Coyotes Stageworks closes its doors after 13 years in the Coachella Valley and many local and regional awards.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY COYOTE STAGEWORKS
Coyote StageWorks, the Coachella Valley-based award-winning Actors’ Equity professional theatre company, will close after 13 years.
Along with other theatre companies around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Coyote to cancel its 2019-2020 season, and that closure has continued due to the uncertainty thus far in 2021. This period of forced introspection led Coyote’s leadership to conclude that this was the right time to permanently close the company while celebrating its many accomplishments and accolades.
Over the years, Coyote StageWorks produced many acclaimed productions. Highlights include Boeing, Boeing, The Andrews Brothers, Suds, Dirty Blonde, The Women (the theatre company’s annual benefit gala), Tru, Art, Buyer & Cellar, Agnes of God, Love, Loss, and What I Wore, The Lady with All the Answers, The Understudy, Greater Tuna, and A Doll’s House Part II, among others.” Many of these productions received local and regional awards and all received critical acclaim, with three productions transferring to theatres outside of the desert area for longer runs.
Coyote recently received three significant honors from BroadwayWorld, which asked the theatre-going public to submit nominees and vote for their favorite shows and theatre companies. Coyote StageWorks received the “Theatre Company Of The Decade” award and their 2020 production of A Doll's House, Part II earned the “Set Design Of The Decade” award. Founding Artistic Director Chuck Yates received the coveted “Performer Of The Decade” award for his role of Truman Capote in the 2013 Coyote StageWorks production of Tru. In addition to the BroadwayWorld awards, Coyote StageWorks garnered a total of 91 Desert Star awards, and back-to-back “Best Live Theatre" wins in Desert Magazine, over the last decade.
Having accomplished what he set out to do, Yates said that he “deeply appreciates that the community embraced our mission ‘to provide a forum for thought-provoking, entertaining, and culturally significant works in an environment that nurtures the creativity of the individual and the enrichment of the community.’ I am a very lucky man to get to do exactly what I wanted to do for 13 years. It’s been such an amazing ride, and now I look forward to my next chapter.”
“Our rich legacy will live on through the Palm Springs Young Playwright’s Festival, which will continue and thrive,” continued Yates. “The festival was designed to help discover and nurture the next generation of writers from local middle and high school students, and that is exactly what it will continue to do as an independent entity.”
Yates also thanked Coyote’s many supporters including David Lee, Annette Bloch, Barbara & Jerry Keller, Patti and Jack Grundhofer, Steve Tobin and The Grace Helen Spearman Charitable Foundation, The Western Wind Foundation, The Palm Springs Cultural Center, Dorothy and Mel Lefkowitz, Ron and Carol Fragen, and John P. Monahan.
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