LOS ANGELES: Center Theatre Group (CTG) has announced its inaugural Block Party: Celebrating Los Angeles Theatre, a new initiative that will allow one of the biggest theatres in Los Angeles to produce more works from small local companies. The Block Party will contain three productions, which will run over two weeks at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, April 14-May 21, 2017. The productions will be remounts of shows from Coeurage Theatre Company, Echo Theater Company, and Fountain Theatre.

“As we celebrate Center Theatre Group’s 50 years of creating theatre in Los Angeles, we want to turn the spotlight on some of the remarkable work being done on other stages,” said CTG artistic director Michael Ritchie in a statement. “Coeurage Theatre, Echo Theater, and Fountain Theatre, as well as others throughout L.A., regularly produce excellent, boundary-pushing work and we’re so glad they are sharing some of that work with us.”

First up will be Coeurage Theatre Company’s production of Philip Dawkins’s Failure: A Love Story, about a man who falls in love with the three Fail sisters, in 1920s Chicago (April 14-23, 2017).

Following that will be Fountain Theatre’s production of Citizen: An American Lyric, by Claudia Rankine and adapted for the stage by Stephen Sachs, a meditation on race that fuses poetry, prose, movement, music, and video (April 28-May 7, 2017.

The final production will be Echo Theater Company’s Dry Land by Ruby Rae Spiegel, about female friendship and an abortion that takes place in a locker room in a high school locker room (May 12-May 21, 2017).

CTG received 76 submissions for the Block Party from small theatres in Los Angeles County. The productions selected will receive full support from CTG for funding, staging, and marketing.

“We’re completely thrilled to be a part of this program,” said Coeurage artistic director Jeremy Lelliott in a statement. “Center Theatre Group is a standard-bearer in the L.A. arts scene, and to benefit from their support and input on our growth and this upcoming production marks an exciting new chapter for Coeurage and the 99-seat community as a whole.”