News: Artists

Will the Real Samuel Beckett Please Stand Up?

Samuel Beckett once wrote, “Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.” So it might be a little odd to imagine him joking with a friend about translating his book Pour finir encore et autres foirades  as “Wet Fart” (It was published in English as Fizzles). However, even a cursory glance at Beckett’s life wil...

Will the Real Samuel Beckett Please Stand Up?

Alan Mandell and Barry McGovern on Playing Beckett, Past and Present

Alan Mandell and Barry McGovern on Playing Beckett, Past and Present

Famous Actors Who Have Played Beckett's "Endgame"

In Endgame, which plays the Kirk Douglas Theatre April 24 – May 22, 2016, one character is blind and unable to stand, one is unable to sit, and two spend the entirety of the play squatting in ash bins. One would expect actors to be less than excited by the prospect of performing any of the four roles in Samuel Beckett’s famous tragicomedy,...

Famous Actors Who Have Played Beckett's "Endgame"

Suzan-Lori Parks’ Journey from a New York Bar to Household Name

Since the late 1980s, Suzan-Lori Parks’ plays have graced stages in every major American city. She is a recipient of the coveted MacArthur “Genius” Award, the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and the first Master Writer Chair at New York City’s Public Theater. Her newest play, Father Comes Home From The W...

Suzan-Lori Parks’ Journey from a New York Bar to Household Name

Jo Bonney Directs an Intimate Epic, a Contemporary History

Historical and contemporary. Dramatic and vaudevillian. A big show and a personal story. The words Jo Bonney uses to describe Father Comes Home From The Wars by Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks are full of contradictions. As is the production itself—and with good reason—said Bonney, who is directing the show’s run at the Mark Tape...

Jo Bonney Directs an Intimate Epic, a Contemporary History

In 2016, Women Run the Mark Taper Forum

The five plays that make up the 2016 season at the Mark Taper Forum are set across three centuries and two continents. They tackle race and religion, war and family strife, broken hearts and long friendships. But they do have one thing in common: all five plays have a woman playwright and/or a woman director behind them.And perhaps what’s mo...

In 2016, Women Run the Mark Taper Forum