Coachella-based Green Room Theatre brings high-caliber shows to east valley and beyond

On a warm September evening, a dozen men and women walked into the Newman Theatre at the Joslyn Center to transport a rapt audience into the "Desert of Arden" for a fresh, one-hour reading of Shakespeare's "As You Like It." Two days later, they traveled into the Desert of Arden again, performing at the Old Town Artisan Studios in La Quinta.

It was the latest imaginative offering by Green Room Theatre Company, led by Founding Artistic Director David Catanzarite and Founding Board President Karen Lin.

Partners in life and in art

In 2010, the pair created the Palm Desert Theatre Academy, a summer theater conservatory for children and teens at California State University, San Bernardino - Palm Desert Campus. Using professional standards, they taught acting skills and habits including public speaking and punctuality.

Catanzarite is a veteran stage director with more than 100 directing credits in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Chicago, Baltimore and the Coachella Valley, as well as Prague and South Africa.

Lin has been recognized by Desert News Charities as one of the desert's leading Women in Philanthropy. She was a 2002 Fellow in the Educators Art Study Program at the Getty Museum.

The duo met when they both were teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She was teaching third grade with lessons in theater, dance, music, and visual art as part of LAUSD's Arts Prototype Program.

Catanzarite was, as Lin described him, "the traveling theater teacher who would go from school to school, so he would stop by my classroom once a week and teach a theater lesson."

After they married and had a child, Catanzarite became an associate professor at the College of the Desert. He also taught at the CSUSB campus in Palm Desert, where he launched the first Actors Equity season at the Indian Wells Theatre by featuring Tony and Emmy Award winner Hal Linden in "Tuesdays with Morrie."

But, Lin said, "There weren't any children's theater programs that we knew of, so we started our own."

Why Green Room?

In 2014, they became a nonprofit organization and needed a new name. A green room is the area in a theater or studio where performers can relax when they're not on stage, so that sparked an idea.

"It's where everybody wants to hang out," said Lin. "So we thought that would be a good name."

Going 'where theater isn't'

Instead of performing at one location, Green Room Theatre brings professional performances to communities and neighborhoods across the region — from eastern Coachella Valley to Desert Hot Springs — in venues as diverse as the Palm Springs Air Museum, the Shops at Palm Desert, and the Barnes and Noble bookstore.

"We want to go where theater isn't," said Lin.

On one memorable November evening in 2014, they partnered with the Coachella Valley History Museum to present a one-hour "Ghostly Graveyard Tour" at the Coachella Valley Public Cemetery.

Docents with lanterns guided audience members from headstone to headstone. Adult actors portrayed some of those buried at the cemetery, including Academy Award winning director Frank Capra. Dressed in white and carrying small lanterns, younger members of the company added a ghostly presence.

Affordability and opportunity

Green Room Theatre's mission isn't only about access. It's about affordability and opportunity.

Lin said, "We don't want people to not be able to go to one of our shows because they can't afford it. Many of our shows are just pay what you can."

"Sometimes, we draw huge crowds," she added. "Sometimes it's not a huge crowd, but it's always an adventure, and people love it because it's different."

As Catanzarite observed, "One of the things that we discovered is that there are a lot of really talented people who are underutilized because of their race."

Catanzarite said those actors appreciate Green Room Theatre "because we create good and juicy roles. That's one thing that rewards them. And we perform it in their communities. They're connected to the material that we're doing. And they're connecting to the people that may matter most to them."

A life-changing experience

The first time that Heaven Rodriguez performed with Green Room Theatre, she played Miss Lark in "Mary Poppins." She was 12. That experience gave her the confidence to think about a possible future in the arts.

Her parents understood her passion. Her mother had been a dancer since age four. Heaven Rodriguez started dancing at age two.

"Dancing is my main love," she said. She has studied ballet, jazz, lyrical, hip hop, contemporary and modern.

Today, at age 20, she teaches dance at an after-school program in La Quinta. She has also been a choreographer for Green Room Theatre and learned other skills there.

"I learned how to do basic make-up," she said. "I also participated in costume design and costume making because my mother is also a seamstress."

Rodriguez believes her life would be very different if she hadn't had opportunities to learn through Green Room Theatre.

"I would not have been able to teach at a young age," she said. "I can dance in front of everybody. That's something that I grew up with. But speaking and communicating and portraying another character is definitely something that has helped me."

She added, "If it weren't for Green Room, I wouldn't be who I am."

From Shakespeare to contemporary issues

The company has evolved from children's productions to featuring adult actors in professional plays, touring productions, and site-specific performances. They are the only Coachella Valley company performing Shakespeare as part of their mission.

They also have a contract with Desert Sands Unified School District as after-school providers of theater classes and Ballet Folklorico in Indio and La Quinta.

Their spring 2024 productions will include a touring production of "Maggie Magalita," the story of an immigrant teen living in a small apartment with her mother and her widowed grandmother.

"This is a teenager who was bullied mercilessly when she first came to the United States because she couldn't speak a word of English," said Catanzarite. "Like many immigrant kids, once she learned English, she absolutely refused to speak Spanish."

When her grandmother arrives, the teenager bullies her for not speaking English.

The production will be paired with anti-bullying discussions for teens in partnership with Boo2Bullying and the Ophelia Project.

The final production will address the complex history of Section 14 in Palm Springs, where homes of Latino, Black and other families were bulldozed and burned to make way for development in the 1960s. The original play has been made possible by a grant from the Inland Empire Creative Corps Development Project.

"Much of the news coverage has made it look like a typical reparations issue — like land was taken away or homes were taken away from people," said Catanzarite. "But there's a lot more layers to it."

He hopes the company's "even-handed approach with multiple perspectives" will allow the audience "to make their own decisions about what they see."

Celebrating a 15th season with a quinceañera

When Catanzarite and Lin launched Green Room Theatre, they didn't have an office, so they stored costumes and props in their garage. Today, they have a warehouse. And, in May 2023, they held a community ribbon-cutting ceremony for their new offices in the Coachella City Hall building.

Over the years, the company has received multiple honors, including Desert Theatre League Desert Star Awards and Angel Light Academy's "Above & Beyond" Award for outstanding community service and leadership.

On June 22, 2024, Green Room Theatre will celebrate its 15th season by hosting a quinceañera to celebrate the hundreds of student and adult alumni performers and technicians who have been part of the company over the years.

"We're going to try to get everybody who's been part of our family together for a big family reunion," said Catanzarite.

That spirit of celebration reflects Green Room Theatre's mission.

Watching a production come to life for an audience, said Catanzarite, is like "the pleasure that you get from really throwing a really good party."

He added, "I feel like I'm creating something that is going to transform people and also please them — and give them some happiness and clarity and truth about their own lives."

Learn more about Green Room Theatre Co. by visiting grtccv.org

Barbara Kerr is an award-winning writer and journalist with a passion for stories about people and the arts. Inducted into the Dayton (Ohio) Area Broadcasters Hall of Fame, she is a past chair of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) College of Fellows.

Coverage of nonprofits in the Coachella Valley for The Desert Sun is supported by a grant from the CIELO Fund through the Inland Empire Community Foundation.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Green Room Theatre brings professional shows to east Coachella Valley