News And Blogs

Before its Academy Award-nominated film adaptation in 1984 and its Broadway debut in February this year, A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller opened the Mark Taper Forum’s 16th season in 1982....

Scenes From the Vault—A Soldier's Play

When the World premiere of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo was produced at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2009, an exciting artistic partnership between Center Theatre Group and Rajiv Joseph was born. Not only was it Joseph’s first large-scale production at a major regional theatre, but the following year, the show was trasnferred to the Mark Taper...

Scenes from the Vault—Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

When Center Theatre Group’s Founding Artistic Director Gordon Davidson met with Luis Valdez to commission a play that was quintessentially Los Angeles—what came from their meeting redefined theatre history. When Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit first premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in association with Teatro El Campesino in 1978, it made history as...

Scenes from the Vault: Zoot Suit

With America preparing for its annual 4th of July celebration—albeit in a physically distanced way, perhaps unlike any time before—it must be remembered that the meaning of independence has never been equally applied to all Americans. This point is clearly taking center stage in the national dialogue, especially leading into this year’s Indep...

Exposing America's History Onstage

It’s the fall of 1977 in the Hill District. The urban area just west of downtown Pittsburgh is predominantly African American, and in a time of de facto segregation, untraveled by run-of-the-mill taxis. Transportation options are limited, and unlicensed “jitney” cabs are as common there as legal yellow cabs are in white neighborhoods.

Community, Empowerment & Being Human in August Wilson’s 'Jitney'

Ruben Santiago-Hudson describes August Wilson’s Jitney—onstage at the Mark Taper Forum Novermber 22 – December 29, 2019—as “two parallel love stories.”

An Opportunity to Celebrate

To portray the vast canvas of American periods and locales on display in A Play Is a Poem—Ethan Coen’s World premiere collection of short plays onstage at the Mark Taper Forum September 11 – October 13, 2019—it takes a large and capable cast. In just under two hours, the action onstage goes from the East Coast to the West Coast—twice—an...

Play or Poem; It Takes a Village

Five short plays wrapped into one evening, Ethan Coen’s A Play Is a Poem—onstage September 11 – October 13, 2019 at the Mark Taper Forum—celebrates the one-act play, a form that, over the last century, has endured the ebb and flow of theatre’s evolving landscape....

Revisiting the One-Act Form with Ethan Coen’s ‘A Play Is a Poem’

From Appalachia to Hollywood, drama to comedy, A Play Is a Poem is a cross-country cross-section of American theatrical history. Consisting of five short plays of disparate settings and genres, the fundamental connection these pieces share doesn’t begin onstage. Rather, it all starts with over a decade’s worth of collaboration between playwrigh...

Collaboration, Cast, and Poetry: What Makes a Play?

Center Theatre Group has a celebrated history of bringing playwright Samuel Beckett’s works to our stages over the last three decades, including a festival in 1990 that featured Play, Krapp’s Last Tape, and Happy Days. Upon that offering of the now legendary artist’s plays, Founding Artistic Director Gordon Davidson wrote, “Beckett’s play...

Are You Beckett Enough?

Music has always been the great bookmark of my life to tell me where I was and what I was doing, said Tony® Award-winning actor and Lackawanna Blues creator Ruben Santiago-Hudson. When I had been telling people about this incredible upbringing, I knew I couldn’t tell it without music.

Staging the Sounds of Blues