About Us
Chalk Repertory Theatre was founded in the fall of 2008 by five graduates of the MFA Theatre program at the University of California, San Diego, who were living and working in Los Angeles. The first season kicked off in January 2009 with Anton Chekhov’s THREE SISTERS in the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. That first season saw four full productions, including Julia Edwards’ FAMILY PLANNING, which earned the company two Ovation Awards: Best Production, Intimate Theatre, and a directing award for Larissa Kokernot.
Now in our 12th year, Chalk Rep has become a leader in site-specific theatre in Los Angeles, partnering with sites as grand as the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, and as rustic as the garage of a private home. In 2010 we kicked off our biennial FLASH Festival where playwrights, actors, and directors come together to create new short plays for a specific space. Through subsequent FLASH Festivals, at The Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, a new downtown high-rise at 8th + Hope, and at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral, this model has solidified into Chalk’s key program for meeting and working with new actors, directors and playwrights, and planting the seeds for new work. In 2014 we also kicked off a monthly Writers Group to deepen our investment in Los Angeles playwrights. Scripts developed in the writers group often receive cold readings and developmental workshops by our company. And in 2017 we began hosting a quarterly salon event called “Open Circle,” a program that brings together artists and art-lovers for community and conversation.
A company of artists, led by a rotating duo of Co-Artistic Producing Directors, Chalk remains true to our original mission working with a diverse group of artists to create works that are intimate, accessible, and an event to attend.
