History
The Good Person Of New Haven, 2000
For over 30 years, Cornerstone Theater Company has commissioned more than 100 award-winning playwrights, produced over 150 new plays for the American Theater, trained thousands of students in our innovative methodology, and impacting tens of thousands of community members across the country, many experiencing theater for the first time.
Cornerstone was founded in 1986 as a traveling ensemble, which adapted classic works to tell the stories of both rural and urban communities. We settled in Los Angeles in 1992 to focus on urban collaborations, and launched a series of multi-year play cycles. These included the Watts Cycle, five plays seeking to build bridges between African American and Latino residents of Watts, and The Faith-Based Cycle, seven plays exploring communities of faith in Los Angeles.
“Cornerstone is a modern miracle that has never stopped believing in the power of art.”
– Amy Brenneman, Founding Member
In 2006 we embarked on The Justice Cycle, six plays exploring how laws shape or disrupt communities. It launched in 2007 with Los Illegals, written by our Artistic Director Michael John Garcés, in collaboration with day laborers, domestic workers and others on the front lines of the immigration debate. Following its success we seeded a new theater troupe entirely comprised of day laborers called Teatro Jornalero Sin Fronteras (Day Laborer Theater Without Borders), in partnership with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and funding from the Ford Foundation. Since October 2008, Teatro Jornalero has been developing and performing short plays that educate day laborers about their rights, and touring them to day labor sites across Los Angeles County
“[T]he diversity onstage is invigorating – further confirmation that a wide palette of humanity can make dramatic conflicts more interesting.”
– Los Angeles Times
In December, 2017 we concluded The Hunger Cycle, that explored issues of hunger, justice, and food equity. Over six years, we presented nine world premiere plays in collaboration with communities across Los Angeles, including a state-wide tour of California.
With our new body of work, the Change Series, we not only seek to explore the meaning of change happening both locally and globally, in the lives of our communities, but also in the work we do as a theater company, starting with our first production Change: The Watts Residency. We are returning to Watts to work with the community at the Jordan Downs housing development to explore the dramatic changes taking place associated with the redevelopment of a community that generations of its members have called home for nearly 70 years.
Cornerstone has been profiled on CBS, CNN, NPR, the BBC, among many others. We have been honored with Ovation, Drama-Logue, LA Weekly, and NAACP Theatre Awards. Worth Magazine named Cornerstone one of the Top 100 Charities in America. In 2009 we received the inaugural Unsung Heroes Award from the California Community and Eisner Foundations for our innovation and impact in improving the quality of life for low-income Los Angeles residents.
“… aims to make theater an integral and relevant part of ordinary American life.”
– The New York Times
