Entertainment
Mark Taper Forum to reopen with 'American Idiot,' Larissa FastHorse’s 'Fake It Until You Make It'
It’s official: Center Theatre Group is reopening the Mark Taper Forum in the fall.
The prominent Los Angeles theater organization announced Sunday night that the historic downtown L.A. venue, which abruptly paused its season last year because of a significant budget shortfall, will resume programming in October.
One of the first productions to play the Taper after its 16-month pause will be the world premiere of “Fake It Until You Make It” (Jan. 29-March 9, 2025), the commissioned play by Larissa FastHorse that was halted just weeks before opening last year. Directed by Michael John Garcés, the satirical comedy about shifting identities will debut after CTG’s two-week workshop last fall.
“Despite the disappointment of last summer,” FastHorse said, the workshop was a way for CTG Artistic Director Snehal Desai, Managing Director and Chief Executive Meghan Pressman and the rest of the group to say, “We’re still behind this piece.”
“It was a huge gift that basically saved us two weeks of rehearsal, as we worked out fight choreography, physical comedy timing and the nuts and bolts of farce,” FastHorse said.
“The Taper is my hometown theater, and it’s my favorite space in America for seeing a play,” continued FastHorse, who will be the first Native American writer to have a mainstage production at the Taper since it opened in 1967. “I’ve always wanted to have a play there, so it’s deeply meaningful that it will still be in that space.” After its L.A. run, the co-production will later play Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage.
Center Theatre Group artistic director Snehal Desai.
(Phillip Faraone)
CTG’s 2024-25 season — Desai’s first as the nonprofit theater group’s artistic director — kicks off with Green Day’s “American Idiot” (Oct. 2-Nov. 10), the politically-charged musical based on the band’s hit album of the same title. The rock opera, which made its Broadway debut in 2010, follows a trio of young Americans as they struggle to find meaning in a post-9/11 world.
The Taper staging will be produced with Deaf West Theatre and will feature an ensemble of deaf and hearing actors, performing simultaneously in American Sign Language and English. Desai approached Deaf West Artistic Director DJ Kurs about collaborating on “American Idiot,” a selection made strategically as a “cathartic” offering for this election year.
“These characters are screaming into a world that doesn’t hear them, so why not invert the metaphor with a trio of deaf friends who are trying to be heard in this world?” said Desai, who will make his CTG directorial debut with the production.
“DJ shared that, throughout the deaf community, there’s all these covers of punk rock, because you can feel the vibration of the music. We found a real organic synergy with the concept, and it felt like a way to reopen the Taper in a big way.”
Bernadette Peters, Lea Salonga and the company of “Old Friends.”
(Danny Kaan)
Over at the Ahmanson Theatre, CTG’s largest house, Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga will lead the previously announced “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends” (Feb. 8-March 9, 2025). Directed by Matthew Bourne, the tribute to the legendary composer heads directly to Broadway after its North American premiere in L.A.
The season continues with the Broadway tour of “Life of Pi” (May 7-June 1, 2025), based on the beloved novel by Yann Martel. The play, written by Lolita Chakrabarti and directed by Max Webster, will transform the Ahmanson into the vast Pacific Ocean, where a 16-year-old boy is stranded on a lifeboat with four other survivors: a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a 450-pound royal Bengal tiger — all of which come to life with an acclaimed combination of puppeteering and visual effects.
Meanwhile, the Taper will debut a new version of “Hamlet” (May 28-July 6, 2025), adapted and directed by Robert O’Hara with inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock and the film noir genre. Desai approached O’Hara, who helmed CTG’s production of “Slave Play” in 2022, about presenting a fresh take on a classic.
“I hope to do a new reimagining every season at the Taper moving forward,” said Desai. “While the Taper is known as a playwrights’ theater, I also want it to be a home for adventurous directors.”
Hiran Abeysekera as Pi and Fred Davis, Scarlet Wilderink and Andrew Wilson as the tiger Richard Parker in the Broadway production of “Life of Pi.”
(Matthew Murphy & Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)
The Ahmanson will welcome “Parade” (June 17-July 12), the touring production of the Tony-winning Broadway revival. The musical — co-conceived by Harold Prince and featuring a book by Alfred Uhry and music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown — examines the true story of Leo and Lucille Frank, a newlywed Jewish couple whose lives in 1900s Georgia is upended when Leo is accused of an unspeakable crime.
A seventh show of the 2024-25 season will be a Broadway musical at the Ahmanson, to be announced in the coming weeks.
