News And Blogs

The Center Theatre Group rehearsal rooms have been the site of many thrilling artistic breakthroughs over the past five decades, but audience members generally have had to use their imagination if they want to know what really happened there. Luckily for our patrons, we offer at least one opportunity to visit the room where it happens and get a gli...

Go Behind the Scenes Before the Performance

On February 19, 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which imprisoned over 100,000 Japanese Americans—about two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens—in one of 10 internment camps across the country’s westernmost states.

Ten Camps, One Executive Order

It’s hard to imagine that less than a generation ago, Cupertino, California was an agricultural town. Today, it is home to Apple Inc.’s headquarters—a vast, ring-shaped structure made of glass and steel—and one of the wealthiest cities in the country. Yet for playwright, director, and El Teatro Campesino founder Luis Valdez, Cupertino will...

‘Zoot Suit’ Creator Luis Valdez Plants New Seeds at the Taper with ‘Valley of the Heart’

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

All three stages at Center Theatre Group have hosted artists whose stories reflect our diverse community since our doors opened in 1967, but this fall marks an important moment. At the Ahmanson, Taper, and Douglas, three powerful female playwrights—all theatre artists of color—have works onstage simultaneously: Dominique Morisseau, book writer...

Three Playwrights. Three Stages. Three Journeys.

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

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!

The following letter is excerpted from Reflections, The Taper at Twenty, a publication produced by Center Theatre Group in recognition of the Mark Taper Forum’s 20th Anniversary. In this section, Spalding Gray reflects on his time developing Swimming to Cambodia through Taper, Too. Taper, Too launched in 1983 at the John Anson Ford Theatre in Hol...

Memories of the Taper Also

Costume designer Raquel Barreto had a unique opportunity to dive headfirst into the work of a playwright she loves when Center Theatre Group tapped her to design both Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue at the Kirk Douglas Theatre (onstage January 27 – February 25, 2018) and Water by the Spoonful at the Mark Taper Forum (onstage January 31 – March 11,...

Costume Designer Raquel Barreto Talks All Things Elliot Trilogy

The cast members of Water by the Spoonful took a break from rehearsals to tell us what drew them to this play and these roles, their experiences in Los Angeles theatre, and where they’re finding inspiration.

The 'Water by the Spoonful' Cast Spills