Contra Costa Civic Theatre Executive Artistic Director Marilyn Langbehn To Step Down In December 2023

Contra Costa Civic Theatre (CCCT)'s Board of Directors announced that Executive Artistic Director Marilyn Langbehn will depart the East Bay community theater organization at the end of 2023. The Board of Directors has formed a transition committee to begin the search for a new artistic leader.

“Marilyn's leaving, after being a part of the CCCT family for over ten years, will be a tremendous loss,” says Board President Kathleen Perka. “Her enthusiasm for theatre is contagious and as she has grown in her position serving both as our Artistic and Executive Director, so has CCCT and we are better for her dedication and loyalty.  Marilyn is a multi-talented individual; a one-woman dynamo and award-winning Director, whose innovative ideas and perseverance through the trying years of Covid kept CCCT in the spotlight and the theatre is starting to thrive once again. She will be greatly missed.”

Langbehn adds, “Serving as CCCT's artistic leader for the past ten years has been the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. I am beyond grateful to the Board, the scores of artists, and thousands of audience members who are the heart of our community, and look forward to celebrating CCCT's future.”

In 2013, Marilyn Langbehn came to Contra Costa Civic Theatre as its fifth Artistic Director after a highly-successful freelance directing career throughout the Bay Area. During her tenure with the company, she produced or directed forty-seven Main Stage productions, including one West Coast premiere, six Bay Area premieres and the world premiere of The Lost Years, only the second world premiere in the company's 64-year history. Her critically-acclaimed production of August: Osage County received Best Production and Best Director nods at the inaugural Theatre Bay Area awards in 2014. She founded CCCT's Reading Stage series in 2015 to showcase the work of 21st-century women playwrights and playwrights of color. To date, the series has produced more than 20 works, including plays by Katori Hall, Theresa Rebeck, Cynthia Wands, Kimber Lee, Leah Nanako Winkler, Jiréh Breon Holder, Sarah Ruhl, and Inda Craig-Galván, and the widely-acclaimed world premiere of Langbehn's play, Running For My Life, about the January 6th insurrection, which has played three times to national audiences. During the COVID shutdown, she developed multiple strategies to engage audiences and keep the theatre moving forward, including livestreamed productions of The Last Five Years and It's a Wonderful Life: a Radio Play, the “Kitchen Table Conversations” Zoom series with members of the community, and reimagined hybrid summer camps. Her final two productions for the company, Sondheim on Sondheim and Tintypes, will open CCCT's 64th season, beginning in August 2023.

Celebrating its 64th season in 2023-24, Contra Costa Civic Theatre (CCCT) embraces the notion that theatre is a vital part of a healthy community and serves its citizens best when it provides a welcoming home for all people who value the power of storytelling. Established in 1959 by Louis and Bettianne Flynn and a group of dedicated volunteers and under the artistic direction of Marilyn Langbehn for the past ten years, CCCT is proud to provide entertainment and education to the El Cerrito and East Bay communities that help it to thrive.

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