CTG’s season also includes a continuation and expansion of CTG:FWD programming, an initiative created last year to present special events and community gatherings during the Taper’s programming pause.
These engagements include the 7 Fingers’ ”Duel Reality” (Sept. 11-22), an acrobatic spectacle inspired by “Romeo and Juliet” at the Ahmanson, as well as “SCAT! … The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar” (Nov. 22-24), a dance-driven jazz club piece from Urban Bush Women produced in association with Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center.
The company’s third stage, the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, will have its own lineup of CTG:FWD events including TheaterWorksUSA’s “Cat Kid Comic Club: The Musical” (Nov. 22-Jan. 5), adapted from Dav Pilkey’s “Dog Man” spinoff book series, and “El Otro Oz” (dates to be announced), a bilingual musical inspired by “The Wizard of Oz,” which had a limited run at the Douglas earlier this year.
CTG’s 2024-25 season subscription package, which goes on sale Monday online, includes “American Idiot,” “Fake It Until You Make It” and “Hamlet” at the Taper; as well as “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends,” “Parade,” “Life of Pi” and the yet-to-be-announced musical at the Ahmanson. Fall 2024 CTG:FWD programming will be available to purchase as add-on performances to the subscription package, and spring 2025 CTG:FWD programming will go on sale at a later date.
PopHorror had the chance to check out Anacoreta (2022) ahead of its streaming release! Does this meta-horror flick provide interesting story telling or is it a confusing mess.
Let’s have a look…
Synopsis
A group of friends heads to a secluded woodland cabin for a weekend getaway, planning to film an experimental horror movie. As the shoot progresses, the project begins to fall apart—until a real and terrifying presence emerges from the darkness.
Anacoreta is directed by Jeremy Schuetze. It was written by Jeremy Schuetze and Matt Visser. The film stars Antonia Thomas (Bagman 2024), Jesse Stanley (Raf 2019), Jeremy Schuetze (Jennifer’s Body 2009), and Matt Visser (A Lot Like Christmas 2021)
My Thoughts
Antonia Thomas delivered an outstanding performance as the female lead in Anacoreta. It was remarkable to watch her convey such a wide range of emotions with authenticity and depth. I was continually impressed by her ability to switch seamlessly between different dialects. I absolutely loved her delivery of the dialogue of telling The Scorpion and the Frog fable.
Anacoreta employs a distinctive, meta-horror style of storytelling. The narrative follows a group of friends creating a “scripted reality” horror film, and as the plot unfolds, the boundary between their staged production and their actual lives becomes increasingly blurred. This was interesting, but at the same time frustrating as a viewer.
Check out Anacoreta on Prime Video and let us know your thoughts!
Todd Meadows, a crewmember on one of the fishing vessels featured on the long-running reality series “Deadliest Catch,” has died. He was 25.
Rick Shelford, the captain of the Aleutian Lady, announced in a Monday post on Facebook and Instagram that Meadows died Feb. 25. He called it “the most tragic day in the history of the Aleutian Lady on the Bering Sea.”
“We lost our brother,” Shelford wrote in his lengthy tribute. “Todd was the newest member of our crew, he quickly became family. His love for fishing and his strong work ethic earned everyone’s respect right away. His smile was contagious, and the sound of his laughter coming up the wheelhouse stairs or over the deck hailer is something we will carry with us always.
“He worked hard, loved deeply, and brought joy to those around him,” he added. “Todd will forever be part of this boat, this crew, and this brotherhood. Though we lost him far too soon, his legacy will live on through his children and in every memory we carry of him.”
A fundraiser set up in Meadows’ name described the deckhand from Montesano, Wash., as a father to “three amazing little boys” who died “while doing what he loved — crabbing out on Alaskan waters.”
According to the Associated Press, Meadows died after he was reported to have fallen overboard around 170 miles north of Dutch Harbor, Alaska.
“He was recovered unresponsive by the crew approximately ten minutes later,” Chief Petty Officer Travis Magee, a spokesperson with the Coast Guard’s Arctic District, told the AP. The Coast Guard is investigating the incident.
Meadows was a first-year cast member of “Deadliest Catch,” the Discovery Channel reality series that follows crab fishermen navigating the perilous winds and waves of the Bering Sea during the Alaskan king crab and snow crab fishing seasons. The show debuted in 2005. No episodes from Meadows’ season has aired.
Deadline reported that the show was in production on its 22nd season when the incident occurred, with the Shelford-led Aleutian Lady being the last of the vessels still out at sea at the time. Production has subsequently concluded, per the outlet.
