[NEohioPAL]Cleveland Public Theatre Explodes Uncle Tom's Cabin

[Dan Kilbane]

For Immediate Release
Contact:  Dan Kilbane, Publicist
216/631-2727 ext. 203
dkilbane at cptonline.org <mailto:dkilbane at cptonline.org>
promotional photos are available upon request
January 6, 2003
CLEVELAND PUBLIC THEATRE EXPLODES UNCLE TOM’S CABIN
The American Classics Series
UNCLE TOM’S CABIN; or, the preservation of favoured races in the struggle
for life
Written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and others
Devised by Floraine Kay and Randolph Curtis Rand at Drama Dept.
Directed by Randolph Curtis Rand
February 6 - February 28, 2004
Gordon Square Theatre

“…a smart, stunningly inventive, new adaptation….”
“In terms of theatrical power it makes more than sense, it makes art.”
- The New York Times


CLEVELAND, OH - Executive Director James Levin and Artistic Director Randy
Rollison are proud to present a revelatory new adaptation of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin; or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
Based on the classic story of a kindly slave sustained by faith while tested
by vicious cruelty, 150 years have passed since Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first published and time has not been kind. Uncle Tom’
s Cabin is viewed as overly sentimental propaganda. Its images (Eliza on the
ice) and characters (Uncle Tom and Topsy) were part of the popular culture,
but over time became misunderstood and misapplied.  What happened to the
esteem and popularity that kept it alive for a century?

Floraine Kay and Randolph Curtis Rand have adapted and reinterpreted this
novel for 21st century America. They examine the many layers of the story
with the keen eyes of dramatists, sociologists, and archeologists. Their
adaptation adds and combines writers as diverse as Woodrow Wilson, e. e.
cummings, and George Sand, and sources as varied as the 1852 stage play,
Stowe’s diaries, slave narratives, and the writings of Louis Gates Jr. and
Thomas Edison. By combining all of these uniquely American voices, they
manage to reveal the original urgency and political relevancy of the book’s
themes.

The impact of the novel and original stage versions were phenomenal.  The
entire first edition of the novel, 5000 copies total, was exhausted two days
after its publication in Boston on March 20, 1852.  Within a year 300,000
copies were sold in America and 150,000 in England.  Six months after the
book’s appearance, George L. Aiken’s now famous dramatization of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin opened in Troy, NY, and ran for 100 performances.  It then moved to
New York City’s National Theatre, where it played for 350 performances.  So
great were the crowds that, at one point, as many as four companies were
simultaneously performing Uncle Tom’s Cabin in New York, sometimes as many
as three shows a day.  It truly was America’s most popular play-for the next
eighty years, theatre companies throughout the country presented it each
season.  When he met Harriet Beecher Stowe at the White House, Abraham
Lincoln said, “So this is the little lady who started this big war.”

In addition to CPT’s production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the theatre is
organizing a series of community events that will generate dialogue on race
and diversity in the Northeast Ohio area.  Programming will range from
public meetings off-site at partner organizations around town, as well as
panel discussions before each Sunday performance, and post-show talkbacks
with the audience at CPT.  Partner organizations on this series of community
events include Cleveland Public Library, West Shore Unitarian Universalist
Church, The Lesbian-Gay Community Service Center of Greater Cleveland, The
Racial Fairness Project, Oberlin College, MOCA Cleveland, Trinity Cathedral,
The African-American Reparations Coalition, Restore Cleveland Hope, The City
Club of Cleveland, Cuyahoga Community College, and Urban Dialect.  A
separate press release highlighting the Uncle Tom’s Cabin community events
is forthcoming.

CPT’s mission is to inspire, nurture, challenge, amaze, educate, and empower
artists and audiences, in order to make the Cleveland public a more
conscious and compassionate community.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is supported in part by a grant from the National
Endowment for the Arts and the John P. Murphy Foundation.  CPT is one of two
Ohio organizations to receive funding from the National Endowment for the
Arts this season.

