Mark Taper Forum
The Mark Taper Forum is a theater in Los Angeles , California .
It is one of the top four Los Angeles Music Center venues . The theater with its 745 seats was built in 1967 according to plans by the architect Welton Becket . It bears the name of the American industrialist and philanthropist Mark Taper. The Richard E. Sherwood Award , one of the most important prizes in the United States for younger artists, is presented annually at the Mark Taper Forum .
Since 1967 there have been numerous outstanding productions of smaller, experimental pieces here. Angels in America, an award-winning play by Tony Kushner , premiered in May 1990 at the Mark Taper Forum. Also on the theater's repertoire in June 2005 was Stuff Happens, a historical drama about the origins of the Iraq War , by David Hare (with Keith Carradine and Julian Sands in the lead roles). In August 2005, a series of ten performances of Radio Golf, a 2007 Tony Award nominee, by August Wilson, ended . Other Tony Award winning plays were shown here.
The Mark Taper Forum (as well as the neighboring Ahmanson Theater and Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City ) is owned by the Center Theater Group, a non-profit arts society. The building has an architectural similarity to the Carousel Theater in Disneyland Park in Anaheim , which was also built in 1967 according to plans by Welton Becket. It is similar in size and design concept to the Dallas Theater Center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and to the original Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis .
The interiors of the Mark Taper Forum received major renovations in 2007 and 2008. On August 30, 2008, the theater reopened with the play House of Blue Leaves by John Guare . The auditorium was named the Amelia Taper Auditorium as a result of a $ 2 million donation from the S. Mark Taper Foundation .
There is also a S. Mark Taper Foundation for the Benaroya Hall in Seattle .
