Center Theatre Group Blog

 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.