News And Blogs

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

What do you do after you’ve adapted one of history’s greatest epics into a poignant, critically acclaimed one-man show?

From Epics to Clerics

We can’t wait to showcase the work of three multi-talented artists at our inaugural L.A. Writers’ Workshop Festival: New Plays Forged in L.A. on June 23, 2018. Sylvan Oswald, Dan O’Brien, and Zakiyyah Alexander are among the 89 playwrights who have participated in Center Theatre Group’s L.A. Writers’ Workshop since 2005. Before we stage r...

Meet the 2018 L.A. Writers’ Workshop Festival Playwrights

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

Tony-Award®-winning composer Jeanine Tesori is known for translating America’s most iconic musical styles to the stage with shows like Caroline, or Change and Fun Home. But even if you appreciate the blend of eras and references that fill her music, don’t call her work “pastiche.”...

Jeanine Tesori’s Musical Patchwork (not to Be Confused with Pastiche)

Quick: What city is home to the world's best, most diverse community of playwrights? The answer is becoming increasingly clear: Los Angeles.

Playwrights on Fire

To say that the creative team behind the World premiere of Soft Power—onstage at the Ahmanson Theatre May 3 – June 10, 2018—admires and respects one another is an understatement. It might be more suitable to say that Soft Power playwright and lyricist David Henry Hwang, composer Jeanine Tesori, director Leigh Silverman, and choreographer Sam...

Three's a Crowd, Four's a Collaboration

If you’re doing something new, there is always a sense of fear or foreboding, but you’re in new ground and you have to get out your machete and cut a new path, superstar composer Jeanine Tesori explained in an interview a few years ago....

Five Reasons Jeanine Tesori Inspires us to Go for our Dreams

As the self-described only even nominally Chinese person who’s ever written a Broadway show, Chinese American playwright David Henry Hwang has gone on quite a few meetings with Chinese entertainment producers who want to create a Broadway show of their own. Why are they interested? Two words that also happen to be the title of Hwang and Jeanine T...

‘Soft Power’: The Show, The Theory, The Inspiration

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

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