[NEohioPAL]CPT and ACTIVE EYE present the World Premiere of Dojoji

[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
April 29, 2004
CLEVELAND PUBLIC THEATRE AND ACTIVE EYE PRESENT THE WORLD PREMIERE OF DOJOJI

DOJOJI
Produced by Cleveland Public Theatre and ACTIVE EYE
Written by Andrew Grusetskie
Music by Rika Iino
Directed by Jyana S. Gregory
May 21 - June 5, 2004
Upstairs Theatre

CLEVELAND, OH - Executive Director James Levin and Artistic Director Randy
Rollison are proud to announce the world premiere of Dojoji (DOE-JOE-JEE), a
new play created by performance company ACTIVE EYE.  Based on an 11th
century Japanese legend, Dojoji is a story of love, betrayal, and
uncontrollable passion.  The play opens May 21 and runs through June 5,
2004, in CPT’s Upstairs Theatre, and includes two special post-performance
talkbacks.

Dojoji is brought to life in a new adaptation by performance company ACTIVE
EYE in collaboration with CPT artists.  Inspired by the story’s many
incarnations in genres ranging from legend to picture scroll to Noh and
Kabuki plays, this production melds the traditional with the contemporary to
create a theatre piece of stylized, expressive performances, live music, and
striking images, examining what happens when desire that persists through
centuries becomes so strong it overpowers the human form.

The play’s story has endured through centuries of Japanese history,
centering on a young woman's passionate love for a young monk on a
pilgrimage, who takes lodging at her house one spring night. When she
declares this love to him, he acknowledges that he too has felt a connection
between them, but leaves the next morning to complete his journey, promising
to return. He does not do so, and as she waits vainly for him to come back,
her desire begins to consume her. When she finally confronts him, this
passion overcomes her, provoking a supernatural transformation.

Director Jyana S. Gregory and composer Rika Iino bring their New York-based
company ACTIVE EYE’s signature approach-melding music, text and movement
from both East Asian and Western performance traditions-to a new
collaboration between core ACTIVE EYE and CPT artists. The creative team has
drawn from several sources to create this new adaptation, including the
original 11th century text, images in a 16th century scroll, Noh and Kabuki
versions of the legend, and other related stories.  The scroll version
figures as the primary source for the story itself, while the production
will feature stylistic motifs from the Noh and Kabuki versions, including
the Noh play’s famous Rambyoshi dance (wherein the woman dances in a
rhythmic stamping pattern that closely interweaves with percussive musical
elements) and the Kabuki tradition’s comic portrayals of the monks and
pilgrims. The production blends these traditional elements with an original
score for live piano and staging with a contemporary edge.  Visually, Dojoji
experiments with old forms and new materials using classical Japanese
theatre architecture, stage design, and garden design, as well as
inspiration from installation art.

Five actors take on all the roles, with Kristine Kuroiwa (an ACTIVE EYE
veteran) assuming the role of the Woman and Tom Weaver as the Monk.  Jazmin
Corona, David Loy, and Robert J. Williams act as a Chorus, playing a
multitude of monks, travelers and pilgrims and also providing percussive
accents. Russell Brown serves as pianist.

The music is emotionally driven with organic harmonies.  Highly rhythmic in
nature, it is performed by Brown and the chorus actors.  The music performs
a number of functions within the production, creating atmosphere, responding
to the movement and text, and propelling the story.

The creative team, led by director Jyana S. Gregory, CPT’s new Associate
Artistic Director as part of a TCG/New Generations fellowship, includes Trad
A Burns (lighting designer), Andrew Grusetskie (playwright), Rika Iino
(composer), Takeshi Kata (scenic designer), and Junghyun Georgia Lee
(costume designer).

Two post-performance talkbacks highlight opening weekend performances.
“Meet the Composer” takes place on Saturday, May 22; audience members can
meet and discuss the music with Dojoji composer Iino.  “Backstage with
Dojoji” takes place on Sunday, May 23; audience members can meet and discuss
the creative process for the piece.  Cast and creative team will be in
attendance.

ACTIVE EYE makes its work through a long-term creative process and began
developing Dojoji in workshop form in July 2003.  The company chooses to
work over a long period of time to encourage new ideas to arise and old
ideas to coalesce between work periods.  Long-term collaboration also lets
the music, staging and visual elements evolve with the script, enabling each
element to influence the others.  ACTIVE EYE’s residency at CPT will proceed
in this way, with the designers and composer working closely with the
director and actors throughout the rehearsal process.  Unlike the more
traditional theatrical model, in which performers work separately from the
rest of the creative team, the residency model allows rehearsals to focus on
all aspects of the production, with movement inspiring costumes, costumes
inspiring movement, music suggesting staging, and staging affecting music.
This creates a tighter collaborative relationship between the artists when
they head into the technical rehearsals, where the final phase of creating
the play is accomplished.

