Center Theatre Group Artistic Director Snehal Desai

I Think About How We Can Use All the Tools at Our Disposal

Snehal Desai is the Center Theatre Group’s artistic director. He previously served as the producing artistic director of East West Players. Before taking part in the Zócalo, Thomas Mann House, and L.A. Review of Books program “How Should Arts Institutions Navigate the Culture Wars?”—part of the two-day conference “Arts in Times of Crises”—Desai joined us in the green room to talk about his one-man show, same-sex intimacy in India, and what he misses about Atlanta.

A Playwright’s ‘Wait … What?’ Approach to Difficult History

Mining Shock and Disbelief to Connect Audiences With the Past, Present, and One Another

I’m often identified as someone who writes “issues” plays, but I’m less high-minded about my subject matter than I should probably admit. Generally, I don’t decide to write a play …

Writing the Truth in a World of Lies | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Writing the Truth in a World of Lies

German Playwright Bertolt Brecht Found in His Work—and Characters—a Vehicle For Change

What can we do?

As we stare at a broken world, malignant and sense-deadening, what response—as thinking, feeling people—are we left to have? What action can we take? No matter who …

Can Uncle Vanya Work in Four Different Languages? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Can Uncle Vanya Work in Four Different Languages?

The Play Featured in the Oscar-Nominated Japanese Film Drive My Car Offers a Window Into How Drama Brings Us Together

“If you want to work on your art, work on your life.” —Chekhov

Like any great aphorism, the dramatist Anton Chekhov’s advice can be taken many ways. In our 21st century …

Theater Understands Your Holiday Dinner Angst

Family Tables, Real and Imagined, Serve Up ‘Birthrights, Grudges, Feuds, Illicit Unions, and Deeply Buried Secrets’

This is the time of year when families come together, crossing county and state lines and national borders, traversing bodies of water and mountain ranges that made cannibals of our …