Center Theatre Group Blog

Michael Bulger is CTG’s Marketing Coordinator.

It’s that time again in the CTG Marketing Department. The time which we hold near and dear to our hearts. The time we all look forward to for weeks and weeks.

No, not the parking lot cook-out…OPENING NIGHT! And what’s great is this time we’ve got three at once! That’s right, over the next two weeks we’re opening three shows…first Taking Over at the Douglas, then Pippin at the Taper and finally Minsky’s at the Ahmanson.

While openings themselves appear to be lovely evenings with star-studded crowds, making them that way is no easy task! First there are weeks of going through lists, deciding who we’re going to invite which inevitably takes us longer than we hope. Then we scramble to get invites out in time only to get back a deluge of RSVPs on our phone lines as we nervously anticipate overbooking the house.

And that’s how it goes for about week before opening….one moment we’re too full, and the next we’re not full enough…which is when we start the dreaded game of seating. 

Our conference room becomes a war room – (imagine your dorm while cramming for finals with empty pizza boxes and scraps of paper on the floor) – while we figure out just the right seat for everyone (and remember, the Ahmanson has almost 2,000 seats!!) We shuffle post-its around on seating charts like crazy people. We check, double check and triple check our lists for accuracy. Last minute cancellations are only slightly less common then last minute additions…and you can guess how much fun those are!

Finishing mere hours before curtain on opening night, we rush to the box office, list in hand, ready to greet our guests. And the best part is: it’s all over in an hour! As they say, the show goes on, and the weeks of pulling our hair out end pretty anti-climactically. Ah well, it was good fun…and hey, there’s always the after party!

Leslie K. Johnson is CTG’s Director of Education and Outreach and heads up the Performing for Los Angeles Youth program (P.L.A.Y.)

I had my first real kiss at a cast party for Tom Sawyer. I was an awkward, nerdy 7th grader (think the African-American Olive Oyl with Coke-bottle glasses) attending Langston Hughes Middle School in Reston, Virginia. I had a huge crush on a boy named Sean Morgan. He was an early bloomer – already emerged from his lanky adolescent shell into a hunky, suave leading man. Plus he was taller than me. He was a fixture in our school plays, so if I wanted to be close to Sean, I was going to have to get into theatre. Now, given my limited experience (read: lack of acting talent), our Drama and Speech Teacher, Mrs. Judy Bowns, did not see fit to cast me in a speaking role, but since the production was a musical, there was plenty of room in the corps of dancers for gangly me. And over the course of weeks of after-school rehearsals, I got to be in close proximity to Sean’s loveliness, developing, what became, an epic crush.

Even with this distracting romantic subtext, our production was a technical masterpiece and run-away hit. After the show, Sean’s parents hosted the cast party at their home. He was working the room – moving from group to group sharing his congratulations, joshing with friends, seemingly untouchable. The party was fun, but our paths didn’t really cross until my dad came to get me. Ever the gentleman, Sean walked me to the door and just as I turned to say a final thank you, he was standing there – a little too close, still in Sawyer’s tattered coverall shorts and red/white checked gingham shirt. He put his hand on my shoulder, and said “Uh, great job dancing” and smack, planted a full mouth kiss on me. It…was…magical. 

Sadly, I would later come to learn that Sean had, in fact, been walking every female party-goer to the door and, therefore, getting a lip workout with each girl in the cast and crew. And so, as with most crushes, in the end, I was crushed. 

Nonetheless, through the experience of participating in the production of Tom Sawyer, I learned some things and showed some promise. Mrs. Bowns sought me out to work on other productions after that – South Pacific, Our Town, Guys and Dolls. The next year, Sean and his family moved away, but I continued to study theatre into high school. I “retired” from my stage career by 10th grade to focus on backstage activities. I really liked knowing how things worked, having access and knowledge of behind the scenes (a feeling that still holds true today). And so, as with so many things in life, what started as a way to meet a boy turned into something that peaked my curiosity, tapped my inner passion, challenged me, and connected me to a whole new group of people.

In the end it doesn’t really matter why or how you come to participate in theatre – a school field trip, the only available elective, your friend had a free ticket, or a crush on a seriously cute boy. What matters is that you have the access to experience its magic. Because once you have, theatre isn’t some passing crush on a philandering, manipulative, adolescent twit. Theatre, like true love, is about feeling your heart pounding, experiencing yourself growing, and discovering real passion. So take that, Sean!

Photo at left: Leslie K. Johnson, circa 7th grade.

Mandy Ratliff is the Development (“Devo”) Database Manager at Center Theatre Group where she dwells everyday in the sexy world of non-profit fundraising. 

Notice our slammin’ new features of the website?  It’s been at least a year in the making…

We came together like a Mini-UN.  Representatives from various Center Theatre Group departments pow-wowed in meeting after meeting after meeting…infinity.  All with the one hope of creating a more interactive CTG experience.  Wait.  What I meant to say was:  All with the one hope of getting their department needs onto the new website.  The process was a bit like this:

We submitted our Bells & Whistles wish list to the programmers.  And instead of performing like magical elves, they asked us in depth questions such as “What tone of ding would you like for this bell?” and “What is the duration of this whistle tone?”  Hey, we’re Theatre Folk: Read our minds and wow us.  Alas, that wouldn’t suffice.  We went back and forth with the “That’s not possible!” “But I can see it in my mind’s eye!” “But it’s not a part of the Web API call!” “Then do a different one!” “You don’t understand what I’m talking about!”  And so on.

Eventually, once we were in testing mode (and finding some bells with pristine rings but also some lispy whistles), the deadlines slammed down fast.  It became all about the “Showstoppers” i.e. fixes that could not wait for the next deployment.  What?  Too technical?  I’ll put it in theatrical terms: Can Allison Janney perform 9 to 5 with the wrong shoes? Yes.  But can Allison Janney perform 9 to 5 with no feet? Showstopper.

Then after the Showstoppers were determined, it became a fight for whose fixes will get fixed first.  You know ER triage?  Stab wound would be treated first; ankle sprain would be sitting for hours in the Waiting Room.  It was up to me as the Devo representative to convince everyone that the Special Event template was a ruptured appendix.  You get the idea.

And it’s ongoing.  We are still meeting and testing and being suspicious when all goes well and relaxing a bit and most importantly, making sure that it all works and that you guys use it smoothly and are none the wiser.

 What kind of holiday gift do you get the guy who has everything?

Normally, we would say, “Nothing.” But several of the staff were in the giving spirit and thought that Michael Ritchie deserved something extra special this year.

They knew that they wanted to give him something that was personal. Something that represented the things that he loves. And in this environmentally correct era, they wanted a gift that could be reused or that was recycled. And it had to be cheap.

After a couple of drinks at happy hour (where the entire budget for this project was used), one member of the group stumbled upon the idea of redoing the small bathroom in his office. Scratch that, it’s actually a water closet. Small that it may be, it is functional.

So, this intradepartmental group came up with the brilliant idea of using remnants from the new Taper to re-carpet Michael’s bathroom. Everybody here knows how much Michael loved the Taper renovation, especially the multi-colored, circular-designed carpet. It fit all of our criteria (mainly that it was free) and a plan was hatched. The biggest challenge was to find a time when Michael was not around for at least three hours. After recruiting his assistant to find some available times, the date was set and the remnants were secured. While everyone else was on vacation, one member of the Production staff created the blueprint on cardboard and proceeded to install it in the wee hours of December 26th.

In the spirit of sharing some behind-the-scenes news with you, we have attached some before and after photos of the infamous water closet. Rumor has it that Michael likes how the carpet looks better in his bathroom than in the Taper.