He is the recipient of the Distinguished Artist Award from the Public Corporation for the Arts as well as a commendation from the County of Los Angeles and the City of Long Beach.
ICT has expanded over the decades, for a time alternating productions between the original playhouse and the new and larger Long Beach Performing Arts Center, until in 2000 the company committed to the Center Theater as its full-time home and was recognized by the City Council as the official resident theater of the City of Long Beach.
[3] The current director desai is a graduate of the MFA directing program of the University of California, Irvine, where, as a student of Keith Fowler, she was encouraged to emphasize her “evident producing abilities.” She is the recipient of awards from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, from the NAACP, LA Weekly, Ovations, and Drama-Logue.
ICT’s first production in 1985 was of Robin Swados’ play The Quiet End, one of the earliest dramas of the AIDs crisis in America.
It set a tone for the ICT repertory which, in addition to plays of familial relationships and musical entertainments—including such modern classics as The Threepenny Opera and Master Class—regularly experiments with new works and with edgy contemporary pieces of social significance.