OUR MISSION
The Echo Theater Company is a group of actors, writers, directors, and producers dedicated to developing and presenting the work of playwrights at all levels.
The Echo supports playwrights and new works for the theater by creating an environment that empowers the playwright to their own progress while bringing fresh and engaging theatrical events to Los Angeles.
The Echo seeks to engage an audience in a dialogue based on process while extending itself to people and places with which the theater has lost touch.
The Company hopes to make the world a better place by nourishing and supporting a theater that mirrors it.
OUR STORY
The Echo Theater Company was founded in 1996 and dedicated to developing and producing new work for the stage. To date, the company has presented 109 Los Angeles premiere productions. Of these, 88 were world premieres and of those, 64 were commissions.
For over two decades The Echo has presented a monthly free reading series as part of their mission to discover, develop and present new and challenging voices for Los Angeles theater; the company has presented over 200 free readings of new plays in Los Angeles.
The company founded and produced The Ojai Playwrights Conference from 1996 through 2000, bringing, among others, Christopher Durang, David Ives, David Lindsay- Abaire, Adam Rapp, and Jessica Goldberg to Southern California.
In 2000, the Echo created ActOut, an educational outreach program dedicated to helping at-risk youth, in which trained company members visited Camp Kilpatrick, a detention facility in Malibu for boys aged 13-18, to lead classes in basic acting and writing that emphasized the use of personal experience as a positive source for artistic expression. While introducing them to acting and playwriting, these lessons also guided them toward self-respect and self-awareness. The company continued this program for ten years until Camp Kilpatrick was closed in 2010.
In 2000, the Echo Playwrights LAB was founded as a developmental resource for Los Angeles playwrights and is ongoing to the present. The membership has included Alice Tuan, Angela Kang, Kate Robin, Padraic Duffy, Sarah Ruhl, Hillie Hicks Jr., Abigail Deser, Julia Cho, Erik Patterson, Bekah Brunstetter, Francis Cowhig, Mike Batistick, Daria Politan, Rick Cleveland, Matthew Paul Olmas, Jessica Goldberg, Mary Laws, Boni Alvarez, Janine Nabers, Daniel Talbott, and Bernardo Solano among many others.
In 2015, the company founded The Echo Associate Company as an initiative to include young aspiring theater artists and to address the need for diversity in the Los Angeles theater community. Since that time the Echo has commissioned 49 ten-minute plays especially for the Associate Company to perform.
In 2017, the company founded Echo National Young Playwrights in Residence based on the belief that young talented playwrights are everywhere across the country, as well as the conviction that an advanced degree is not the only requirement for career advancement in the theater. The company solicited applications and scripts nationally and received over two hundred. Winnowing the applicants down to sixteen, Skype interviews were conducted and six young playwrights from across the country were chosen. They were then paired with professional writer mentors living across the country as well. The participants then wrote a play and meeting with their mentors digitally at least once a month over the course of a year. They were brought to Los Angeles for a week where the company presented a festival of readings of all their plays. This initiative continued yearly through 2022.
Initiated in 2019, the Echo Theater Truck (“Thtr Trk”) has been bringing mobile theater and storytelling to neighborhoods and parks across Los Angeles. It is our believe that the community of Los Angeles deserves theater of the highest quality that is both accessible and FREE. We are committed to extending ourselves and our resources to the people and places with which theater has lost touch. The Trk’s mission is to present accessible theater that reflects the vibrant, diverse world in which we live.
Recently, the Echo was just given The Margaret Harford Award for Excellence in Theatre by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle as well as being nominated for two LADCC’s. The company produced Clarkston by Samuel D. Hunter, Dido of Idaho by Abby Rosebrock , 3 LADCC awards, How It’s Gon’ Be by JuCoby Johnson which won four Stage Raw awards, the world premiere of Bernardo Cubria’s Crabs In A Bucket, two LADCC awards, The Thin Place by Lucas Hnath, Jessica Goldberg’s BABE, which won the LADDC award for Best Writing, Hooded by Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm, Chiara Atik’s Poor Clare, which won 8 LADCC Awards, and Erik Patterson’s Handjob. The Echo’s production of The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe was named “Best of the Year” by both the Los Angeles Times and radio station KCRW, and the world premiere of Handjob by Erik Patterson made the “Highlights of ” list at LA Observed. We produced the West Coast premieres of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Pulitzer Prize finalist play Gloria, named to the Los Angeles Times’ “Best of ” list, and Molly Smith Metzler’s Cry It Out, winner of both LADCC and Ovation “Best Production” and “Playwriting” awards, and listed on KCRW’s “Best of ” list. In addition, the Echo was honored with the Polly Warfield Award for “Best Season.” The company was anointed “Best Bet for Ballsy Original Plays” by the LA Weekly and was a recipient of a “Kilroy Cake Drop”– one of only 13 theaters in the country to be surprised by cakes to honor the efforts being made to produce women and trans writers. In the Los Angeles Times, theater critic Charles McNulty wrote, “Echo Theater Company, which has cultivated a community of topflight actors, would be my go-to place in Los Angeles for symbiotic ensemble acting… Artistic directors of theaters of all sizes would be wise to follow the [lead] of the Echo’s Chris Fields, who [is] building audience communities eager for the challenge of path-breaking plays.” KCRW’s Anthony Byrnes stated, “Echo Theater Company is on a fierce journey. They’re choosing plays that are consistently challenging and all have a deep conscience… The body of work that Echo is building is substantial. If you wanted to pick one small theater to add to your cultural roster — Echo is a consistent favorite.”
CULTURAL EQUITY AND INCLUSION AT THE ECHO
Because we are and always have been committed to finding, nourishing and producing great, previously unheard voices in American theater; because we believe and have always believed that great theater should be a positive, transformative and inclusive cultural experience for society as a whole; because part of our mission is to extend our resources to people and places that the theater has lost touch with; and because we hold and have always held that the empowering values that create important plays should also drive their casting, production, promotion and support … the management of the Echo Theater is accountable and has always been accountable to the Echo’s employees, its audiences and the greater Los Angeles community to continue the Theater’s legacy of diversity, equity, inclusion and access. In keeping with our mission, we place a special emphasis on projects serving writers, actors and audiences historically underrepresented in American Theater.
The Echo is committed to being a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace. One where all employees and volunteers, whatever their gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, age, sexual orientation or identity, education or disability, feels valued and respected. We are committed to a nondiscriminatory approach and provide equal opportunity for employment and advancement in all of our departments, programs, and worksites. We respect and value diverse life experiences and heritages and ensure that all voices are valued and heard. We’re also committed to modeling diversity and inclusion for the entire arts industry of the nonprofit sector, and to maintaining an inclusive environment with equitable treatment for all.
BLACK LIVES MATTER
Theater has the power to change the world. We believe that.
We are outraged and pained by the tragic results of systemic racism in our country. We stand with our Black artists, patrons and community.
We have a lot of work to do. We promise to do better.
STOP ASIAN HATE
We stand in solidarity with Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and join those condemning the appalling acts of racism, violence, and discrimination committed against these communities across the nation.
To our AAPI friends and community members- we stand with you, we see you and we will continue to do the work to self educate and create more opportunities to share your stories.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The Echo gratefully acknowledges that our theater sits on land stewarded and cared for by the Kizh, Tongva-/Gabrieleño, and Chumash tribes for generations. We honor and respect these nations, peoples, and their enduring relationship to this land and commit ourselves to the struggle against the systems of oppression that have dispossessed Indigenous people of their lands and denied their rights to self-determination.