'History Boys' Opens L.A.'s Mark Taper Season

The Center Theatre Group's Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles will usher in its 41st season with British favorites The History Boys and The School of Night beginning in November. 

CTG Artistic Director Michael Ritchie announced that the 2007-2008 season will take place both at the nearby Ahmanson Theatre as well as the newly renovated Taper, which is set to reopen in September of next year.

"As we have previously announced, the Taper will close its doors temporarily this July to receive a major interior renovation and a much-needed updating of its technical capabilities and audience amenities," said Ritchie. "I am pleased that during this year of transition, we will be able to keep the 'family' together and continue to present the highest quality of work for our Taper subscribers.

The History Boys
 
(Presented at the Ahmanson Theatre beginning November 7 through December 9, 2007 with an opening set for November 14.)

This 2006 Tony Award winning play by Alan Bennett will make its Los Angeles premiere under the direction of Paul Miller, will is also directing the Royal National Theatre's UK tour of the show this fall.

In hopes of maintaining the success this play had on Broadway, the Ahmanson Theatre production will use the original Broadway sets as well as utilize the work of the original costume, lighting, sound and video designers.

"In The History Boys Bennett unleashes opposing views of life and education as he follows an unruly class of eight bright, funny, history students who, in addition to the pursuits of sex and sport, are anxious to achieve undergraduate admission to Oxford or Cambridge," state press notes.

"An overeager headmaster gives the task of preparing the boys to two teachers – one an idealist who believes in learning for its intrinsic value and the other a pragmatist who coaches the boys to shape and spin history to get noticed by the admittance examiners. The boys' studies become a battleground of substance versus style, in which the very hearts and minds of the boys are at stake."

Sweeney Todd

(Presented at the Ahmanson Theatre beginning March 11 through April 6, 2008 with an opening set for March 12.)

Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was reimagined last year on Broadway by director John Doyle, who will also helm the Los Angeles production.

The musical thriller, which is considered to be one of Sondheim's masterpieces, has music and lyrics by Sondheim, and book by Hugh Wheeler, from an adaptation by Christopher Bond. Music orchestration for Sweeney Todd is by Sarah Travis.

Judy Kaye (The Phantom of the Opera and Mamma Mia) and David Hess (Sweeney Todd, Annie Get Your Gun and Ragtime) will star in the musical thriller.

"The legendary demon barber, who had been wrongly imprisoned, is hell-bent on seeking revenge. He teams up with his enterprising neighbor in a delicious plot to slice their way through London's upper crust society.  Justice will be served, along with a blend of Grand Guignol, sly humor, musical and lyrical eloquence, and the tastiest meat pies in all of London...In Doyle's spare and hypnotic interpretation, 10 cast members are assembled on a single set and do double duty as actors and orchestra, most of them playing multiple instruments."

The House of Blue Leaves

(Presented at the Mark Taper Forum beginning September 4 through October 19, 2008, with an opening set for September 14.)

When the Taper re-opens its doors in 2008, the first play that Los Angeles audiences will see in the new theatre is a major revival of a modern American classic, The House of Blue Leaves, the heartbreakingly human comedy by John Guare, directed
by Nicholas Martin.

"In The House of Blue Leaves, on the day in 1965 that the pope visits New York and masses of people line the streets in adulation, Artie, a zookeeper living in Sunnyside, Queens, thinks its time for his life to be blessed, too.  He desperately wants to escape his lower middle-class existence and become a popular singer and songwriter but his life is complicated with an ambitious mistress, Bunny, a crazy wife, Bananas, and a bomb-making, teenaged son, Ronnie," state press notes.

The School of Night

(Presented at the Mark Taper Forum beginning October 30 through December 21, 2008, with an opening set for November 9.)

A sublime and sensuous political thriller set in the 16th century, The School of Night, written by Peter Whelan and presented by CTG in association with Mike Merrick and Edward Rissien, will have its American premiere in the Mark Taper Forum, with the play's original director Bill Alexander heading up the production.

"In The School of Night, Whelan provides a fascinating twist to the centuries-old mystery of the sudden and tragically early death of Christopher Marlowe, who was perhaps England's greatest dramatist before the rise of his contemporary, William Shakespeare," state press notes.

Tickets for the Taper's new season are currently available by subscription only.  For information and to charge season tickets by phone, call Audience Services at (213) 628-2772.  To purchase online, visit www.CenterTheatreGroup.org.
 

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