Center Theatre Group's 2025-26 season: David Byrne's 'Here Lies Love,' 'Paranormal Activity' and more

The Imelda Marcos bio-musical “Here Lies Love” injects immoderate disco shimmer to the Center Theatre Group 2025-26 play announced Tuesday.

The institution down the Ahmanson Theatre and Mark Taper Forum successful downtown L.A. and the Kirk Douglas Theatre successful Culver City released a lineup that besides includes the Jocelyn Bioh play “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”; Eboni Booth’s caller play “Primary Trust”; a signifier riff connected the “Paranormal Activity” movies; the philharmonic “& Juliet” and a 25th day revival of “Mamma Mia!”

“Here Lies Love,” featuring euphony by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, and lyrics by Byrne, made past arsenic Broadway’s archetypal philharmonic with an all-Filipino cast. The accumulation earned 2024 Tony nominations for score, dependable design, country plan and choreography arsenic good arsenic praise from critics including the New York Times’ Jesse Green, who applauded the ”infernally catchy songs.”

The philharmonic besides faced disapproval for humanities distortion and what immoderate saw arsenic the underplaying of corruption, censorship and convulsive governmental oppression successful the Philippines during the Marcos regime. The philharmonic has been updated since its 2013 Off-Broadway premiere astatine the Public Theater to stress the People Power Revolution that spurred the extremity of the Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos era.

In New York, producers transformed the Broadway Theater to evoke Studio 54. Center Theatre Group volition contiguous “Here Lies Love” successful the Taper successful a tally scheduled to unfastened Feb. 11. Snehal Desai, CTG’s creator director, volition helm the production.

The drama “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding” earned Tony nominations past twelvemonth for champion play, direction, scenic plan and dependable design, and Dede Ayite won the grant for her costumes. Set successful Harlem, Bioh’s play centers connected a assemblage of West African immigrants who “confront the challenges of being outsiders successful their ain neighborhood.”

Whitney White volition nonstop a co-production with La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Arena Stage successful Washington, D.C. It opens astatine the Taper connected Oct. 1.

Booth’s “Primary Trust” was the 2024 Pulitzer Prize victor for drama. The Pulitzer citation called it “a elemental and elegantly crafted communicative of an emotionally damaged antheral who finds a caller job, caller friends and a caller consciousness of worth, illustrating however tiny acts of kindness tin alteration a person’s beingness and enrich an full community.”

Caleb Eberhardt successful La Jolla Playhouse’s West Coast-premiere accumulation of “Primary Trust” past year.

(Rich Soublet II)

After seeing the play’s West Coast premiere astatine La Jolla Playhouse past year, Times theatre professional Charles McNulty wrote: “This is simply a quirky, small-scale, softly reflective enactment that’s arsenic tenderhearted arsenic it is spryly comic and arsenic poignant arsenic it is yet uplifting.

“It’s refreshing to spot specified a prodigious grant bestowed connected a portion of penning that’s contented to spell astir its quality concern without the request to inflate its ain importance.”

Knud Adams volition nonstop the Taper production, which opens successful May 2026.

Here are the six large productions successful the 2025-26 CTG docket (in chronological order) announced by Desai, managing manager and main enforcement Meghan Pressman and producing manager Douglas C. Baker. A seventh accumulation volition beryllium announced astatine a aboriginal date.

“& Juliet”
Book by David West Read
Music by Max Martin & Friends
Directed By Luke Sheppard
Ahmanson Theatre
Aug. 13-Sept. 7

“Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”
Mark Taper Forum
Oct. 1-Nov. 9

“Paranormal Activity”
Based connected the “Paranormal Activity” films from Blumhouse and Solana Films, adapted present by statement with Paramount Pictures and Melting Pot
Written by Levi Holloway
Directed by Felix Barrett
Co-production with American Conservatory Theater of San Francisco, Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Shakespeare Theatre Company of Washington, D.C.
Ahmanson Theatre
Nov. 13-Dec. 7

“Here Lies Love”
Mark Taper Forum
Feb. 11-March 22

“Primary Trust”
Mark Taper Forum
May 20-June 28, 2026

“Mamma Mia!”
Music and lyrics by Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus
Book by Catherine Johnson
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Ahmanson Theatre
June 23-July 19, 2026

The company’s “CTG:FWD” programming includes 3 shows astatine the Kirk Douglas: “Puppet Up! — Uncensored,” an audience-driven matter featuring creations from the Jim Henson Co., moving July 16-27; “Guac,” writer and prima Manuel Oliver’s one-man show, from the begetter of a lad who was killed successful the 2018 wide shooting astatine Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School successful Parkland, Fla., moving Oct. 14-Nov. 2; and “The Enormous Crocodile,” a philharmonic based connected the enactment of Roald Dahl, Dec. 5-Jan. 4. “Like It Like Harlem,” a accumulation successful concern with Muse/ique, is scheduled for Aug. 8-10 astatine the Taper.