[NEohioPAL]Cleveland Public Theatre explodes UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

[Dan Kilbane]

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

Opening Friday, February 6 @ Cleveland Public Theatre:

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

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 cast includes Cornelius Bethea, Nina Domingue, Rhoda Rosen, David Loy,
George
Roth, Michael Regnier, G.A. Taggett, Robert Williams, and Betsy Hogg.

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.

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.

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.



Dan Kilbane
Publicist
Cleveland Public Theatre
6415 Detroit Ave.
Cleveland, OH  44102
tel:  216/631-2727 ext. 203
fax:  216/631-2575
www.cptonline.org
dkilbane at cptonline.org