{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-article-tsx","path":"/primeuclaxgeffen","webpackCompilationHash":"46924986a792e4a723a9","result":{"data":{"primeArticle":{"headline":"A Tale of Two Theaters","author":"Amelia Chief","authorbio":"","authoremail":"","authortwitter":"","coverimg":"http://oink.dailybruin.com/packages/prime.uclaxgeffen/image/1CrRg2NM5r6B7kdZzOLdKHCfyg-20vSjM/","covercred":"Illustrations by Amelia Chief. Design by Vienna Vipond. Photos courtesy of Geffen Playhouse and UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.","coveralt":"Photos of the story’s sources placed in ornate illustrated photo frames.","articleType":"article","updated":"This article was updated May 29 at 11:30 p.m. to correct a photo credit misattributed as a courtesy of Zenon Dmytryk. In fact, it was a courtesy of Geffen Playhouse.","content":[{"type":"text","value":"Students don’t always have to walk to Westwood to gain access to the Geffen Playhouse."},{"type":"text","value":"Associate professor Jennifer Chang’s students had been working on Shakespeare’s \"Hamlet\" in her class on directing classic texts, with everyone directing the same scene of Hamlet’s encounter with his father’s ghost. Tarell Alvin McCraney, then in his first year as the Geffen Playhouse’s artistic director, visited as a guest teacher and spoke to the students about Shakespeare and \"Hamlet\" from a playwright’s perspective. As the \"Moonlight\" co-writer lectured, students had the opportunity to learn from and see inside the mind of an Academy Award winner. Some even secured positions at the Geffen Playhouse afterward."},{"type":"text","value":"Eventually, McCraney would come to teach his own UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television course."},{"type":"text","value":"In addition to being blocks apart, TFT and the Geffen Playhouse have an intertwined history that ties back to a common founder, Gil Cates. Though the study of theater at UCLA dates further back – first housed under the English department in 1941 and then at the UCLA College of Fine Arts in 1960 – today’s TFT was established in 1990, helmed by director and producer Cates as the inaugural dean. Five years later, he founded the Geffen Playhouse to give UCLA students access to professional theater. Although Cates died in 2011, his son Gil Cates Jr. carries on his legacy, having served as the Geffen Playhouse’s executive director since 2015."},{"type":"text","value":"Prior to the Geffen Playhouse, Doolittle Theater was UCLA’s main avenue of collaboration with the world of professional theater. However, because the theater was located in Hollywood, Cates Sr. persuaded then-Chancellor Charles Young to sell it and pivot to a playhouse in Westwood, which became the Geffen Playhouse."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"The arrangement was unique in its inception.\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Today, the Geffen Playhouse serves UCLA students through educational and professional opportunities."},{"type":"text","value":"Cates Jr. said his father’s vision of the Geffen Playhouse and TFT was intertwined from the start, as his father had long hoped for the establishment of a regional theater presence to enrich Westwood’s cultural life."},{"type":"text","value":"\"It really has been an incredible, unique, lovely, beautiful relationship from the beginning with UCLA,\" Cates Jr. said. \"The arrangement was unique in its inception.\""},{"type":"largeimageC","value":"{\"alt\":\"A photo placed in an ornate, gold illustrated photo frame.\",\"url\":\"http://oink.dailybruin.com/packages/prime.uclaxgeffen/image/1vjC4-MvZTWqxdP5WHD_8XUrJqCJVRyMA/\",\"credit\":\"Photo courtesy of Geffen Playhouse. Illustration by Amelia Chief/Daily Bruin senior staff.\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"There has always been somebody from UCLA on the Geffen Playhouse’s board of directors, he said, and the two institutions are always in communication, from collaborations with graduate students to decisions on landscape design. Currently, Celine Parreñas Shimizu, a distinguished professor and alumnus who became TFT’s dean in July 2025, sits on the board."},{"type":"text","value":"For Shimizu, a particularly important channel of collaboration between the institutions is expanding reciprocal learning relationships. Shimizu said many TFT faculty members have worked with the Geffen Playhouse, including Chang, literary director and artistic associate Michael McLain, lighting designer Lap Chi Chu and costume designer Chrisi Karvonides-Dushenko."