An Underground Space for Experimentation and New Play Development (1972-1997)

1972: Mark Taper Forum/Laboratory Opens in “The Pil”

The space that would become the 87-seat indoor theatre was originally constructed in 1931 as a storage area for props and set pieces of the Pilgrimage Play. It sat dormant for much of the next forty-years until it was finally converted into a black box theatre in 1971. Shortly thereafter in 1972, the Mark Taper Forum made it into a home for their new play development programs. At the time of opening, the theatre venue was still known as “The Pil,” or “The Little Theatre.” Robert Greenwald, now a documentary filmmaker, oversaw the space and started The Lab, as a laboratory for artists to create experimental work.

1974: La MaMa Hollywood at the Little Theatre

In 1974, four artists with close ties to Los Angeles and New York City’s infamous La MaMa experimental theatre, founded La MaMa Hollywood. When the roof caved in on their home space during rehearsals for the first show of their inaugural season, co-founder Robert Patrick took his play How I Came to Be Here Tonight to the Little Theatre instead. This prolific playwright would go on to produce more than sixty plays, become known as a pioneer of gay theare, and more than 40 years later would work as a beloved usher at the Ford Theatres.

The Lab Gives Space for Directors to Try Crazy, New Ideas

For the first few years, nearly all workshops, readings and performances were invitation-only, to provide a safe space for artists to work. In particular, The Lab had become a place where directors were given free rein to explore. Noted Robert Greenwald, staff director of The Lab in 1976, “An actor can work in a room alone and so can a writer, but a director is impotent without a place to work. And not being able to work is a devastating emotional experience.” Early directors included Michael Cristofer, Sally Jacobs, Susan Miller, Vickie Rue, Lee Breuer of Mabou Mines, Joseph Chaikin throughout the 1980s, and Spalding Gray with 47 Beds, Interviewing the Audience, A Personal History of the American Theatre, and several more. Production budgets were capped at $100 and designers, including Russell Pyle, Bob Zentis, and Julie Weiss, had to “beg, borrow and build a show for almost nothing.”

1977: Terminal Island Prison Brings Incarcerated Voices to the Ford

In 1977, The Lab featured an original play with music called Jump Street by the Artists in Prison group working with inmates at Terminal Island prison, bringing the first known incarcerated voices to the Ford stages. In June, 1977, prisoners themselves received special permission to travel to the Ford and perform on stage. Later, during 1984’s production of Belly of the Beast, directed by Robert Woodruff, the production turned off all of the lights in the tiny theatre to create total darkness, giving the audience a feel for how solitary confinement would deprive the character of all senses. Recalled Andrew Robinson, actor and director, “People would freak out, and on a couple of occasions, beg that the lights be turned back on. One man literally crawled over people and fled the theatre.” Belly was the story of Jack Henry Abbott, a man who spent nearly his entire life in some form of penal lock-up. Norman Mailer wrote a book of the same title and helped get him out of prison, at which point Abbott promptly murdered a young man on the Lower East Side.

The Lab Lifts Up Diverse Voices

From its earliest days, The Lab was committed to featuring works created by and featuring diverse artists. Robert Egan, director and producing artistic director of the New Works Festival, commented “A highlight for me was watching Luis Alfaro roller skating around the stage in a black slip during a moving piece about the trials and tribulations of being gay and Latino. It was incredibly brave, imaginative and funny. I think the projects and the Taper staff truly reflected the dynamism and diversity of Los Angeles at the time. I really think that is why huge crowds would line up in front of the theatre. They were there to see new plays that spoke to the diverse, political, complex social world in which they lived. We premiered artists from many different communities – I first saw the work of Luis Alfaro, George Wolf, John Fleck, Tony Kushner, John Belluso, Han Ong and many more in that space.” 

1980-1992: Taper’s Improvisational Theatre Project Finds a Space at the Forum/Lab for Youth Theatre

In 1970, the Mark Taper Forum launched their first programming for young people as the Improvisational Theatre Project. In the early years, ITP was itinerant, touring to local schools to provide access to art for children throughout Los Angeles. By 1980, ITP had taken up residence at the Ford with Concrete Dreams by Doris Baizley, while still also continuing to tour locally. Future works of the ITP at Taper, Too would include several productions written or directed by Peter Brosius, a 1986 production of Rainbow Country performed by students from La Merced Intermediate School, 1990’s Robinson and Crusoe, and ended its time at the Ford with According to Coyote by John Kauffman in 1992. The ITP would eventually transform into the Taper’s Performing for Los Angeles Youth, and continues to this day as an educational offering by Center Theatre Group.