“We are deeply saddened by the tragic passing of Todd Meadows,” a Discovery Channel spokesperson said in a statement that has been widely circulated. “This is a devastating loss, and our hearts are with his loved ones, his crewmates, and the entire fishing community during this incredibly difficult time.”
Meadows is the latest among “Deadliest Catch” cast members who have died. Previous deaths include Phil Harris, a captain of one of the ships featured on the show, who died after suffering a stroke while filming the show’s sixth season in 2010. Todd Kochutin, a crew member of the Patricia Lee, died in 2021 from injuries he sustained while aboard the fishing vessel, according to an obituary. Other cast members have died from substance abuse or natural causes.
“So it’s like Avatar?” one character quips in Disney and Pixar’s “Hoppers,” bluntly translating the film’s high-concept premise for the sugar-fueled kids in the audience. And yes, the comparison is apt. The story follows a nature-obsessed teenage girl who manages to quite literally “hop” her consciousness into the body of a robotic beaver in order to spark an animal rebellion against a greedy mayor determined to bulldoze their forest for a freeway.
It’s a clever hook. The kind of big, elastic idea Pixar used to make look effortless. “Hoppers” does not reach the rarified air of “Up,” “Wall-E,” or “Inside Out,” but after a stretch of uneven originals like “Turning Red” and “Luca,” and outright misfires such as “Elemental” and “Elio,” this feels like a genuine course correction. The environmental messaging is clear without being preachy, the animals are irresistibly anthropomorphized, and the studio’s once-signature emotional sincerity is back in sturdy form.
Pixar can afford to gamble on originals when it has a guaranteed cash cow like this summer’s “Toy Story 5” waiting in the wings, but “Hoppers” earns its place in the catalogue. Director Daniel Chong crafts a warm, heartfelt film that occasionally strains under the weight of its own ambition, yet remains grounded by character and theme. Its meditation on conservation and animal displacement feels timely in a way that never tips into after-school-special territory.
We meet Mabel, voiced with bright conviction by Piper Curda, as a child liberating her classroom pets and returning them to the wild. Her moral compass is shaped by her grandmother, voiced by Karen Huie, who imparts wisdom about nature’s sanctity. True to both Pixar tradition and the broader Disney playbook, this beacon of guidance does not survive past the opening act. Loss, after all, is Pixar’s favorite inciting incident.
Years later, Mabel is still fighting the good fight, squaring off against the smarmy Mayor Jerry, voiced with slick menace by Jon Hamm. He plans to flatten the glade where Mabel and her grandmother once found solace. Mabel’s resistance feels noble but futile. The animals have already mysteriously vanished, the machinery is coming, and her last-ditch plan involves luring a beaver back to the abandoned forest in hopes of jumpstarting the ecosystem.
That’s when the film gleefully pivots into mad-scientist territory. At Beaverton University, Mabel discovers her professor, voiced by Kathy Najimy, has developed a device that can project human consciousness into synthetic animals. The process, dubbed “hopping,” allows Mabel to inhabit a robotic beaver and infiltrate the forest from within. It’s an inspired escalation that keeps the film buoyant even when the plotting grows predictable.
Her new posse includes King George, a lovably beaver voiced by Bobby Moynihan with distinct Bing Bong energy; a sharp-tongued bear voiced by Melissa Villaseñor; a regal bird king voiced by the late Isiah Whitlock Jr.; and a fish queen voiced by Ego Nwodim. As is often the case with Pixar, even in its lesser efforts, the world-building is meticulous. The animal hierarchy, complete with titles like “paw of the king,” is layered with jokes that play for kids while slyly winking at adults.
The plot ultimately follows a familiar template. Scrappy underdog rallies community. Corporate villain twirls metaphorical mustache. Emotional third-act sacrifice looms. At times, you can feel the machinery working a little too cleanly. Pixar, and Disney at large, has grown increasingly reliant on sequels and established IP, and “Hoppers” does not radically reinvent the wheel. In an animated landscape where films like “K-Pop: Demon Hunters,” “Across the Spider-Verse,” and “Goat” are pushing stylistic and narrative boundaries, being safe and sturdy may not always be enough.
And yet, there is something refreshing about a Pixar original that remembers how to tug at the heart without squeezing it dry. “Hoppers” is playful, peppered with cheeky needle drops, and builds to a sweet emotional catharsis that may or may not have left this critic a little misty-eyed. It feels earnest and engaged.
“Hoppers” may not be top-tier Pixar. But it is a welcome return to form, a reminder that the studio still knows how to marry big ideas with a bigger heart.
HOPPERS opens in theaters Friday, March 6th.
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