[NEohioPAL]CPTHEATRE REINVENTS SELF; NEW PRODUCTIONS IN AREA

[Roy Berko]

CLEVELAND PUBLIC THEATRE REINVENTS SELF; SHOW OPEN IN
JANUARY

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association)

--THE TIMES NEWSPAPERS--

Lorain County Times—Westlaker Times--Lakewood News
Times--Olmsted-Fairview Times	


For many years Cleveland Public Theatre was noted as
the place you went to see "over-the edge," "way-out,"
"avant garde" productions.  Gradually, CPT has
reinvented itself.   It is still the home for plays
and offerings that other entertainment centers won’t
handle, but that isn’t the whole story.

Included in its fall offerings was BLUE SKY
TRANSMISSION: A TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD.  As I stated
in my original review, "Every once in a while a very
special event takes place in a theatre.   It usually
entails a theatre undertaking a subject or a script
that takes the audience on a mythical journey into
thought and introspection.  It also requires that the
production live up to the performance levels demanded
by the script.  Such an experience will be encountered
by those lucky enough to get tickets to BLUE SKY
TRANSMISSION: A TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD at Cleveland
Public Theatre."  The play was then taken to New York
for a run at Cafe LaMama.

Faced with the same financial problems that are being
confronted by most other arts organizations in this
time of a very tight economy.  Randy Rollison, CPT’s
Artistic Director, put on his creative hat and come up
with a wonderful concept...Big [Box].

As he explains it, "Big [Box] is a response to the
time and where we are as artists, audiences and an
arts organization.  The world seems to change in
unsettling ways by the hour." He goes on to say, "We
don’t have much money, but we know how to use the
other resources we have."   What did they do?  The
created a new initiative where, for nine weeks they
have offered one of their performance spaces to new
artist initiate works.    They have turned their Big
[Box] over to dance, jazz and plays.

The offerings started with Antaeus Dance prersenting
INHERENT VICES, an hour-long dance work that centers
on the hours between sunset and sunrise.  It is
divided into three segments: sleeping, sinning and
falling.   Though overlong and repetitious, the
intense ballet consisted of the performers jumping,
writhing, posing, rolling, and lifting each other. 
Though the dancers were sometimes out of sync, the
overall effect was an interesting evening of dance.

 
 Upcoming events include:  
January 10-12 – Rasheryl McCreary--SCAT!, a jazz play
that uses drama and music to explore the life of Ella
Fitzgerald.   McCreary is noted for her outstanding
work in THE AMEN CORNER at The Cleveland Play House.  
January 17-19 – Aaron Rapljenovic and Robert
Wesner--uses music, movement and visual arts to
explore universal themes that influence all of us.

January 24-26 – Michael D. Sepesy, a Cleveland
playwright examines Loserville.  "Loserville sheds
light on the American experience through a series of
serio-comic monologues that celebrate the dysfunctions
of our country’s losers."

February 7-9 – Writer/director Christopher Johnston’s
one-act play THEORIES OF RELATIVITY considers the good
and bad of long-term relationships between men and
women.  

February 14-16 – The Wild Plum Theatre Company deals
with plays that concern gay, lesbian, bi and
transgender concerns.  This is the debut of this new
company led by Artistic Director Denise Astorino.

February 21-23 – Director Greg Vovos presents Eric
Kaiser’s new play which is called a cross between
BoyzN the Hood and the works of Samuel Beckett. 

February 28 – March 2 –I HATE THIS is a solo
performance by David Hansen that takes the audience on
an honest, horrible and even humorous trip through the
reality of still birth.
 
Tickets for each show are $10.  Performances run
Friday through Sunday.  For details and tickets call
Cleveland Public Theatre at 216-631-2727.

OPENING AT LOCAL THEATRES IN JANUARY

Productions to look for this month include:

STONES IN HIS POCKETS, Palace Theatre, January 7-19. 
The recipient of 3 Tony Award nominations the play
examines the shooting of a Hollywood film being shot
in an Irish village in County Kerry.  (216-241-6000 or
www.playhousesquare.com.)

THE TALE OF THE ALLERGIST’S WIFE, Dobama, January
17-February 9.  Direct from Broadway, Charles Busch’s
play has been called "an intelligently funny
satirically relevant uptown comedy." (216-932-6838)

CHERRY DOCS, Halle Theatre, January 18-February 2. 
Directed by Reuben Silver and starring Joel Hammer and
Scott Plate, it is an explosive play about an
unrepentant skinhead accused of murder and the Jewish
Legal Aid lawyer assigned him.   As both men
reluctantly agree to work together they come to
realize that more than their beliefs are on the line. 
For mature audiences only.  (216-382-4000, extension
274)

PROOF, The Cleveland Play House, Baxter Theatre,
January 7-February 2.  The play earned the Drama Desk
Award and the Tony Award for Best Play.   A
mathematical proof is found.  Is the breakthrough a
legacy of a genius or one of madness?   (216-795 7000
or clevelandplayhouse.com)

BRING IN ‘DA NOISE, BRING IN ‘DA FUNK, State Theatre,
January 15-January 20.  A four-time Tony Award winner
starring Savion Glover, this groundbreaking ensemble
musical examines the history of black America as
mirrored in tap dancing.  (216-241 6000 or
www.playhousesquare.com)

STEVIE, Caesar’s Forum at Kennedy’s Down Under,
January 10-February 8.  A play by Hugh Whitemore based
on the life and career of Britain’s poetess Stevie
Smith.  It is filled with mischievous humor,
eccentricity and poems with twists on familiar nursery
thymes.

VOICE OF GOOD HOPE: THE WORDS AND LIFE OF BARBARA
JORDAN, Ensemble Theatre, January 17-February 9.  A
Cleveland premiere of a play that depicts pivotal
moments in the remarkable life of Congresswoman
Barbara Jordan, the first black woman elected to
Congress from the South, who was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994. (216-321-2930)

FIGHT AGAINST SLAVERY, Actors’ Summit, January 9-19. 
Features Neil Thackaberry and Mark Gates in a dramatic
recreation of historic meetings  of nearly two decades
of talk, arguments, and pleading between John Brown
and Frederick Douglas.  (330-342 0800)

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL THEATRES!!!


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