Taper Season a ‘Celebration of Women’

The Mark Taper Forum’s 1998-99 season will include Paula Vogel’s award-winning off-Broadway hit “How I Learned to Drive,” Athol Fugard’s “The Captain’s Tiger” starring the playwright, and the premiere of a new musical about the silent movie era, “The First Picture Show.” In addition, the season includes the previously announced “Putting It Together,” “Tongue of a Bird” and “House Arrest.”

Artistic director Gordon Davidson said the season could be seen as “a celebration of women.” Three of the six productions are by female writers. The score for “The First Picture Show” is being written by a woman, and it focuses on the role of women in the early movie industry. The only announced actors so far in the season are two female stars, Carol Burnett and Cherry Jones.

Burnett is in “Putting It Together,” a revised version of the Stephen Sondheim revue, Oct. 22-Nov. 29. Jones plays a search and rescue pilot in Ellen McLaughlin’s “Tongue of a Bird,” Jan. 14-Feb. 7. “Tongue” had been announced for the current season but was postponed because of Jones’ schedule.

Vogel’s “How I Learned to Drive,” scheduled for Feb. 25-April 4, examines the unconventional relationship between a girl and her uncle from 1965 to 1979. It received best play awards last year from the New York Drama Critics Circle, the Outer Critics Circle and the Drama Desk, as well as an Obie, and it recently won the 1998 Susan Smith Blackburn Award for an outstanding play written in English by a woman. The New York production’s Mark Vogel will direct.

Anna Deavere Smith’s “House Arrest,” about the U.S. presidency and the media, is now scheduled for May 2-June 13, 1999, after being postponed from the current season’s upcoming slot.

Fugard’s “The Captain’s Tiger” is planned for June 27-July 25, 1999. It’s an autobiographical story about the 20-year-old Fugard’s experiences as the skipper’s steward on a tramp steamer. It will get an earlier Southland production, also with Fugard starring and directing, at La Jolla Playhouse, next July.

“The First Picture Show” is being created by David Gordon and Ain Gordon, the father-son team who brought “The Family Business” to the Taper in 1995. Jeanine Tesori, who received awards for last season’s off-Broadway musical “Violet,” is writing the music.