[NEohioPAL]Great Lakes Theater Festival Present Private Lives

[Todd Krispinsky]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
JANUARY 7, 2004

Great Lakes Theater Festival
Kicks Off the New Year in Style with
Noel Coward’s Classic Comedy.

PRIVATE LIVES

Director Victoria Bussert and
Cleveland Actors Andrew May and Laura Perrotta
Headline GLTF’s Final Ohio Theatre Offering of the Season.

The Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center, is poised to erupt with laughter 
and brim overflow with romance as Great Lakes Theater Festival presents Noel 
Coward’s classic comedy Private Lives, running January 22nd through February 
1st, 2004.  Long-time Festival collaborator Victoria Bussert will direct the 
production, which features veteran Cleveland-based actors Andrew May and 
Laura Perrotta in the leading roles of Elyot and Amanda.  GLTF is proud to 
partner with Management Planning Incorporated to present the production.

“I am very excited to present Noel Coward’s classic comedy, Private Lives.  
Part of what’s so exciting about this production is that the cast and 
production team is comprised of artists that have had extraordinarily 
meaningful and long-standing relationships with Great Lakes Theater Festival 
and with the Cleveland theater community.  This team is proof that there is 
a wealth of talent right here in Cleveland,” remarked Charles Fee, the 
Festival’s Producing Artistic Director.  “Private Lives marks the fourth 
time that Vicky has directed Noel Coward’s work for the Festival (Noel and 
Gertie, 1994; Blithe Spirit, 1996; Fallen Angels, 1998), and we couldn’t be 
more thrilled to have her at the helm of this masterful play.  Her dynamic 
gifts as a director, coupled with this remarkable design team and talented 
cast – all artists of tremendous skill and craft – promise to provide 
laughter in abundance.”

“One of the things that I have always loved about Noel Coward is that, 
particularly in the early 1960s, he was constantly attacked for the fact 
that he wasn’t writing ‘serious theater.’  And I remember reading that his 
response to this constant criticism was, ‘when exactly did entertainment 
become unfashionable?’  I absolutely love that he is not afraid to 
entertain.  Private Lives is a play where he does precisely that,” said 
director Victoria Bussert during the first rehearsal.  “Aside from its 
immense comic potential, Private Lives is at heart a romance.  It is 
sensual.  It is sexual.  From its scenic design, to its costumes, to the 
choices made by our cast members, I want this to be a very romantic 
production.  At the same time, I think it should be a lot of fun and very, 
very elegant.”

Four of the five cast members performing in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s 
production of Private Lives are Cleveland-based actors.   “Something that I 
am truly elated about is the outstanding cast that we have been able to 
assemble for this production, most of you living right here in Cleveland,” 
said Bussert to her GLTF company during the initial rehearsal for the 
production.  “We simply couldn’t have asked for a better collection of 
talent.  Adina Bloom, Andrew May, Laura Perrotta, Scott Plate and, our 
newest addition to this Cleveland family – through February 1st at least, 
anyway – Kelly Sullivan:  you are really quite a group.  I have had the 
honor of working with all of you as actors before, so there is no question 
in my mind of what you are capable.  That’s all out of the way.  With this 
production we will be able to enjoy that very rare freedom of truly 
exploring a play and to enjoy ourselves while we do it.”

Cleveland actors Andrew May and Laura Perrotta assume the leading roles of 
Elyot and Amanda in GLTF’s production.  A Cleveland Heights native, Mr. May 
was most recently a member of GLTF’s fifteenth anniversary A Christmas Carol 
company, portraying Bob Cratchit.  He made his debut with GLTF as Bottom in 
last season’s A Midsummer Night Dream and helped kick off the Festival’s 
42nd season, which featured the company’s return to rotating repertory, by 
playing Orgon in Tartuffe and The Ghost of Hamlet’s Father (among other 
roles) in Hamlet.  He has performed at various theatres across the country, 
including The Cleveland Play House (where he was seen in over 23 
productions) and the Milwaukee Repertory Company (where he performed in over 
22 productions).  A winner of Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Award for acting, 
Mr. May was also artistic director of Chicago’s Free Shakespeare Company.  A 
season company member as well and another Cleveland Heights native, Laura 
Perrotta will share the spotlight with May in Private Lives.  Ms. Perrotta’s 
2003-2004 Great Lakes Theater Festival credits include Gertrude in Hamlet, 
Dorine in Tartuffe and Mother Cleaveland in A Christmas Carol.  Ms. Perrotta 
has also performed in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s productions of Arms and 
the Man, Romeo and Juliet, The Wild Duck, Macbeth, and Gypsy.  She has been 
seen on stage at various theaters throughout the country, ranging from The 
Cleveland Play House to The Acting Company in New York.

Familiar Great Lakes Theater Festival actors Scott Plate and Kelly Sullivan 
will play the roles of Victor and Sybil in the GLTF production.   Private 
Lives director Victoria Bussert complimented her supporting cast for the 
production during the play’s first read-through.  “I think Noel Coward has a 
wonderful take on the supporting roles in Private Lives.  He’s the first one 
to say that Victor and Sybil are not well-written characters.  Therefore, he 
said that he always got the best actors he possibly could to play them.  
This is what I feel like we’ve done.  I could not be more ecstatic to have 
the two of you do this.”

Scott Plate most recently played the role of the Ghost of Christmas Present 
in GLTF’s fifteenth anniversary production of A Christmas Carol.  His 
contributions to the Festival’s fall repertory productions included Horatio 
in Hamlet and an Officer in Tartuffe.  At Great Lakes Theater Festival, Mr. 
Plate has also appeared in Travels with My Aunt, Twelfth Night and Antony 
and Cleopatra.  Kelly Sullivan returns to GLTF after playing Hope Harcourt 
in last season’s Anything Goes.  She has appeared on Broadway in Bells are 
Ringing, and the Tony Award winning show Contact.  Her other regional 
credits include Showboat, Smile, The Fantasticks, Beauty and the Beast and 
In the Beginning.  She has also made appearances on ABC’s One Life To Live.  
Kelly graduated with honors from Arizona State University.

