Flickr photo by Luis Lopez
Atwater Village Now contributor, active neighborhood council member, and theater lover Cindy Marie-Jenkins published an article recently on Los Angeles online publication Bitter Lemons about Atwater Village’s role as a new theater arts destination.
She writes, “Now with a new development of solar-powered town houses called “The Mews” near completion plus the cultural combination of artists, filmmakers, architects, marketing firms, and yoga businesses greeting new neighbors at Casitas Village – an industrial strip, now an arts center, emerges as a cultural destination.” A recent micro-fest by NET ensembles and hosted by Atwater Village Theatre, for instance, brought over 300 (including many newcomers) to Atwater Village.
Casitas Avenue is located on the northern part of Atwater Village near Fletcher Drive, where you have residential housing on one street facing rows of more industrial-looking warehouses on the other (beyond that, on the other side of the train tracks, bigger buildings like the abandoned K-Mart occupy the land). It’s a bit of an unusual destination for the four warehouses that aim to turn that part of our neighborhood into an arts destination for all of Los Angeles.
Two of the four warehouses are occupied by the Atwater Village Playhouse and the Atwater Village Theater, both of which house theater groups gearing up for a new year of great performances. They also share the row of warehouses with yoga and dance classes, photography studios, the popular writing center Wordspace, and other businesses. Next year, according to the CasitasCulture website, they’ll also be opening up a “bakery/sandwich shop, a curated store for books, music and film, and a live music venue” to hang out in before a show.
So how do you navigate all the warehouses, theater groups, companies and businesses along Casitas Avenue?
In the Green Warehouse you have method acting school and ensemble group Atwater Playhouse, as well as the Mutineer Theatre Company.
The Red Warehouse is where you’ll find all those new food and music spots next year.
Atwater Village Theater is also its own building, housing two 99-seat theaters, now occupied by groups Ensemble Studio Theatre Los Angeles (EST-LA) and Circle X Theatre Company. This is the one, as you may have heard about, spearheaded by Dr. Beverly Crusher, err I mean Gates McFadden, now Artistic Director for EST-LA. While they recently held an open house, productions start in late January.
Check out Cindy’s full article and see what’s going on along Casitas Avenue by clicking here.
