator Luis Valdez Plants New Seeds at the Taper with ‘Valley of the Heart’

A major pillar of Center Theatre Group’s mission is to foster new plays and support local playwrights at every step of the process from conception to production. The ideal example is Quack, a World premiere onstage at the Kirk Douglas Theatre October 21 – November 18, 2018. Playwright Eliza Clark wrote the piece during her residency in the 2016...

From Start to Finish, A Home for New Work

Center Theatre Group has remained the first and only West Coast theatre to embrace my voice as a writer. I write African comedies, explained Ghanian American playwright Jocelyn Bioh. There are so many beautiful layers to my continent, and I feel rewarded in knowing that I’m adding to the conversation of how the African diaspora is reflected [ons...

Playwright Jocelyn Bioh Blends Comedy and Culture in ‘School Girls’

All three stages at Center Theatre Group have hosted artists whose stories reflect our diverse community since our doors opened in 1967, but this fall marks an important moment. At the Ahmanson, Taper, and Douglas, three powerful female playwrights—all theatre artists of color—have works onstage simultaneously: Dominique Morisseau, book writer...

Three Playwrights. Three Stages. Three Journeys.

Good friends are hard to find—and oftentimes harder to keep. And even the most challenging female friendships can be legendary with the right gals by your side. In honor of School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play—onstage at the Kirk Douglas Theatre September 2–30, 2018—we’re paying tribute to some of the most iconic girl squads in p...

Five Girl Squads that Are Friendship Goals

From both an urban development and stylstic standpoint, industrial design has become incredibly popular in American culture, embraced for both the history it evokes and its more utilitarian qualities. This trend provides an interesting juxtaposition to Lynn Nottage’s Sweat—onstage August 29 – October 7, 2018 at the Mark Taper Forum—a play t...

Industrial Design Meets Set Design

When the cast members of School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play—onstage at the Kirk Douglas Theatre September 2–30, 2018—are in the same room, it feels a lot like being in a real class.

The Class of ‘School Girls’ Dishes

The story of these young African American men navigating their identities, their music, and their role as artists at a time when the nation was in great civic and social unrest—I just think that speaks for now, said Dominique Morisseau.

Bringing Something New to The Temptations

The Broadway company of The Humans is receiving rave reviews from critics and audiences alike for their performances at the Ahmanson Theatre (June 19 – July 29, 2018). And while The Humans may be the only straight play in this 2017/18 Season, this uproarious, hopeful, and heartbreaking work is carrying on a tradition that dates back to Center The...

‘The Humans’ Is in Good Company at the Ahmanson

If we traveled back 70 years in American theatre, a booming parade of sweeping love ballads and uplifting melodic celebrations would welcome us. It’s not dissimilar to the music onstage at the Ahmanson Theatre May 3 – June 10, 2018 for Soft Power, the new show from David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori....

From Revivals to Reconstruction