Center Theatre Group is offering a slate of artistic programming that helps identify and support the next generation of great plays and playwrights – which is in addition to the shows seen on its stages at the Ahmanson Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum, and the Kirk Douglas Theatre.
Through these programs, CTG fosters and develops a broad range of new theatrical work from artists within the diverse communities of Los Angeles, across the nation, and abroad. The company has a long history of providing artists with both financial and artistic support via resources, readings, and workshops throughout the year in Los Angeles, New York, and beyond. This tradition continues as CTG is proud to announce the 2025/26 LA Writers’ Workshop and LA Artist Residencies.
The LA Writers’ Workshop celebrates its 20th anniversary with the announcement of this year’s participating playwrights. Since 2005, CTG has invited a cohort of local playwrights to spend a year researching and writing new works with feedback from the artistic staff and their fellow writers. The program is designed to foster important voices, inspire playwrights to create their best work, encourage bold writing, and build relationships among local playwrights, CTG, and the Los Angeles theatre community. CTG’s growing list of LA Writers’ Workshop alumni is currently comprised of more than 100 playwrights. The 2025/26 cohort includes Bernardo Cubría, Christina Pumariega, Erika Sheffer, Keiko Green, Kevin Douglas, and Maddox Pennington.
2025/26 LA WRITER’ WORKSHOP PLAYWRIGHTS
BERNARDO CUBRÍA is a Mexican playwright/director. His award winning play The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/LatineVote had a seven-city rolling world premiere through NNPN in 2024/2025. His play Crabs in a Bucket won the 2024 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Writing. His play The Play You Want premiered at LA’s Road Theatre in 2022, garnering Cubría both a Stage Raw Award and a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle nomination for Playwriting. In 2019, Cubría was nominated for the Ovation, Stage Raw and Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Best Playwright awards for his play The Giant Void In My Soul. Other playwriting awards include the Smith Prize for Political Theater. He is a chair for the 2025/2026 Dramatist Guild national playwrights fellows. For film, he penned the feature screenplay Copa that Eva Longoria is set to direct for SONY and Guerrero which Gina Rodriguez is attached to direct and star in with One Community. He is also currently writing the Untitled Juan Gabriel Biopic that Gaz Alazraki is set to direct for Plan B and Maquina Vega. He was a 2023 Sundance Screenwriters Lab fellow for the screenplay Kill Yr Idols which he co-wrote. He was also a writer on Season 3 and 4 of Acapulco on Apple +. He most recently directed Am I Roxie, by Roxanna Ortega at The Geffen Playhouse.
Kevin Douglas is excited to be a part of the 2025/26 CTG LA Writers’ Workshop cohort. Kevin received a B.F.A in acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University. After graduating, Kevin took writing and improvisation classes at The Second City. Kevin is a member of the Regional Tony Award-winning company, Lookingglass Theatre. His play Thaddeus and Slocum: A Vaudeville Adventure (which earned him a Black Theatre Alliance Award for playwrighting). His play Plantation! directed by David Schwimmer had its world premiere at Lookingglass Theatre as well. His short plays Cautiously Optimistic and Chickens Be Roostin’ were in both Lower Depth Theatre’s Pandemic Play Festival and BIPOC Voting Plays Festival, respectively. He is currently developing for television. Kevin’s Untitled Vampire Play (which had some development at the Chicago Performance Lab) will be produced at Lookingglass Theatre in summer of 2026.
