Corey Madden Departs Center Theatre Group in June

After 22 years at Center Theatre Group, P.L.A.Y. Producing Director Corey Madden will be departing the theatre company in June 2007 to take advantage of other creative opportunities. Her plans for the future include directing, teaching, consulting and advocacy on behalf of youth theatre and arts education.

Madden's future plans include directing the world premiere of the opera Keepers of the Night, commissioned by the L.A. Children's Chorus, conducted by Master Chorale Music Director Grant Gershon, and opening in July 2007 at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. She is also starting the development of a new dance theatre piece, Surf Orpheus, with choreographer Jacques Heim in conjunction with the theatre department of the University of California, San Diego, where Madden will begin teaching as a guest artist this spring. In addition, Madden is developing a new production with collaborator Laural Meade, and the theatre company, ChildsPlay, in Tempe, Arizona, that will feature performers who draw pictures on stage.

Madden is currently consulting with Crafton Hills College on a Title V grant which employs the arts to help recruit and maintain at-risk students at community colleges and provide connections with four-year colleges.

Madden was the Associate Artistic Director of the Mark Taper Forum from 1993 through 2005. As part of CTG's senior artistic leadership team, Corey was deeply engaged with many mainstage productions and with the Taper's ambitious new play development programs. She worked with numerous local and national artists including George C. Wolfe, Anna Deavere Smith, Tony Kushner, Lisa Loomer, Luis Alfaro and David Gordon, and on the premieres of Spunk, Jelly's Last Jam, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Angels in America, Expecting Isabel, Living Out, Black Butterfly, The Family Business and The First Picture Show.

In the last seven years as the artistic head of P.L.A.Y., CTG's long-standing and award-winning youth theatre program, Madden concentrated on commissioning and presenting works of special relevance to younger audiences by contemporary artists such as Danny Hoch, Will Power, Charlayne Woodard, Doug Cooney, David O and José Cruz González.

Among the numerous productions Madden directed for P.L.A.Y. were the critically acclaimed The Stones by Tom Lycos and Stefo Nantsou, the world premiere musical The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip by Doug Cooney, music by David O, based on the book by George Saunders, and Animal Logic, which Madden co-conceived with writer Laural Meade and which will be seen this summer at the Getty Museum in two of its Family Festivals.

Charles Dillingham, CTG's Managing Director, reports that a national search for a successor to Madden will be undertaken.