The idea of the Armenian Center for the Arts was born after a group of friends decided – “on a lark,” as one of them describes it – to see plays on a monthly basis, inviting fellow theater aficionados to join as they wished.  On its first outing, the group numbered a mere seven.  In the course of only a couple of months, however, that number grew nearly seven-fold (and eventually approached 100).         The group’s third outing turned out to be a watershed evening, appreciated only in hindsight.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t the play – Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics – that left a lingering impression, but the post-play gathering, where the common topic of conversation seemed to be the lack of arts venues in the Armenian community.  Within a few months, many of the participants in that conversation had launched the ACA project to benefit not only the Armenian community, but the entire arts community of Los Angeles.  (Shortly thereafter, the theater outings formally came under the ACA umbrella).      In October, 2005, ACA formalized its status as a nonprofit corporation devoted to the creation of an arts complex and the promotion of arts programming and education.