},{"type":"text","value":"This relationship also extends to students."},{"type":"text","value":"Chang developed her play \"BEER!\" through a program in the Geffen Playhouse’s writers’ room. At the recommendation of TFT chair Jeff Burke, she workshopped the play with 18 students. She said the experience was valuable both for herself to get the perspectives of younger people and for her students to learn, firsthand, the process of writing a play professionally."},{"type":"text","value":"That same course, a quarterly offering for both undergraduate and graduate students that changes topics and lecturers, was taught by McCraney in winter 2026. McCraney’s theatrical expertise stretches from narrative design down to the very details, Shimizu said, such as portraying long-distance running on a 30-foot stage to make audiences feel as if they are running alongside the actors."},{"type":"text","value":"\"We cannot be the world-class institution we are if we didn’t make sure that Tarell Alvin McCraney was in close connection with our students,\" Shimizu said. \"They are taking the gifts of his lessons and making their own work better.\""},{"type":"text","value":"McCraney’s class, which he referred to as \"Contemporary Dramatic Engagement,\" looked at authors largely from the past century to show that, just like students themselves, these playwrights were inspired and influenced by the social and political events around them. In a <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/15/magazine/tarell-alvin-mccraney-beauty-black.html \">2019 interview with The New York Times Magazine</a>, McCraney said he first wrote \"Moonlight\" following his mother’s death from AIDS complications to process his complex emotions, channeling his pain into a play and eventually a detailed script."},{"type":"text","value":"\"We live in a world of such negativity right now,\" Shimizu said. \"McCraney is showing our students how to gain power through not only words but how to stage our lives so other people can feel for us, can see us in a way that they will never unfeel us or unsee us.\""},{"type":"largeimageC","value":"{\"alt\":\"A photo of the Gil Cates Theater naming ceremony at the Geffen Playhouse.\",\"url\":\"http://oink.dailybruin.com/packages/prime.uclaxgeffen/image/1dO_hB-Cpk02zg-EvZpPTN_FIh6vHv2tj/\",\"credit\":\"Photo courtesy of Geffen Playhouse. Illustration by Amelia Chief/Daily Bruin senior staff.\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"For Cates Jr., McCraney’s appointment serves as a continuation of his father’s educational legacy, since Cates Sr. also taught classes at UCLA. In a <a href=\"https://dailybruin.com/2011/11/08/gilbert_cates_built_bridges_with_spirit_to_transform_entertainment_scene\">2011 interview with the Daily Bruin</a>, Robert Rosen – TFT’s dean after Cates Sr. – said students felt comfortable speaking with Cates Sr., who made time for them and respected their work and insight."},{"type":"text","value":"\"He (Cates Sr.) loved teaching. He was a teacher, and, man, he would have loved Tarell,\" Cates Jr. said."},{"type":"text","value":"Master classes, where cast members and creatives behind Geffen Playhouse productions speak with TFT students, are another point of connection between the two institutions. Chang said, for each of the playhouse’s productions, she works with the education department to find a time for the professionals involved to speak with TFT students. These conversations provide an opportunity for students to ask questions about working in professional theater and to network."},{"type":"text","value":"Just as students at Northwestern University and DePaul University lived alongside the Steppenwolf Theatre’s ascent, McCraney hopes UCLA students can foster a lasting educational relationship with the Geffen Playhouse."},{"type":"text","value":"\"We want to make sure one of the most powerful elements of our day-to-day lives – which is telling each other stories and to help focus ourselves and work our ways through this world – is shared with our future, which is the future artists at TFT and the future doctors at UCLA and so on and so forth,\" McCraney said."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"We want to make sure that one of the most powerful elements of our day-to-day lives … is shared with our future.\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"On top of education, Burke said there are several professional opportunities at the Geffen Playhouse available to TFT students such as internships and fellowships for assistant or associate roles in areas including directing and stage management."