LOS ANGELES, CA (September 23, 2026)—Center Theatre Group is honored to announce that Phylicia Rashad will direct August Wilson’s Fences, the Pulitzer Prize-winning contemporary classic, May 26 to July 3, 2027 at the Mark Taper Forum.
Phylicia Rashad was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2016.
She is a Tony Award winner (Skeleton Crew and A Raisin in the Sun) who has enjoyed a longstanding relationship with Center Theatre Group as both a director and actress. Rashad directed A Raisin in the Sun for The Ebony Repertory Theatre production at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2012. She continued her partnership with Center Theatre Group at the Mark Taper Forum, directing August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (2013), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2016), Immediate Family (2015), and Blues for an Alabama Sky (2022). As a performer, she appeared on stage at the Taper in Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Head of Passes, directed by Tina Landau in 2017.
August Wilson’s Fences won the 1987 Pulitzer, Tony, and Drama Desk Awards for Best Play. Eight of the ten Century Cycle plays have won New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards. With this production of Fences, CTG completes the Century Cycle, having previously staged the other nine plays of the cycle written by Wilson.
Set in segregated Pittsburgh in the 1950s, Fences depicts the life of Troy Maxson, a former Negro League baseball star now scraping by as a sanitation worker. Excluded from the major leagues in his prime, Troy has grown increasingly bitter. And his anger and frustration take a toll on his wife Rose and his son Cory, who now wants his own chance to play ball professionally. But even as Troy takes responsibility for his family’s safety and well-being, he betrays them each in ways that will forever alter their lives. Fences explores the walls we build around ourselves and our loved ones, while also illuminating one family’s struggles in a racist society.
“I have deep admiration for the theatrical canon of August Wilson, having performed in one and directed many of his plays over the course of my career,” said Director Phylicia Rashad. “At their core, his plays offer a vital reflection of human dignity, shared history, and spiritual depth, and have become, for good reason, some of the most highly regarded and produced works in the history of the American Theatre. I am thrilled to return once again to the Mark Taper Forum, where I have my own shared history, this time to direct one of his greatest plays. I look forward to sharing Fences with Los Angeles next summer.”
“I am thrilled to welcome our dear friend and 2026 Gala Honoree, Phylicia Rashad, back to Center Theatre Group next summer to direct Fences—one of August Wilson’s most beloved and enduring works—at the Mark Taper Forum,” said CTG Brindell & Milton Gottlieb Artistic Director Snehal Desai. “With this production, CTG will complete a remarkable journey decades in the making, having produced all ten plays of Wilson’s landmark Century Cycle, one of the towering achievements of the American theatrical canon. There is something deeply moving about reaching this milestone with Phylicia—an artist of extraordinary grace, vision, and stature—bringing Wilson’s words to life on the Taper stage. One legend illuminating the work of another, in a theatre that has long been a home for groundbreaking American stories. And to have these histories converge in Los Angeles on the eve of CTG’s 60th anniversary feels especially meaningful—a celebration not only of where we have been, but of the artists, stories, and audiences who will carry us into the next sixty years.”
Noted critic Harold Bloom included it on his list of essential works constituting the Western Canon; the 2016 film was chosen as one of the year’s ten best by the American Film Institute; won the Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress (Viola Davis) and three other Oscar nominations including Best Picture; and was the sixth most popular film of the year.
“He was a giant figure in American theatre,” the playwright Tony Kushner said to The New York Times. “Heroic is not a word one uses often without embarrassment to describe a writer or playwright, but the diligence and ferocity of effort behind the creation of his body of work is really an epic story. For all the magic in his plays, he was writing in the grand tradition of Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller, the politically engaged, direct, social realist drama. He was reclaiming ground for the theater that most people thought had been abandoned.”
Fences set a record for a nonmusical Broadway production when it grossed $11 million in a single year and ran for 525 performances. Together, in a little over 20 years, Mr. Wilson’s plays performed nearly 1,800 performances on Broadway and, as of Wilson’s death in 2005, they have been seen in more than 2,000 separate productions, amateur and professional.
“I think my plays offer (white Americans) a different way to look at black Americans,” he [August Wilson] told The Paris Review. “For instance, in Fences they see a garbageman, a person they don’t really look at, although they see a garbageman every day. By looking at Troy’s life, white people find out that the content of this black garbageman’s life is affected by the same things – love, honor, beauty, betrayal, duty. Recognizing that these things are as much part of his life as theirs can affect how they think about and deal with black people in their lives.”
About Phylicia Rashad
An accomplished actor and stage director, Phylicia Rashad became a household name when she portrayed Claire Huxtable on The Cosby Show, a character whose enduring appeal has earned her numerous honors and awards. She has appeared in The Gilded Age, The Chi, Diarra from Detroit, NBC’s This Is Us (Emmy nominations), in the popular Fox TV series Empire, in Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Peabody Award-winning series David Makes Man, on the OWN Network, The Good Fight, Little America, and The Crossover.
While television was a catalyst in the rise of Rashad’s career,
she has also been a force on the stage, appearing both on and Off Broadway, often in projects that showcase her musical talent such as Jelly’s Last Jam, Into the Woods, Dreamgirls, and The Wiz.
