Tokyo International Players were black-tie occasions. Today, TIP generally presents four mainstage shows per season. In June 2009, TIP launched its "Second Stage" series with "Honiefaith" by Monty DiPietro. Second Stage features smaller-scale, black box-style productions. The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, one of the few buildings in Tokyo to withstand the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, had an intimate theater which hosted the club until the early 1960s. Most TIP performances from 1974 to 2007 were staged in the Grand Ballroom of the Tokyo American Club. Currently, TIP uses several professional theater spaces in the Tokyo metropolitan area including Theater Sun-mall in
Imperial Hotel, Tokyo (French) food had been the official banquet fare of the Imperial Palace since Emperor Meiji hosted a luncheon for the nephew of the king of Italy on 8 September 1873, and the Imperial Hotel followed that tradition. Japan's first Diet building, just finished on 24 November 1890 in time for the first Diet session, burned down on 20 January 1891. After a week of preparations, the House of Peers reconvened in the ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, where they would meet until March 1. Business was slow at first, and the hotel lost money. Even after the U.S. annexed the