Theater 2023: Mark Taper Forum Cancels All Productions Planned for 2023-24 Season, Due to Crisis Unlike Any Other in Our 56-Year History

Cancels All Productions Planned for 2023-24 Season, Due to ‘Crisis Unlike Any Other in Our 56-Year History’

Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles Music Center. (Photo by: Education Images/Citizens of the Planet/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Universal Images Group via Getty

The Center Theatre Group (CTG) announced Thursday that it is canceling plans for a 2023-24 season at the Mark Taper Forum, one of the most important homes for new plays in the city, if not the country, due to severe financial concerns.

The organization’s two other theaters, the Ahmanson and Kirk Douglas Theatres, will continue with their seasons as usual, with 2023-24 programs to be announced shortly, the announcement said.

The programming suspension at the 736-seat Mark Taper will begin after a current world premiere musical, Transparent, wraps up its run on June 25.

Two other shows that had already been announced will have their runs canceled or postponed. The world premiere of “Fake It Until You Make It,” set to begin Aug. 2, is being called off, although the org said “we plan to feature it) in a future season.” Meanwhile, a touring production of “Cambodian Rock Band” set for the Mark Taper has been canceled outright.

The release noted that CTG “continues to feel the aftereffects of the pandemic and has been struggling to balance ever-increasing production costs with significantly reduced ticket revenue and donations that remain behind 2019 levels. We are still facing a crisis unlike any other in our 56-year history. 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, as well as taking significant restructuring measures to build a vibrant and sustainable organization that can navigate this new paradigm.”

The CTG said that the venue will not be completely dark during the next year, as it is looking at “innovative, non-traditional” and “community-centered” events to put on in the theater while normal programming is suspended.

The most successful play to be produced since the theater returned after the pandemic was the acclaimed “Slave Play,” which sold out its entire run. Other productions have not been so fortunate, although the Mark Taper had continued to act as a launching place for shows that go on to New York, like last year’s “King James,” which is now wrapping up a run at the Manhattan Theatre Club.

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