LOS ANGELES — Center Theatre Group announced Friday that it has appointed Snehal Desai artistic director, filling the role vacated by Michael Ritchie in 2021. The producing artistic director of East West Players since 2016, Desai is the first artistic director of color in CTG’s history.
“Equity, diversity and inclusion is central to my core being as an artist and as a leader, and that work is going to continue,” Desai said in an interview with the L.A. Times, adding that he hoped CTG made its decision to hire him with that knowledge in hand. EWP produces work featuring Asian American themes and artists and is the nation’s longest-running professional theater of color.
As Los Angeles’ flagship theater organization — and one of the nation’s largest nonprofit theater groups — CTG is at a crossroads in its history. Buffeted by a series of crises and challenges beginning with the Great Recession and culminating with the COVID-19 pandemic and the social justice movement that arose in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, the group is struggling to find its footing in a drastically changed artistic and sociopolitical landscape.