Actress Adina Bloom, who makes her Festival debut, will round out the 
Private Lives cast portraying the comical maid Louise.  Ms. Bloom has 
performed in summer stock companies and dinner theaters across the country.  
Locally, she has appeared at the Halle Theater, Ensemble Theater, Cain Park, 
Cleveland Opera, Cesar’s Forum and Bratenahl Playhouse.  In addition to her 
stage work, Adina is a big band singer, a voiceover talent and an author.

The artistic team for the Great Lakes Theater Festival production of Private 
Lives is comprised of  John Ezell, Mary Jo Doinlinger, Stan Kozak and 
Charlotte Yetman.  “I cannot even begin to explain how fortunate we are to 
have this design team in place for Private Lives,” said Victoria Bussert of 
her artistic collaborators for the production.  “This is the best of the 
best.  Mary Jo Dondlinger will be in to do lights.  Stan Kozak will supply 
our soundscape.  One of my oldest and dearest collaborators, John Ezell, 
will create Noel Coward’s scenic world for the stage.  And Charlotte Yetman, 
who knows more about taste and style than any costume designer I know, will 
design the costumes for this production.”

Several of the artistic team members made presentations of their designs at 
the initial rehearsal for the production.  “Our production is not art deco,” 
said scenic designer John Ezell in articulating the concept for his Private 
Lives set. “ It does not look like Anything Goes, the musicals of RKO or the 
movies of the early 1930s.  We wanted to capture another quality, a more 
sensual quality with the scenic design...especially for Amanda’s flat….a 
sense of luxury and lushness for the interior.  Perhaps with some oriental 
features and style.  We wanted to make it a little bit eccentric.  We are 
using a lot of red and a lot of oriental patterns.  Vicky has asked for some 
things that have certainly made this a lot of fun for me as a designer.  We 
have also cut down the playing space considerably.  You will be really quite 
surprised when you finally see all of this in the Ohio Theatre.  We wanted 
to concentrate the energy of the play in a much more contained space.”  
Costume designer Charlotte Yetman elaborated on her design choices as well. 
“When Vicky and I talked, we talked a lot about sensual and sexual qualities 
in the design.  Clingy, elegant and very, very tasteful.  These were very 
elegant, well-to-do people.  A lot of my research has revolved around movie 
stars.”

In Private Lives, passion, laughter, romance, anger and love set the stage 
for a classic battle of the sexes.  Divorcees Elyot and Amanda unwittingly 
book adjoining rooms while honeymooning with their new spouses – Sybil and 
Victor.  Realizing a pair of mistaken marriages, Elyot and Amada attempt to 
escape their mismatched partners together.  With haste and under the cover 
of darkness, they flee their honeymoon accommodations and unsuspecting 
spouses in search of respite within Amanda’s secluded Paris flat, only to be 
discovered several days later by their jilted lovers while in the midst of 
the most compromising of situations.

At its core, Private Lives is a play that comes from the heart of a 
passionate playwright.  “One of the things that I find so moving about 
Private Lives is that Noel Coward wrote the piece for his longtime friend, 
Gertrude Lawrence, who he met early in his childhood,” recounted director 
Victoria Bussert.   “They met when she was fourteen.  He had promised her a 
piece that he was going to write for her.   They had an extraordinary and 
intimate friendship that he said, ‘was everything but sex.’  And she kept 
waiting for this play to be written for her.  She just kept waiting and 
waiting.  He wasn’t writing anything.  But once it came to him…in one 
night…literally it came to him at 7 p.m.…and…at 4 a.m. he knew what he 
wanted the structure to be…and he wrote it in four days.  He wrote this play 
about his best friend in life.  The result is a play about real human 
friendship.  And that, I think, is what I love most about the piece, and why 
I can’t wait to share it with an audience.”

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of Private Lives opens on January 
24th and runs through February 1st, 2004 at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse 
Square Center with two previews scheduled for January 22nd and 23rd.   
Opening Night will take place on Saturday, January 24th with a 7:30 p.m. 
evening performance.  The performance schedule for Private Lives includes 
Thursday through Saturday evening performances with curtains at 7:30 p.m. 
The Saturday matinee is slated for January 31st  at 1:30 p.m.  Sunday 
matinees occur on January 25th and February 1st at 3:00 p.m.
A sign-interpreted performance is scheduled for Sunday, January 25th at 3:00 
p.m.  An audio-described performance is scheduled for Sunday, February 1st 
at 3:00 p.m.

Tickets for Private Lives range from $16 to $45.  For tickets:  call (216) 
241-6000; order online at www.greatlakestheater.org; or visit the Playhouse 
Square Center Box Office.  Tickets are also available at tickets.com outlets 
located at all Tops Friendly Markets.

Special rates are available to students and educators at the cost of $11 for 
any performance.  For student or educator tickets:  call (216) 241-6000; 
order online at www.greatlakestheater.org; or visit the Playhouse Square 
Center Box Office.  Tickets are also available at tickets.com outlets 
located at all Tops Friendly Markets.

Groups of ten or more save up to 45%.  Group rates and reservation 
information is available by calling the Playhouse Square Center Group Sales 
Office at (216) 771-4444.

Since 1962, Great Lakes Theater Festival has brought the pleasure, power and 
relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience in Northern 
Ohio.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Todd Krispinsky
Marketing and Public Relations Manager
(216) 241-5490 x 317
tkrispinsky at greatlakestheater.org
www.greatlakestheater.org

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