News And Blogs

When we first developed our Boyle Heights programming three years ago, we laid what would become the foundations of our work at a community engagement strategies brainstorming session. One of the many lists we made was titled “Barriers of Participation,” alongside another list of solutions for said barriers. Here’s what we’ve learned about...

Location, Location, Location!

When we first developed our Boyle Heights programming three years ago, we laid what would become the foundation of our work at a community engagement strategies brainstorming session. One of the many lists we made was titled “Barriers of Participation,” alongside another list of solutions for said barriers. One of the first items we listed was...

Making Sure No One Gets Lost in Translation

We offer all of our free community workshops in and around The Shop, Center Theatre Group’s costume and prop shop in Boyle Heights, in Spanish and English. At any given workshop we host, at least three quarters of the participants are Spanish-only speakers, and almost everyone is bilingual.

Teaching Artist and Prop Master Extraordinaire Merrianne Nedreberg

Center Theatre Group has a great reputation and is a brand recognized by the theatre community and by many Angelenos, but for most people in Boyle Heights, it’s just three words they haven’t heard of before. An important part of my job as Community Liaison for Center Theatre Group is to provide a face for the organization and to create a person...

Why You Need a Community Liaison

Every time I meet a parent, without fail, I’m asked about programs for their children. It’s wonderful that parents and caretakers want their children to have access to more resources, but I remind them that many of our programs are for adults. Parents and caretakers work hard and deserve their own time to be creative, to socialize, to learn a n...

Designing an Experience for Parents

I’ve come to know that community encompasses more than just a group of people from a specific neighborhood, ethnicity, or age, and so, I’ve developed three “lenses” that I look through as I design community programs: community, Center Theatre Group, and artists. Each lens allows me to see who and what is represented or what spaces are...

The Boyle Heights Chronicles: Use More Lenses, Find More Intersections

We are halfway through the third year of programs in and around Boyle Heights as part of Center Theatre Group’s The Shop initiative and community programs, and each day I still learn something new, I meet someone who has never been to the theatre, and I find myself in awe of the creativity unleashed at a workshop, play reading, or costume de...

What I've Learned Three Years In

The library I grew up visiting doesn’t exist anymore. My refuge was Benjamin Franklin Library in Boyle Heights and that’s where I got lost in The Chronicles of Narnia, I indulged my teenage angst with The Chocolate War and was profoundly moved by the epic East of Eden. The library was a place to catch up on homework, do some research or be...

As part of Center Theatre Group’s The Shop project, dozens of Boyle Heights residents diligently attended their local library on Saturdays to learn skills and tips every wardrobe and costume designer knows to execute and maintain a show. They wowed at the detail in the costume designs and were excited to figure out via their new knowledge...

Center Theatre Group is very fortunate to have cultivated deep relationships with some of the nation’s preeminent playwrights. Playwrights like Luis Alfaro, Carla Ching, Jason Grote, Kinan Valdez, Sheila Callaghan, Dan O’Brien and David Adjmi. These playwrights have also agreed to lead Free Writing Workshops at The Shop as part of The Shop...

When you open the doors to a library you expect to see lots of books and people milling about from shelf-to-shelf or tapping away at computers. But, when you walk into a library in Boyle Heights you encounter something different, something surprising, what you find are mannequins dressed from head-to-toe in clothing you may have seen before, b...

News:

Location, Location, Location!

Making Sure No One Gets Lost in Translation

Teaching Artist and Prop Master Extraordinaire Merrianne Nedreberg

Why You Need a Community Liaison

Designing an Experience for Parents

The Boyle Heights Chronicles: Use More Lenses, Find More Intersections

What I've Learned Three Years In

The library I grew up visiting doesn't exist anymore: The Shop Chronicles

Boyle Heights ticket to the theatre: The Shop Chronicles

One word leads to another, leads to another: The Shop Chronicles

A visual invitation: The Shop Chronicles