Center Theatre Group to Suspend Performances at the Mark Taper Forum

Struggling in the wake of the Covid pandemic, which saw theaters across the country shut down for over a year, Los Angeles’s Center Theatre Group will suspend performances at the Mark Taper Forum, its second-largest venue.

“We are still facing a crisis unlike any other in our fifty-six-year history,” the organization wrote in an official statement. “It is in this environment that we have to take the extraordinary step of pausing a significant portion of CTG programming beginning this summer and continuing through the 2023/24 Season.”

The statement cited increased production costs and ticket revenue below 2019 levels as two factors that contributed to the decision. CTG still plans to announce its 2023-24 season at the Ahmanson Theatre, its largest venue, as well as select programming at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, its smallest theater.

This decision will immediately impact the world premiere of Larissa FastHorse’s Fake It Until You Make It, which was scheduled to begin performances at the Taper on August 2. That production has been postponed, with no new dates announced. The tour of Lauren Yee’s Cambodian Rock Band has also been canceled.

The statement continues, “Though we will not be programming a season in the Taper this year, we hope during this time to be able to utilize this beloved theatre space in innovative, non-traditional ways through special events and community-centered programs starting as early as the fall. We will also continue to offer our robust Education & Community Partnerships programs, which reach thousands of students each year in all of our spaces and venues.”

The Mark Taper Forum has been the home of some of the most exciting new plays in America, recently hosting productions of Rajiv Joseph’s King James, Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me, and Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced.