'Pippin,' 'Parade' to Play L.A.'s Renovated Taper

'Backstage: "Leading off is a co-production with Deaf West Theatre, an imaginative new take on Stephen Schwartz's fanciful musical Pippin (Jan. 25-March 15, 2009). This is CTG's third collaboration with DWT on musicals combining hearing, deaf, and hard-of-hearing performers. It follows the Taper's 2002 pre-Broadway staging of the Tony-winning Big River and last year's Ovation-winning premiere offering Sleeping Beauty Wakes, presented at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Jeff Calhoun, who directed and choreographed the previous collaborations, is again at the helm. Pippin, with score by Schwartz and book by Roger O. Hirson, is a captivating coming-of-age fable about Pippin, the son of Charlemagne, and his search for meaning in life, as told by a lively band of troubadours in the Roman Empire."