Keiko Green (she/her) is a playwright, TV writer, and performer based in Los Angeles. Plays include: You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World! (South Coast Rep; Oregon Shakespeare Festival – Upcoming), Empty Ride (Old Globe), Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play (Old Globe; SF Playhouse; Porkfilled Productions – Upcoming), Hells Canyon (Theater Mu; WET – upcoming), The Bed Trick (Seattle Shakespeare Co; Artists Repertory Theatre – Upcoming), Sharon (Cygnet Theatre), and Hometown Boy (Actors Express; Seattle Public Theater). Her plays have been developed at the Kennedy Center, the National New Play Network, Playwrights Realm, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and twice by the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. Awards/Honors: Susan Blackburn Prize Finalist, Kilroys Web, San Diego Critics Circle Award (Outstanding New Play), Gregory Award (Outstanding New Play). She holds commissions from Manhattan Theatre Club/Sloan Foundation and Atlantic Theatre Company. Current/Past Affiliations: Old Globe Resident Artist, Geffen Writers Group, Chance Resident Playwright, Theater Mu’s Mu Tang Clan, Seattle Rep Resident Writers Group, ACT Core Company Member. For TV, she wrote on Hulu’s Interior Chinatown and AppleTV’s upcoming Margo’s Got Money Troubles. As an actor, she has performed at theaters nationwide and originated the role of Connie in Lauren Yee’s The Great Leap at the Denver Center and Seattle Rep. BFA: NYU Drama – Experimental Theatre Wing, MFA: UCSD Playwriting. www.keikogreen.com
MADDOX PENNINGTON (he/they) is a performer, director, and playwright; a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, he is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma. He received an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Columbia University; his debut bibliomemoir, A Girl Walks Into a Book: What the Brontës Taught Me About Life, Love, and Women’s Work was published by Hachette Books in 2017. Their work for the stage has been developed with LA’s Native Voices, The Moving Arts MADLab, the 2024 Creative Nations First Storytellers Festival in Boulder, CO, and the Center for the Arts at Kayenta in Ivins, UT. Play readings have been presented by NYC’s FRIGID Queerly Festival Off-Off Broadway, the Theatre Viscera Podcast, and the 2023 T/GNC Reading Festival. He’s performed as an actor in The Fountain Theater’s White Rabbit Red Rabbit (Nassim Soleimanpoor) and will appear this fall in Native Voices’ rolling World Premiere of Tara Moses’ Haunted as Ash. Their latest directing projects include Madeline Sayet’s The Fish at SparkFest in Fort Worth TX and Dillon Chitto’s Pigeon at the Native Voices upcoming New Plays Retreat. With his production company Gaybones, Pennington has written, directed, and produced award-winning plays with majority nonbinary/trans casts. He recently co-produced The Joy Who Lived Festival with LaserVision productions, facilitating acting and writing workshops as well as directing a debut presentation of LOVE CHICKEN: The Musical, for which he wrote the book. You can find them online at MaddoxKPennington.com and @MKPinLA.
Christina Pumariega acts and writes. Often simultaneously. This spring she performed in the world premiere of her play ¡VOS! at Two River Theater. ¡VOS! was developed at the Ojai Playwrights Conference and received the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. This summer she develops and performs in Vidas Privadas, inspired by Noël Coward’s Private Lives, at New York Stage & Film and TRT. She attends Hedgebrook this fall. Other plays include Labor (Leah Ryan honorable mention), Joan Dark (Denver Center for the Performing Arts Summit), Harbor Girls and Her Math Play (EST/Sloan Grant). She is currently under commission by MTC/Sloan, DCPA and TRT. TV writing credits include Disney+ and NBC. Acting on and Off-Broadway and in television and film, Pumariega has cross examined Coach Taylor, made out with the Fly and set a Cuban pharmacy ablaze in a corset. MFA, NYU Graduate Acting Program. christinapumariega.com
Erika Sheffer. Plays include Russian Transport (The New Group, Steppenwolf), The Fundamentals (Steppenwolf commission and world premiere) and Vladimir (Manhattan Theatre Club). Honors include the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, The Vineyard Theatre’s 2012 playwright-in-residence, multiple TCG Edgerton Grants, and an Outer Critics Circle nomination. Her plays have been developed by MTC, South Coast Rep, Geffen Playhouse, The New Group, Steppenwolf, The Vineyard, Ars Nova, and SPACE on Ryder Farm. Alumna of Ars Nova Playgroup and SPACE’s Working Farm. Commissions from Steppenwolf, Geffen Playhouse, and Manhattan Theatre Club. Television and film credits include Apple TV’s Little America, Netflix’s The Beast in Me, as well as multiple shows and features in development for Apple, Starz, and others. BFA from Syracuse University.
LA ARTIST RESIDENCIES
AMMUNITION THEATRE COMPANY (AMMO)
Founded in 2014, Ammunition Theatre Company (AMMO) was born from a desire to accelerate representation in the arts, explore identity in an evolving America, and shift mainstream storytelling toward more inclusive narratives. Since then, AMMO has earned a reputation for producing spirited and subversive plays and readings that challenge assumptions and reflect the world we live in — earning critical acclaim and nominations from Ovation, Stage Raw, and the LA Drama Critics Circle. From its inception, AMMO has been inclusive by design, with a membership that mirrors the diversity of our community. We believe theatre thrives when it sparks conversation, inspires action, and embraces a wide spectrum of lived experiences. To that end, we prioritize developing new works by underrepresented artists — amplifying voices that defy convention and expand cultural understanding. By centering fresh perspectives, we aim to foster dialogue, deepen empathy, and build stronger, healthier communities. At the heart of AMMO is our company: a collective of designers, actors, writers, directors, and producers. We are not only artists — we are advocates, collaborators, and active participants in civic life. Beyond the stage, we partner with philanthropic organizations to expand the reach of our work, bringing theatre and arts education to communities too often left behind — including under-served youth and elders. By combining creative expression with hands-on engagement — we break down barriers between art and everyday life and use theatre to spark dialogue, build relationships, and strengthen the world we share.