Randolph Curtis Rand, co-adapter and director, is a theatre artist (adapter,
designer, director, dramaturge, performer, and teacher) living in New York
City.   He has founded two theatre companies:  in
1986 he and director Karin Coonrod formed Arden Party, to explore classic
texts using interdisciplinary arts, and in 1996 he helped create The Drama
Dept., to produce new works and re-examine forgotten ones. In 1997 at The
Drama Dept., he directed the first version of this Uncle Tom’s Cabin. He is
also a member of Elevator Repair Service, most recently appearing as
Dionysus in Highway To Tomorrow, at HERE, The Kitchen (in NYC), and at the
Wexner. Recent performing credits include Lipstick Traces at UCLA and at On
the Boards and Painted Snake in a Painted Chair, for The Talking Band, for
which he won an OBIE in 2003.  His work has covered a broad range, from
singing with Meredith Monk at Carnegie Hall, to assistant directing at the
Joseph Papp/Public Theatre.  In New York, besides his own companies, he has
worked with Cucaracha Theatre, Douglas Dunn, Richard Foreman, Joshua Fried,
La Mama, Lincoln Center Theatre Institute, New Georges, Target Margin
Theater, and Jeff Weiss. Regionally he has worked at The Atlantic Center for
the Arts, The Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, Cape May Stage, Jacob’s Pillow,
The Orlando Shakespeare Festival, The Pennsylvania Festival Theatre, The
Pittsburgh Public Theater, Spoleto USA, The Walker Arts Center, and Williams
College. He has enjoyed a long association with Burning Coal Theatre in
North Carolina, acting in Love’s Labours Lost as well as his adaptation,
direction and design of The Historie of Kynge Henrie the iiijthe, Uncle
Tom's Cabin, and St. Nicholas. Other recent directorial credits include The
Suicide and A Bright Room Called Day, both at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts,
and Cyrano de Bergerac at The Hangar Theatre.  Abroad, he has worked at
Art-Carnuntum in Austria, The Meltdown Festival in London, The Third Eye
Center in Scotland, and in Greece at The Amore Theatre in Athens, and the
International Theatre Festival in Delphi, to name a few.  His work as a
teaching artist include classes for The Hangar Theatre, Theatre for a New
Audience, Niagara University, The New School, NYU/Tisch School of the Arts,
and The North Carolina Governor’s School.  This spring, he will perform in a
new work, The Secret Life of Spiders, at the Culture Project in NYC, and
direct Howard Barker’s Scenes from an Execution, with the graduate students
of the University of Tennessee.

The cast includes Cornelius Bethea, Nina Domingue (CPT’s Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s
Wild Christmas Binge), Rhoda Rosen (Dobama’s V-E Day), David Loy, George
Roth, Michael Regnier (CPT’s Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge), G.A.
Taggett (CPT’s Discordia), Robert Williams, and Betsy Hogg (Broadway
revival, The Crucible).

Along with Rand, the creative team includes scenic design by Rodney Cuellar,
lighting design by Trad A Burns (CPT’s resident light designer), costume
design by Alison Hernan (CPT’s resident costume designer), production stage
management by Eileen Arnold (CPT’s Discordia), and directorial assistance by
Jyana S. Gregory (TCG Grant recipient, CPT associate artistic director).

Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle
for Life was originally produced by The Drama Department, NY, NY.

Each year, CPT devotes a production slot to a reexamination of an American
classic.  By turning to writers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Thornton
Wilder, Tennessee Williams, and Eugene O’Neill, opportunity is created to
look back and re-examine 19th and 20th century classics, to uncover their
deeper mysteries, explore their questions, and examine their forms, with the
goal of making these works live and breathe for today.

Cleveland Public Theatre and its artistic and education programs are funded
in part by funding from Cleveland Foundation, George Gund Foundation, Ohio
Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, Nord Family Foundation, John
P. Murphy Foundation, Kulas Foundation, Theatre Communications Group, Doris
Duke Charitable Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Bruening
Foundation, Codrington Foundation, Giant Eagle Foundation, Thomas White
Foundation, Community Foundation of Greater Lorain, Family Foundations of
Jewish Community Federation, Dolphin Trust, Saint Ann Foundation, Deaconess
Foundation, O’Neill Foundation, Stocker Foundation, Key Foundation, Nordson
Foundation, Wolf Foundation, The Doll Family Foundation, Raymond John Wean
Foundation, The Ellie Foundation, Cyrus Eaton Foundation, Forest City,
Alcoa, Third Federal, Huntington National Bank, National City Bank, and
other corporate and individual contributors.

Cleveland Public Theatre Fact Sheet
Production
Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle
for Life
written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and others
devised by Floraine Kay and Randolph Curtis Rand at Drama Dept.

Artistic Staff
Director, Randolph Curtis Rand
Scenic Design, Rodney Cuellar
Lighting Design, Trad A Burns
Costume Design, Alison Hernan
Stage Manager, Eileen Arnold
Assistant Director, Jyana S. Gregory

Cast
Performer A: Cornelius Bethea
Performer B: Nina Domingue
Performer C: Rhoda Rosen
Performer D: David Loy
Performer E: George Roth
Italian Scientist 1: Michael Regnier
Italian Scientist 2: GA Taggett
Stage Hand 1: Robert Williams
Stage Hand 2: Betsy Hogg

Performance Dates and Times
Opening 		Friday, February 6, 2004	8:00 p.m.
Closing			Saturday, February 28, 2004	8:00 p.m.
Run			February 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27 and 28.
Times			Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m.
			Sundays at 3:00 p.m.

Ticket Prices
Regular Admission Thursdays and Sundays $15; Fridays and Saturdays $18.
Students and Seniors Thursdays and Sundays $13; Fridays and Saturdays $15.

A separate press release highlighting the Uncle Tom’s Cabin community events
is forthcoming.