1983: Mark Taper Launches the “Taper, Too” Brand

In 1983, the Taper, Too launched as an alternative subscription series of plays that were deemed more cutting-edge than those on the Mark Taper main stage. The Wire by Hayden Wayne, directed by Ben Levit becomes the first production under the new Taper, Too brand name on October 19, 1983. Many notable performances would follow including Bill Irwin’s The Regard of Flight in 1983, Jane Martin’s Talking With in 1984 which premiered just a few years after the anonymous playwright came on the scene from Louisville, the West Coast premiere of Spalding Gray’s Swimming to Cambodia in 1985, Aunt Dan & Lemon by Wallace Shawn launched the film career of Kathy Bates in 1987, and a spoken word reading of The Sea Lion and Little Tricker the Squirrel by Ken Kesey. In 1995, Taper, Too hosted a Native American New Play Reading Series. By 1997, the Taper, Too saw its final series at the Ford of productions Two at the Too, Depth Becomes Her by Sandra Tsing Loh and I Remember Mapa by Alec Mapa. The Taper, Too brand would go on to find a home at LA Actor’s Gang.

1988-1995: Taper Lab Playworks/New Work Festival Premieres Dozens of New Plays Each Year

Robert Egan, director and producing artistic director of the New Works Festival, remembered, “It was a rough, raw space. The walk up the hill [into the venue] was a welcome procession out of the bustle of the city through nature into a surprising and sacred space for new and challenging work. It was intimate at less than 90 seats. So it was a truly embracing space to focus on new groundbreaking work.” The New Work Festival would go on to produce about a dozen new plays every fall for nearly a decade, including 1995’s Groomed (The Unrefined Technique) by writer/director Don Cheadle, his first attempt at writing for the stage.

1990: First Workshop for Tony Kushner’s Angels in America

Angels in America: Millennium Approaches was first developed at the Taper Lab New Work Festival in 1989. In 1990, it was further developed during a work-in-progress production at Taper, Too beginning May 15, 1990 featuring Jeffrey King, Lorri Holt, Kathleen Chalfant, Richard Frank, Ellen McLaughlin, Stephen Spinella, Jon Matthews, Harry Waters Jr., with Oskar Eustis as director. A few weeks later, on May 30, Angels in America: Perestroika received a public reading as part of the Taper Lab Reading Series, and then in November of that year a workshop production as part of the New Work Festival. It would go on to premiere at the Mark Taper Forum main stage in 1992 to historic acclaim.

A Place for Itinerant Theatre Companies

1998: The Ford Reclaims, Renovates, and Rebrands the black box theatre as [Inside] the Ford

In 1991, recessionary pressures shut down the Taper, Too venue. It would be another eight years before the black box opened its doors to the public, this time as [Inside] the Ford, as a subsidized rental program. The inaugural season included the Antaeus Company's new version of the Gilbert & Sullivan opera Patience (Nov. 5-Dec. 20); Venture West Theatre Company's world premiere production of William H. Hoffman's Riga (Jan. 4-Feb. 27); and the Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company's all female, multi-cultural production of King Lear (Feb. 28-Apr. 25)

2000: Ford Begins Subsidizing Artists’ Fees and Production Budgets Inside

After acquiring a significant grant from the James Irvine Foundation, with the collaboration of A.S.K. Theater Projects, Hot Properties at [Inside] the Ford is born. The program supports new premieres like Sleepwalk by Daniel Cariaga and a 2001 reading of Come Back, Little Sheba with Piper Laurie, Pat Harrington and Zooey Deschanel. Four seasons later, when A.S.K. is dissolved in 2004, the program was re-envisioned as the Ensemble Theatre Collective at [Inside] the Ford, giving a home to six small ensemble companies: Circle X Theatre, Zoo District, Watts Village Theater, About Productions, Critical Mass Performance Group and Ziggurat Theatre. The etc@ITF program lasted until 2008.

2006: International Latino Festival of Los Angeles Launches Winter Season

The International Latino Theatre Festival of Los Angeles (FITLA) launched the 05/06 winter season at [Inside] the Ford. A full page article in the LA Times highlighted work by the theatre company Mexicali a Secas from Mexico who performed three different productions to kick off the festival. The festival also included performances by Venezuela’s Textoteatro, Italy’s Progetto Zattera, and New York’s Teatro IATI (Instituto Internacional de Arte Teatral de New York).

2008: First Artist Partnership Season at [Inside] the Ford

For the first time, the Ford’s successful artist partnership program from the main stage makes its way to the indoor space. “We created this series because one of the biggest impediments itinerant companies face is the high cost of renting,” says Laura Zucker, the Arts Commission’s executive director at the time. “That often prevents them from focusing on putting money into the product onstage.” In exchange for a subsidized weekly rent of $1,000 – well under the market rate – groups received access to the theatre and its lighting and sound systems as well as box office, house management, marketing and publicity services. The cozy performance space had its quirks (those pesky pillars), but it was worth it. Three small theatre companies take up residence each year after a competitive application process, receiving significant promotional and technical support to present their events and keep the lion’s share of the box office. The first three companies were Moving Arts, Circle X Theatre and The Ghost Road Company. 

2014: The Little Theatre is Demolished During Renovations of the Main Stage

In 2012, the final [Inside] the Ford production would come nearly full circle back to the Circle X Theatre Company. The company’s first appearance at [Inside] the Ford was in 2005 with the critically acclaimed and award-winning adaptation of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Their final performance of Naked Before God in 2012 would be the venue’s last supported production. One final rental, a touring Swedish play Sjalusi from Deaf West Theatre Company, would be the final artists in the space before the theatre was demolished during the main stage renovations of 2015.