FOUR LARKS
Four Larks makes original “visually enthralling” work “at the intersection of theatre, music, visual art, and dance” cited by the LA Times as “the future of live performance.” Created by director / composer Mat Sweeney alongside creative producer Sebastian Peters-Lazaro. Currently working from downtown LA / on Tongva land. Our junkyard operas fuse immersive design, chamber-pop, and physical theatre. Big ideas made manifest in live space and song. We rummage through the junkyard of real and imagined histories to create new performance works in unexpected spaces. We believe that our current truths are stitched into our foundational stories. Our work is to continue wrangling and interrogating them. We are continually working towards an anti-racist and ecologically ethical practice, in both process and production, form and content. We operate variously as an experimental music ensemble, physical theatre lab, and sustainable design firm. Apart from our independently produced work, Mat & Sebastian both also partner with other artists, composers, and institutions to create aesthetic experiences, activate space, and translate ideas across forms. Recently, we worked with the Getty to create an immersive opera from an antiquities exhibition, and with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra to turn a new-music program into a series of interactive installations. Throughout the late 2010’s we created and curated a DIY gallery & performance space out of an old flower shop in downtown LA. We’ve just completed our first visual album. Four Larks is an expanding constellation of creative collaborators. Our evolving mission and methodology is profoundly impacted by the artists and audiences that keep us in orbit, as we’ve moved from Naarm / Melbourne, Australia to our current home in downtown Los Angeles. Please see our project credits to connect with our collaborators, and contact us to get involved in future projects.
NATIVE VOICES
Native Voices is devoted to developing and producing new works for the stage by Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and First Nations playwrights. Native Voices has produced plays by a diverse group of Native writers, covering an array of subjects from satiric comedies to urban dramas and even radio plays. Every year, Native Voices presents the popular Short Play Festival, where ten-minute plays take center stage, each one bursting with creativity around a unique theme. The retreat and festival provide emerging and established Native American authors a rigorous opportunity to shape their plays over the course of an entire week. Collaboration occurs in daily workshops with nationally recognized directors, dramaturgs, and an acting company largely composed of exceptional Native American actors. The week culminates with a festival of staged readings. The best part? The audience gets to vote for their favorite performance after each show. Many works developed through this process have gone on to enjoy successful runs on the Autry Museum’s main stage and elsewhere. The First Look Series is a script development process that brings playwrights together with professional directors, dramaturgs, and actors. Each spring and fall, plays are workshopped and prepared for a public staged reading and discussion, giving the playwright an opportunity to hear the play—often for the first time—with a live audience. Plays can be new works, works-in-progress, or material that has already been produced at another venue.
TEATRO DEL BARRIO
Teatro del Barrio Artistic Director Sergio Serdio was born and raised in the City of Puebla de Los Ángeles, Mexico in 1968. His first approach to professional theater was with the Espacio 1900 Dramatic School; after four years of academic studies receiving a Diploma from de ANDA (National Actors Assoc.) Sergio headed to Mexico City and continued his studies at the prestigious INBA (National Institute of Fine Arts; BA Drama). During all this time Sergio taught and developed projects for underserved communities in his hometown which evolved into the creation of Teatro Del Barrio, a theatrical troupe focused celebrating Mexican stage traditions. After travelling to Europe with great success with Teatro del Barrio’s La Visión de los Vencidos, Sergio immigrated to California to work with the American Latino community. In Los Angeles, Sergio worked with progressive churches on theatrical projects. The West Hollywood Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) produced the first project: La Pastorela Mexicana (The Christmas Play) and Dracula Gay, a musical parody of the well-known Nosferatu who had become HIV positive. Sergio, as a member of the Gay community, has been always centered from eliminating the stigma over HIV, empowering HIV positive people to actively participate in his plays. At Olvera Street Sergio’s Teatro del Barrio in community with the United Methodist Church and the City of Los Angeles produced four repertory projects over the last fifteen years; La Danza de La Muerte (Dance of the Dead Ones), La Pasión de Cristo (The Passion of Christ), El Teatro de Verano (Summer Theater) and La Pastorela Mexicana (The Christmas Mexican Tradition). For three years Sergio participated as a volunteer with the Mental Health Department of Los Angeles; trained to use theatre to help people with depression. For five years Sergio was part of the Migrant Educational Academy programs of the Bakersfield School District, focusing on children of labor workers’ families; providing them and their parents with dramatic tools, teachings and shows inspired by Mexican culture and tradition. During the pandemic Sergio became part of Cal State programs for community education and received a Diploma on Community Teaching Artist Certificate Program. Recently Teatro del Barrio developed musical theater project at La Plaza United Methodist Church hand to hand with El Coro de Colores, a diversity choir, under the musical direction of Lincoln Castillo. Teatro del Barrio has endured as an art community collective, collaborating in a weekly show at KPFK 90.7FM Dialogos Culturales de Media Noche for the last 8 years.