},{"type":"text","value":"Eric Swartz, a graduate student in directing, is one such student. As an observer for the Geffen Playhouse’s production of \"Dragon Mama,\" he gets a front seat to the day-to-day work life of professional directors and actors. He said the opportunity came through his department, where there is funding designated for obtaining Geffen Playhouse internships for students."},{"type":"text","value":"\"You are in the midst of the greatest performers of your generation here at UCLA TFT, and part of that success is making sure they see what’s ahead for them,\" Shimizu said."},{"type":"largeimageC","value":"{\"alt\":\"A photo of Gil Cates and his son, Gil Cates Jr.\",\"url\":\"http://oink.dailybruin.com/packages/prime.uclaxgeffen/image/1v1XOPRC9ZLxIjOIXv-uefvD2_CEz3999/\",\"credit\":\"Photo courtesy of Geffen Playhouse. Illustration by Amelia Chief/Daily Bruin senior staff.\",\"caption\":\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"Parker also interned at the Geffen Playhouse as the associate director for its production of \"Fat Ham.\" They described the play as personally significant to them because it takes place in the American South, which is where they are from."},{"type":"text","value":"Now the artistic director of a theater in Alabama, Parker had the opportunity to connect with McCraney while working on \"Fat Ham.\" When McCraney was first appointed to the role of artistic director in 2023, Parker said McCraney visited the master’s program students to introduce himself and ask what they wanted to see at the Geffen Playhouse. McCraney also spoke with students at TFT’s Macgowan Hall about wanting to lower the price of entry to the Geffen Playhouse and institutionalize tracks for TFT students to work at the Geffen Playhouse, Parker added."},{"type":"text","value":"Burke said he is excited about academic and creative connections between TFT and the Geffen Playhouse, the most recent of which was McCraney’s winter quarter class. Both students and faculty members are energized by McCraney’s presence on campus and excited about the collaboration, he added."},{"type":"text","value":"As McCraney spoke of current outreach initiatives at the Geffen Playhouse, Cates Jr. fondly recalled his memories of the playhouse’s inception and early days, smiling when speaking of its first show on a night he described as \"unforgettable.\" Walking into the opening night felt like the fulfillment of a dream, he said. Even today, that first show, \"Four Dogs and a Bone,\" is memorialized through a poster in his office."},{"type":"text","value":"\"We keep telling the same stories over and over again,\" McCraney said. \"We keep telling stories of revenge, murder, love, unrequited passion. We tell those stories all the time, and the only new thing about it is the students, is the author, is there is no person like you in the world.\""},{"type":"text","value":"As TFT’s dean, Cates Sr. focused on expanding the curriculum, recruiting faculty and increasing interactions between professional and student theater. He executed this vision through founding the Geffen Playhouse and creating an academic environment where students could gain hands-on experience in professional theater."},{"type":"text","value":"Burke said, with much of the present-day leadership in both TFT and the Geffen Playhouse being new, he looks forward to further collaboration between the two and bringing increased insight into the world of professional theater to TFT students."},{"type":"pull","value":"{\"caption\":\"There should be a safe place for you all to come and learn as well as explore and dream.\\\"\"}"},{"type":"text","value":"\"We want to continue to be a nutritious ally to the folks at TFT and to the university at large,\" McCraney said. \"As you all are taking on the world – a world that none of us anticipated being in – we want to make sure we are as responsive in terms of our programming but also in terms of our learning. This should be a safe place for you all to come and learn as well as explore and dream.\""},{"type":"text","value":"Looking ahead, Cates Jr. said he is excited to build on the Geffen Playhouse’s long legacy of working with TFT and UCLA to bring world-class theater and education to students, a sentiment shared by McCraney and Shimizu."},{"type":"text","value":"\"There’s always been a very rich, abundant collaboration from the mutual beginnings of TFT and Geffen Playhouse, and it’s only growing,\" Shimizu said."}]}},"pageContext":{"isCreatedByStatefulCreatePages":false,"term":"spring26","slug":"prime.uclaxgeffen"}}}