In 2016,
Rashad was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame and received the 2016 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Leading Actress in a Play for her performance as Shelah in Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Head of Passes at the Public Theater. Rashad performed the role of the Duchess of Gloucester in Richard II, the 2020 Shakespeare on the Radio collaboration between The Public Theater and New York public radio station, WNYC.
On Broadway,
Rashad has performed in Dominique Morriseau’s Skeleton Crew (Tony and DramaDesk Awards), August: Osage County, Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (a role that she reprised on the London stage), August Wilson’s Gem of The Ocean(Tony Award nomination) and in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline at Lincoln Center. Rashad received both the Drama Desk and the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her riveting performance as Lena Younger in the 2004 Broadway revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in The Sun.
Among Rashad’s film credits are
The Beekeeper, Creed, Creed II, Creed III, Just Wright, Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf, A Fall From Grace, and Ruth and Boaz. Other recent film projects include Black Box, Soul, and the Netflix holiday musical, Jingle Jangle.
Rashad made her critically acclaimed directorial debut at the Seattle Repertory Theater
with August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean. In 2025 she directed Brandon-Jacobs-Jenkins’ Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning. Purpose on Broadway after a successful run at Steppenwolf. Rashad’s directing credits include Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Our Lady of 121st Street, The Roommate, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (2014 NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director), Immediate Family, Fences, A Raisin in the Sun, and Four Little Girls.
Respected in the academic world,
Rashad recently completed her tenure as Dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. In February 2023, she was appointed Howard University’s inaugural holder of the Toni Morrison Endowed Chair in Arts and Humanities.
Rashad has conducted Master Classes at many colleges, universities, and arts organizations
including Howard University, New York University, Carnegie Mellon, The Black Arts Institute of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, and the prestigious Ten Chimneys Foundation. Ms. Rashad also holds the distinction of being the first recipient of the Denzel Washington Chair in Theatre at Fordham University.
Rashad’s commitment to excellence
in the performing arts has been recognized by the numerous colleges and universities that have presented her with Honorary Doctorates: Barber Scotia College, Bennett College, Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Clark Atlanta University, Fordham University, Howard University, Morris Brown College, Providence College, Spelman College, St. Augustine College, Tuskegee University.
Rashad has also received countless esteemed awards
including the International Black Theatre Festival Sidney Poitier Lifetime Achievement Award, BET Honors Theatrical Arts Award, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre’s Spirit of Shakespeare Award, and the Inaugural Legacy Award of the Ruben Santiago Hudson Fine Arts Learning Center.
She serves on several important boards including Brainerd Institute Heritage (which is steering the restoration of Kumler Hall at the historic site of Brainerd Institute in Chester, South Carolina) and DADA, the Debbie Allen Dance Academy.
Rashad has been the Brand Ambassador of the National Trust for Historic Preservation African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund since its inception in 2017.
Phylicia Rashad graduated Magna Cum Laude from Howard University and is the mother of two adult children.
Center Theatre Group, one of the nation’s preeminent arts and cultural organizations, is Los Angeles’ leading not-for-profit theatre company, which, under the leadership of the Brindell & Milton Gottlieb Artistic Director Snehal Desai, Managing Director / CEO Meghan Pressman, and Producing Director Douglas C. Baker, programs the Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson Theatre at The Music Center in Downtown Los Angeles, and the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City.
The S. Mark Taper Foundation, founded in 1989, is a private family foundation dedicated to enhancing the quality of people’s lives. The Foundation does this by supporting nonprofit organizations and their work in our communities. The S. Mark Taper Foundation is committed to grantmaking that aligns with the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Bank of America is Center Theatre Group’s 2026/27 One CTG Season Sponsor. Bank of America believes in the power of the arts to help economies thrive, to educate and enrich societies, and to create greater cultural understanding. For over 20 years, the company has supported Center Theatre Group’s innovative Education and Community Partnerships programs and world-class productions.
CALENDAR LISTING FOR FENCES
Venue: Mark Taper Forum, 135 North Grand Avenue, Los Angeles CA 90012
Dates:Tuesday, May 26 to Saturday, July 3, 2027
Schedule:
Tuesday through Thursday evenings at 7:30 p.m.
Fridays at 8:00 p.m.
Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.
Sundays at 1:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.
Thursday matinee, July 1 at 2:00 p.m.
Tickets Prices begin at $37.95 and can be obtained:
On the Website: CenterTheatreGroup.org.
By Phone: Audience Services at 213.628.2772.
In person: Center Theatre Group Box Office (at the Ahmanson Theatre) at The Music Center, 135 N. Grand Avenue in Downtown L.A. 90012.
For Groups : CenterTheatreGroup.org/Tickets/Groups-and-Corporate-Offers.
Access Center Theatre Group offers a number of services to accommodate persons requiring mobility, vision, and hearing access. For more information, please visit CenterTheatreGroup.org/Access.
All images have been provided courtesy of Center Theatre Group with permission to display. Photographer for the photograph of Phylicia Rashad in uncredited.
