News And Blogs

Dry Land is such a beautiful play. And what I think it does really well is that it captures—in this subtle, insightful way—the pain and vulnerability of being a young woman in America, said Alana Dietze of the work she is directing at the Kirk Douglas Theatre as part of our inaugural Block Party, onstage through May 21, 2017....

Finding ‘Dry Land’ with Alana Dietze & Block Party

Rajiv Joseph’s World premiere Archduke, onstage at the Mark Taper Forum through June 4, 2017, is based on the event credited for launching World War I—the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. While The Great War has been endlessly studied and written about, the young Serbian men behind the assassination are largely a mystery. Archduke fic...

Who Killed Franz Ferdinand?

The journey of veteran director Shirley Jo Finney to the Kirk Douglas Theatre’s Block Party with The Fountain Theatre’s Citizen: An American Lyric began two and a half years ago, when Fountain co-Artistic Director Stephen Sachs called to ask her if she had read Claudia Rankine’s New York Times bestseller Citizen. Or maybe it began in 1997, wh...

'Citizen: An American Lyric' Brings Healing Power to Block Party

Block Party is our new celebration of Los Angeles Theatre. In January, we announced that we would be collaborating with three local theatre companies to make this inaugural event a reality. Coeurage Theatre Company, The Fountain Theatre, and The Echo Theater Company are each one piece of the ecosystem that is Los Angeles theatre, and their stories...

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Fifty years ago this month, on April 9, 1967, the Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson Theatre were dedicated at a star-studded event. Actor Gregory Peck proclaimed, “Tonight marks the realization of what seemed an impossible dream. Since we didn’t inherit great cultural monuments, we had to create our own.” Speaking before the opening production at...

Our 50th Anniversary, A Sondheim Classic, and a Celebration of L.A. Theatre

Failure: A Love Story was handed to director Michael Matthews by playwright Philip Dawkins, a friend of Matthews from his days working in Chicago theatre in the early 2000s. It was only fitting that the play should find its first home in Los Angeles at Coeurage Theatre, a company full of transplanted Chicagoans. Now, Failure is playing April 14–2...

The Journey of 'Failure: A Love Story' from a Softball Field to the Douglas