News And Blogs

In Alexis Scheer’s Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, four high school girls find each other through the ‘Dead Leaders Club,’ in which they attempt to summon dead leaders, like Pablo Escobar, through seances and blood sacrifices in a treehouse. This group ends up being a pivotal way for these young women to cope with the grief and lack of control in th...

Lindsay Allbaugh’s Dear Director Debut at Center Theatre Group

As humans, each of us has individual and personal experiences that inform our understanding, relationship, and response to the world around us. Theatre can often evoke discomfort when exploring difficult subject matter, such as abortion, consent, and physical assault, as presented in this powerful play.

Continuing the conversation

Alexis Scheer is the playwright behind Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, onstage at the Kirk Douglas Theatre this month. Her other work includes adapting the book of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bad Cinderella, screenwriting for Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, and projects developed for HBO Max and Salma Hayek’s Ventanarosa. She was born and raised in a Jew...

21 Questions With Alexis Scheer

Theatre is that glorious empty space that challenges imagination, artistry, and discovery like no other place I know. Done well, it entertains, provokes thought, and can be an instrument of change. For weeks I have been the leader in the exploration of Will Power’s Fetch Clay, Make Man, a work, true to the reputation of the author, that tells a s...

A Note from Director Debbie Allen

Fetch Clay, Make Man started with a photograph of Muhammad Ali and Stepin Fetchit in the window of Oakland’s Afrocentric bookstore, Marcus Books.

DUKING IT OUT with Debbie Allen & Will Power

“Nothing in this play is what it appears to be,” Actor Eugene Lee says of A Soldier’s Play.

Soldiering On

This week, we are looking into the work of playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith as we continue our educational exploration for Black History Month, an annual observance that honors the important people and events in Black culture and the history of the United States. February is Black History Month, an annual observance that honors the importa...

The Black Artists of Yesterday, Today, and the Future

The four main types of onstage storytelling.

What is theatre, anyway?

February is Black History Month, an annual observance that honors the important people and events in Black culture and the history of the United States. The month highlights the love, success, and bond Black people share and the contributions they have made as a community and for the country, while also honoring and recognizing the strife they have...

The Black Artists of Yesterday, Today, and the Future

You give a living thing a little chance to grow. That lyric, written by Marsha Norman for The Secret Garden, neatly captures the spirit of hope that has engaged fans of the 1911 children’s literature classic, its countless movie and TV adaptations and, of course, Norman and Lucy Simon’s 1991 Tony Award-winning musical....

Taking Time to Grow

Danny Robins has been searching for ghosts his whole life. He has become an award-winning writer, broadcaster, and producer by finding and telling real-life ghost stories. His podcast series, The Battersea Poltergeist, became a worldwide phenomenon that combined drama and documentary that will now become a TV show with Blumhouse Productions, which...

Finding Hope in Horror and Hauntings with Danny Robins