[2] The smallest of the three venues, the Taper is flanked by the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Ahmanson Theatre on the Music Center Plaza.

The perfectly circular Taper is considered one of his best works, featuring a distinctive decorated drum of a design with its exterior wrapped in a lacy precast relief by Jacques Overhoff.

Ultimately Dorothy Chandler, the Los Angeles cultural leader, convinced Center Theater Group artistic director Gordon Davidson to use the Taper.

The Taper became known for its thrust stage, jutting into a classical, semicircular amphitheater, which creates an especially intimate relationship between audience and performer.

[5] A $30-million renovation of the Taper led by the Los Angeles firm Rios Clementi Hale Studios began in July 2007 after the 2006/2007 season.

The play received a great deal of protest from local religious leaders and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, although the production continued.

[7] The Taper has been host to world premiere productions of many notable plays including The Shadow Box (1975), Zoot Suit (1978), Children of a Lesser God (1979), Neil Simon's I Ought To Be In Pictures (1980), Lanford Wilson's Burn This (1987), Jelly's Last Jam (1991), Angels in America (1992), Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (1994), David Henry Hwang's revised version of Flower Drum Song (2001), August Wilson's Radio Golf (2005) and the musical 13 (2007).