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
Tokyo Imperial Palace In the late Taishō and early Shōwa period, more concrete buildings were added, such as the headquarters of the Imperial Household Ministry and the Privy Council. These structures exhibited only token Japanese elements. From 1888 to 1948, the compound was called . On the night of 25 May 1945, most structures of the Imperial Palace were destroyed in the Allied firebombing raid on Tokyo. According to the US bomber pilot Richard Lineberger, Emperor's Palace was the target of their special mission on July 29, 1945, and was hit with 2000-pound bombs. In August 1945, in the closing days of World