News And Blogs

It’s easy to take the cold weather attire and accents of the characters of Sweat to mean that the problems they face are endemic to industrial East Coast towns. Yet the reality for so many Angelenos is all too similar to that of the Reading, Pennsylvania working-class characters in Lynn Nottage’s searing play (onstage August 29 – October 7, 2...

Different Coasts, Same Problems

Director Lisa Peterson is happy to be back in Los Angeles and at the Mark Taper Forum with Sweat. The Obie Award-winning director has collaborated with some of the best playwrights in the world, including Tony Kushner, Beth Henley, David Henry Hwang, Donald Margulies, and Caryl Churchill, at regional theatres across the country. She also spent a no...

A Director Comes Home to the Taper

From both an urban development and stylstic standpoint, industrial design has become incredibly popular in American culture, embraced for both the history it evokes and its more utilitarian qualities. This trend provides an interesting juxtaposition to Lynn Nottage’s Sweat—onstage August 29 – October 7, 2018 at the Mark Taper Forum—a play t...

Industrial Design Meets Set Design

The Broadway company of The Humans is receiving rave reviews from critics and audiences alike for their performances at the Ahmanson Theatre (June 19 – July 29, 2018). And while The Humans may be the only straight play in this 2017/18 Season, this uproarious, hopeful, and heartbreaking work is carrying on a tradition that dates back to Center The...

‘The Humans’ Is in Good Company at the Ahmanson

There are some theatregoers who argue that despite added hassle, the act of going to a theatre and watching a play in-person is virtuous and the very cornerstone of the art.

A Few of The 2018 Tony Nominees We’re Rooting For!

If we traveled back 70 years in American theatre, a booming parade of sweeping love ballads and uplifting melodic celebrations would welcome us. It’s not dissimilar to the music onstage at the Ahmanson Theatre May 3 – June 10, 2018 for Soft Power, the new show from David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori....

From Revivals to Reconstruction

Tony-Award®-winning composer Jeanine Tesori is known for translating America’s most iconic musical styles to the stage with shows like Caroline, or Change and Fun Home. But even if you appreciate the blend of eras and references that fill her music, don’t call her work “pastiche.”...

Jeanine Tesori’s Musical Patchwork (not to Be Confused with Pastiche)

To say that the creative team behind the World premiere of Soft Power—onstage at the Ahmanson Theatre May 3 – June 10, 2018—admires and respects one another is an understatement. It might be more suitable to say that Soft Power playwright and lyricist David Henry Hwang, composer Jeanine Tesori, director Leigh Silverman, and choreographer Sam...

Three's a Crowd, Four's a Collaboration

If you’re doing something new, there is always a sense of fear or foreboding, but you’re in new ground and you have to get out your machete and cut a new path, superstar composer Jeanine Tesori explained in an interview a few years ago....

Five Reasons Jeanine Tesori Inspires us to Go for our Dreams

At first glance, the words jazz and politics do not necessarily sound like harmonious ideas.

Can Music Make Democracy?

Critical Mass Performance Group has produced a range of critically acclaimed historical and experimental epics for Los Angeles audiences for over 30 years.

Setting the Stage for Historical Exploration