Since it opened in 1967 the Mark Taper Forum has been honored for its development of new plays and voices for the theatre and for its continuing commitment to serve the broadest possible audience. It has received virtually every theatrical award including the 1977 special Tony Award for theatrical excellence.
With Michael Ritchie as its Artistic Director and Gordon Davidson its Founding Artistic Director, the 739-seat Mark Taper Forum is one of the top resident theatres in the country.. The theatre has guided and developed an impressive number of Tony Award-winning and Pulitzer Prize-winning plays, including Children of a Lesser God, The Shadow Box, The Kentucky Cycle and Angels in America. The Taper was distinguished by having two of its plays The Kentucky Cycle and Angels in America (Part One - Millennium Approaches) receive in consecutive years the Pulitzer Prize in Drama, the first time for plays produced outside of New York.
Recent Taper productions include August Wilson’s King Hedley II, Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf, the revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song with a new book by David Henry Hwang, David Mamet’s Romance, a revival of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard with Annette Bening, David Hare’s Stuff Happens and Culture Clash’s Chavez Ravine and Water & Power. The Taper has a five to six play season which runs from January through December.
Two different generations of characters tip-toe the delicate dance of social politics and two seminal events—50 years apart—in the same Chicago neighborhood. The 1959 landmark drama A Raisin in the Sun provides a contextual center for this rich and darkly satirical Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy. Jokes fly and hidden agendas unfold as two vastly different generations of characters tip-toe the delicate dance of social politics, pitting race against real estate at the crux of two seminal events—50 years apart—in the same North Chicago habitat.
Recognized as the Most Significant English Language Play of the 20th Century, this tragicomedy tells the story of two men on a country road waiting for Godot. And what a wait it is! Together for the first time, two of the most distinguished Beckett veterans delightfully debate the meaning of life and the adbsurdities of human behavior in this engagingly funny, relevant and illuminating new production.
