Photo Flash: Pulitzer Finalist 'BENGAL TIGER' At The Taper, Opens 4/25

"Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo," which had its world premiere at the Center Theatre Group/Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2009 and was named a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist earlier this month, opens at the CTG/Mark Taper Forum at the Los Angeles Music Center on Sunday, April 25.  Previews are underway and performances continue through May 30, 2010.

Award-winning director Moisés Kaufman directed the world premiere at the Douglas and returns with the original cast and creative team.  The cast features (in alphabetical order) Glenn Davis, Brad Fleischer, Arian Moayed, Kevin Tighe, Hrach Titizian, Sheila Vand and Necar Zadegan. 

The set design is by Derek McLane, costume design is by David Zinn, lighting design is by David Lander, sound design is by Cricket S. Myers and Kathryn Bostic serves as composer.  Casting is by Bonnie Grisan, and the production stage manager is David S. Franklin.

In Rajiv Joseph's darkly comic "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo," the lives and, in some cases, the afterlives, of two American soldiers, an Iraqi translator, the ghosts of Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Ousay, and a Bengal tiger all intersect in a surreal, darkly humorous and gently balanced view of war and its aftermath.

Charles McNulty of the Los Angeles Times said that "Bengal Tiger" is ". . . no ordinary play. I'm tempted to call it the most original drama written so far about the Iraq war, but why sell this work short? The imagination behind it is way too thrillingly genre-busting to be confined within such a limited category."  Regarding Moisés Kaufman, McNulty said ". . . let's give credit . . . [Kaufman's] direction allows us to appreciate both the wonderful comic audacity and diffuse sensitivity of Rajiv Joseph." Dany Margolies of Back Stage said, "The brain jolts to a start at the top of this world premiere and doesn't cease whirring . . . Rajiv Joseph has penned a monumental work that muses on cruelty and nature, language and creativity, religion and remorse.  . . ."

Tickets for "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" are available by calling CTG Audience Services at (213) 628-2772 or online at www.CenterTheatreGroup.org or in person at the CTG box office located at the Ahmanson Theatre at the Music Center.

Photo Credit: Craig Schwartz