News And Blogs

With a dream of becoming a lighting designer or master electrician, East Los Angeles College (ELAC) student Stephan Azua has always relished learning. But he never really imagined that experience would take place in a college classroom.

Working to Make Grad School an Opportunity for All

Amidst news of family separations and migrant caravans at the Mexico-United States border, Luis Valdez’s Valley of the Heart—onstage October 30 – December 9, 2018—could not have come to the Taper at a more pertinent moment.

'Valley of the Heart' Community Conversations Revisit Japanese American Internment and Redress, and Envision a More United America

It’s easy to take the cold weather attire and accents of the characters of Sweat to mean that the problems they face are endemic to industrial East Coast towns. Yet the reality for so many Angelenos is all too similar to that of the Reading, Pennsylvania working-class characters in Lynn Nottage’s searing play (onstage August 29 – October 7, 2...

Different Coasts, Same Problems

On a Saturday morning in June, a multigenerational group of friends and family gathered around sewing machines and bolts of colorful fabrics at Center Theatre Group’s The Shop.

Stitching Together Craft, Family, and Community in Boyle Heights

A peace pipe. A vial of arsenic. A mango-wheat beer. A necklace that can ward off evil spirits. An intricately carved jewelry box.

From Product Design to Props

At first glance, the words jazz and politics do not necessarily sound like harmonious ideas.

Can Music Make Democracy?

Theatre makers around the country are grappling with cultural appropriation and nontraditional casting right now. But the Asian American speakers at a recent Community Conversation are also coming to terms with their own “internal crisis” about beloved (but problematic) classics like Miss Saigon and The King and I....

Orientalism and the Portrayal of Asian Americans in Musicals

In 2018, Ahmanson audiences will experience Soft Power, a World premiere from theatrical titans David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) and Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home).

Center Theatre Group Partners with East West Players on 'Soft Power'

In Spring of 2017, the bar Eastside Luv was transformed into a theatre. Inside the tiny Boyle Heights venue young crowds danced to 1980s pop, drank sangria, and gossiped in English and Spanish. It was quintessentially Los Angeles. It was Chisme y Queso.

Chisme y Queso

From 2012–2016, three of Southern California’s leading regional theatres programmed ambitious initiatives to engage local communities—primarily Latinx—they felt were underrepresented as patrons at their theatres. With funding from the James Irvine Foundation’s Exploring Engagement fund, all three companies experimented with partnerships...

Working in Community

Across the street from Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights, tucked tightly onto a corner, is a very small bar. And although it’s early on a Sunday evening, inside the very small bar is a very big party.

Gossip, Cheese, and Theatre in Boyle Heights