L.A.'s Center Theatre Group Announces Upcoming Season; Slave Play Gets West Coast Premiere

Los Angeles' Center Theatre Group has announced the upcoming season for its Mark Taper Forum and Kirk Douglas Theatre. According to The Los Angeles Times, the 2022 season includes previously announced productions as well as fresh additions including the just-announced West Coast premiere of Jeremy O. Harris' Slave Play and the world premieres of Rajiv Joseph’s King James and Dave Harris’ Tambo & Bones.

Harris' Tony-nominated Slave Play, which will have a limited Broadway return this fall, will bow for the first time outside of New York at the Taper Forum on February 9, 2022. As previously announced, The Lehman Trilogy, which opens at Broadway's Nederlander Theatre on October 14, is being presented by the Taper but staged at CTG’s Ahmanson Theatre beginning on March 3, 2022. The world premiere of King James, a co-production with Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company that serves as an ode to basketball legend LeBron James, will bow from June 1 through July 3, 2022.

The Taper Forum will also see Pearl Cleage's Phylicia Rashad-directed Blues for an Alabama Sky on April 6, 2022 and Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man and the Pool on July 27, 2022. A digital production of I’ll Be Seein’ Ya will be presented, with exact dates to come.

The Kirk Douglas Theatre will bring in two world premieres; Benjamin Benne’s Alma, which deals with the relationship between a mother and daughter on the eve of the daughter’s SAT test, and Harris’ Tambo & Bones, which tackles the past, present and future of racism in America through two characters trapped in a minstrel show. Alma is being produced in cooperation with American Blues Theater and will run from March 6 through April 3, 2022 with Tambo & Bones playing May 1 through May 29, 2022 in co-production with Playwrights Horizons.

Two Block Party shows featuring productions by the 99-seat theaters Sacred Fools and Los Angeles LGBT Center will also be hosted by The Kirk Douglas Theatre.