Theater News

Center Theatre Group / Mark Taper Forum Announces 2007-2008 Season

Judy Kaye in Sweeney Todd(© Bruce Glikas)
Judy Kaye in Sweeney Todd
(© Bruce Glikas)

The Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum has announced the lineup for its 41st season. Due to renovations at the Taper, the first two productions will be presented at the Ahmanson Theatre.

Following highly successful runs both in London and on Broadway, Alan Bennett’s The History Boys will be presented at the Ahmanson from November 7 through December 9, opening officially on November 14. In London, the show took all the major English theatre awards; on Broadway, it won several Tonys, including those for Best Play and Best Director. The History Boys tells the story of an unruly class of history students as they pursue sex, sports, and admission to Oxford or Cambridge. The show will be directed by Paul Miller (original direction by Nicholas Hytner).

Tony Award winner John Doyle’s production of Sweeney Todd will feature Judy Kaye and David Hess in the leading roles, March 11-April 6 at the Ahmanson. With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler, Todd tells the tale of the demon barber of Fleet Street, who had been wrongly imprisoned and now seeks his revenge.

The Taper will reopen in 2008 with John Guare’s The House of Blue Leaves (September 4-October 19). Nicholas Martin will direct this alternately farcical and tragic play about a zookeeper who desperately wants to escape his lower middle-class existence.

Closing out the season, Peter Whelan’s The School of Night will have its American premiere at the Taper, November 9-December 21. Bill Alexander, who directed the play’s world premiere in England, will also helm this production. The play provides a twist to the mystery of the sudden, early death of Christopher Marlowe, questioning whether he was actually killed in a barroom brawl or if his murder was part of a deeper conspiracy.

For more information, visit CenterTheatreGroup.org.