Karen Zacarías' Telenovela Comedy 'Destiny of Desire' Sets Co-Production at Denver Center and Center Theatre Group

One of the most beloved works in contemporary American theater is heading to two of the country's most prestigious regional stages, and the production is actively casting right now. Destiny of Desire, playwright Karen Zacarías' wildly popular telenovela homage, is set for a major co-production between the Denver Center Theatre Company and Center Theatre Group, with performances scheduled to run from August through late December 2026. With a LORT B engagement at Denver's Wolf Theatre followed by a LORT A run at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum, this is a high-profile, full-season regional theater commitment that will require a significant creative and production team at both venues. For theater professionals across departments, from casting to choreography to musical direction, this is one to move on early.

Marcela Lorca is attached to direct. Lorca is a Chilean-American director with deep roots in regional theater and a reputation for visually inventive, physically dynamic productions, particularly with works that blend heightened theatrical form with emotional authenticity. Her background makes her a natural fit for Zacarías' material, which layers Brechtian interludes and Shakespearean comic mechanics over the soap-operatic spectacle of the Latin American telenovela format. Musical direction falls to Deborah Wicks LaPuma, a prolific composer and musical director whose credits span decades of regional and Off-Broadway work, including a long association with the Denver Center itself. Choreography is by William Carlos Angulo, whose physical theater background and movement-forward approach aligns well with the production's announced incorporation of live music and heightened theatrical style.

The source material is Karen Zacarías' own book. Zacarías is one of the most produced playwrights in American regional theater, widely recognized for works including Native Gardens and Legacy of Light, and she has a particular gift for comedy that carries genuine cultural specificity. Her script for Destiny of Desire follows two baby girls swapped at birth on a stormy night in the fictional Mexican town of Bellarica, one delivered into extravagant wealth and the other into poverty, setting the stage for colliding destinies, forbidden love stories, and the kind of glorious melodramatic chaos that defines the telenovela genre. Music is credited to Aldo Max. Casting directors Grady Soapes and Ryan Tymensky are jointly leading the casting process, and their involvement signals that auditions are either underway or imminent across both markets.

This is a co-production between two of regional theater's most established institutions. The Denver Center Theatre Company, led by Artistic Director Chris Coleman, is one of the largest nonprofit theater organizations in the country, operating multiple stages at the Denver Performing Arts Complex and maintaining a reputation as a significant developer of new American plays. Center Theatre Group, led by Artistic Director Snehal Desai, operates the Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson Theatre, and the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles, and is among the most influential producing organizations in American theater. The Mark Taper Forum in particular carries tremendous prestige as a LORT A house with a long history of Tony Award-winning productions that have moved to Broadway. A co-production of this scale between these two organizations signals serious institutional investment and a production built to a high standard.

In practical terms, this means the production will run at two physically distinct venues in two different cities, requiring coordination across Denver and Los Angeles over a multi-month window. The Wolf Theatre is an intimate black box space within the Denver Performing Arts Complex, while the Mark Taper Forum is a thrust-stage theater seating just over 700 in a defining mid-century building adjacent to the Ahmanson. Each venue presents different technical demands, and the production's design team will need to build a production that can translate between them. For scenic, lighting, sound, and costume departments, that kind of two-city co-production requires early, close collaboration between department heads and venue technical directors. Denver has a solid local crew and design base, and the Denver Center regularly employs a mix of local hires and nationally recruited designers. Los Angeles has one of the deepest theatrical talent pools in the country, and Center Theatre Group productions draw from across that ecosystem.

With production running from August 11 through December 27, 2026, the timeline is long enough that pre-production is genuinely beginning now, but not so far out that hiring is speculative. For actors, the involvement of two casting directors across Denver and Los Angeles markets suggests a broad, bi-coastal search is already in motion. For designers and production staff, the institutional scale of both presenting organizations means contracts, union agreements, and department head hires will follow a formal process. This is a LORT production at the highest tiers of the regional theater union structure, which matters for anyone tracking benefits, minimums, and working conditions.

For the full production listing, including production office contacts, confirmed crew, casting submissions, and scheduling details as they are updated through the production window, visit ProductionList.com. If you are a performer, director, designer, stage manager, or production professional looking to connect with this project, the listing is the most direct path to current contact information and open opportunities. Given that casting is actively underway and pre-production has officially begun, there is no reason to wait.

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