SLAVE PLAY Reinstated to Center Theatre Group's 2021- 2022 Season

Playwright Jeremy O. Harris' has announced that his Tony-nominated hit Slave Play will once again arrive on the west coast next year as a part of Center Theatre Group's new season.

Earlier this month, the Tony-nominated playwright withdrew the play from the season citing an overwhelmingly male-authored lineup of plays.

Harris posted the news on Twitter earlier this evening, explaining that he had reached a resolution with CTG leadership upon their agreement to a number of terms Harris set forth to promote equity and diversity at the institution going forward.

Read his thread here:

"As a playwright who holds dear the principles of inclusion, it was a shock to realize that this season was programmed with only one woman across all theatres," writes Harris. "As an Angeleno and lover of theatre I think Los Angeles audiences deserve an equitable showing of playwrights working in the US right now."

A letter from Center Theatre Group's Artistic team, released on Tuesday, October 12, reads:

To our artists, audience, colleagues, and partners,

We want to have a conversation with you.

We recently announced Center Theatre Group's first Taper and Douglas seasons after a two-year Pandemic shut down. We acknowledge that our 21/22 season was heavily imbalanced when it came to gender. Women-identified voices are needed on our stages in every season. As an organization that is actively working towards being anti-racist and inclusive, we take responsibility for the lack of intersectionality of social identities and experiences on our stages.

We have been reminded by our community this past week about the great need for transparency. We are an organization in the midst of pandemic recovery and at the start of an Artistic Leadership transition; this is a moment of great change and communication is incredibly important. The 22/23 season planning process began over a year ago, and we had already been working hard to make sure our programming was of the highest artistic caliber and has been informed by our commitment to center BIPOC voices and give more production slots to women-identifying and non-binary playwrights.

As the season is shaping up, we are excited about our plan to schedule the full Taper 22/23 season next year with entirely women-identifying or non-binary playwrights and to also have it be a BIPOC-majority season. We are focusing our Douglas 22/23 season on majority women-identifying or non-binary and BIPOC playwrights. We will continue our commitment to uplifting/building gender and racial equity within our production directors and artistic teams.

In addition to the work that will appear on our stages, our expanded New Play Development programs also further our commitment to gender and racial equity. We have been preparing to announce a new chapter for our Not a Moment, But a Movement initiative in which we will be commissioning six new plays by Black women-identifying or non-binary playwrights. This adds to our other current developmental programs including the current writer's cohort which is comprised of 10 women-identifying, majority BIPOC playwrights, and 11 of our 16 current commissions are with women-identifying playwrights, 11 are also BIPOC playwrights.

In the spirit of this commitment to transparency, we have shared these in-the-works plans with members of our community, including Jeremy O. Harris. Jeremy has faith in the necessary measures we are taking and as a result of these conversations, Slave Play remains the opening production of our upcoming Taper season.

Moving forward, a new Artistic Director(s) will program our future seasons. We are seeking leadership that shares our values and commitments to change.

We are grateful to the women-identified playwrights and other members of our community who made it clear that we need to better communicate our planning intentions. We look forward to continuing this conversation with you. We are unwavering in our commitment to cutting-edge art and diversity of all perspectives, and the best possible experience on our stages.

The Artistic Team can be reached at this email: ArtisticTeamContact@ctgla.org.

Sincerely,

Luis Alfaro
Lindsay Allbaugh
Tyrone Davis
Neel Keller
Kelley Kirkpatrick

We acknowledge that terms and language like "women-identifying" and "non-binary" are in a constant state of redefinition and evolution, and the language we use may change over time.

Other than Harris' Slave play, which was due to arrive at Mark Taper Forum in February, the season currently includes The Lehman Trilogy by Stefano Massini, Blues for an Alabama Sky by Pearl Cleage, King James by Rajiv Joseph, Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man and the Pool, I'll Be Seein' Ya by Jon Robin Baitz, Alma by Benjamin Benne, Tambo & Bones by Dave Harris, To T or Not to T? A Comedic Trans Journey through (T)estosterone and Masculinity by D'Lo, and The Art Couple by Brendan Hunt.

Center Theatre Group, one of the nation's preeminent arts and cultural organizations, is Los Angeles' leading nonprofit theatre company, which, under the leadership of Artistic Director Michael Ritchie, Managing Director / CEO Meghan Pressman and Producing Director Douglas C. Baker, programs seasons at the 736-seat Mark Taper Forum and 1,600 to 2,100-seat Ahmanson Theatre at The Music Center in Downtown Los Angeles, and the 317-seat Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City.

In addition to presenting and producing the broadest range of theatrical entertainment in the country, Center Theatre Group is one of the nation's leading producers of ambitious new works through commissions and world premiere productions and a leader in interactive community engagement and education programs that reach across generations, demographics and circumstance to serve Los Angeles.