CPT is excited to be hosting this collaboration between ACTIVE EYE and local
Cleveland artists.  ACTIVE EYE brings with it an innovative theatrical
language for creating plays.  Each of their artists has an interesting,
varied, and internationally-focused background.  The equally talented local
team brings with it its strong relationships within the community.  The
result draws from cultures across the world, making Dojoji a striking,
original work that resonates with each audience member.

ACTIVE EYE is a New York-based performance company founded in 2000 to create
innovative theatrical productions that fuse East Asian and Western
traditions by interweaving music, movement and text. Past productions
include: Izutsu, a modern rendition of a Japanese Noh drama for the Lincoln
Center Directors Lab at HERE (NYC), Senjo, an hour-long operatic work
combining a live string quartet, original text, Buddhist chants and dance at
the Ontological Theater (NYC), and Woyzeck, a new adaptation of Büchner’s
classic, featuring piano and electronic music, which premiered at The
Culture Project (NYC) in March 2003.

Jyana S. Gregory (director) is currently in residence at CPT serving as the
Associate Artistic Director through a New Generations grant from Theatre
Communications Group.  In New York she co-founded ACTIVE EYE, a performance
company dedicated to creating innovative theatrical productions fully
integrating music, text and movement and drawing from East Asian and Western
performance traditions (www.activeeye.org <http://www.activeeye.org>).  For
ACTIVE EYE she directed Buchner’s Woyzeck last spring at the Culture
Project.  Other recent directing credits include Siegfried’s Nerve, an
adaptation of Wagner's Siegried (Target Margin Theater's Lab Festival)
Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutti (Chrysalis Opera, Boston), ACTIVE EYE's inaugural
production, Senjo:  An Opera in Four Parts (Ontological Theatre), Zeami's
Izutsu (Lincoln Center Directors Lab, HERE), and Handke's Kaspar (Blueprint
Series, Ontological Theatre).  She assisted Chen Shi-Zheng on the
development and production of The Orphan of Zhao (Lincoln Center
Theater/Lincoln Center Festival) as well as the development of Snow in June
(American Repertory Theater), David Herskovits on the remount of The Sandman
and The Marriage of Figaro (Target Margin Theater), and Diane Paulus on the
remount of Monteverdi's L’Orfeo at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Chicago
Opera Theater).  When she first arrived in New York she worked for Richard
Foreman on his production of Bad Boy Nietzsche!.  Jyana is a member of the
Lincoln Center Directors Lab.  She is a graduate of Yale University and has
studied traditional and contemporary performing arts in Japan.

Rika Iino (composer) Since co-founding ACTIVE EYE with director Jyana S.
Gregory in 2000, Iino has written and performed the music for Izutsu, a
modern rendition of a Japanese Noh drama for the Lincoln Center Directors
Lab at HERE, and written the music for Senjo, an hour-long operatic work
combining a live string quartet, original text, Buddhist chants and dance at
the Ontological Theater. She recently received a Meet The Composer Fund for
her music in ACTIVE EYE's production of Woyzeck, which premiered at The
Culture Project in March 2003, and composed and performed the music for
Unveiled, a short film by Yuichi Hibi. Active as a pianist, composer and
events producer, Rika is currently developing and writing music for Dojoji,
and co-producing Rockestra with violinist-composer Daniel Bernard Roumain,
premiering at the Gammage Auditorium in Arizona.  Originally from Tokyo,
Japan, Rika runs an artists and events production company, SOZO MEDIA
<http://www.sozomedia.com>.  She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia
University and has studied music in Japan, Austria and the U.S.  (Also visit
www.rikaiino.com) <http://www.armyofrika.com>

Andrew Grusetskie (playwright) has been acting in ACTIVE EYE productions
since its inception including Izutsu, Senjo, and Woyzeck.  He has also
appeared at the McCarter Theatre, Northern Stage, and all over off-Broadway.
This is his first collaboration with ACTIVE EYE as a writer.  Andrew is a
graduate of Yale University and is currently studying at the London
International School of the Performing Arts.

Takeshi Kata (scenic design), originally from Tokyo Japan, has been
designing across the United States since graduating from the Yale School of
Drama.  His work has been seen regionally at the Dallas Theater Center,
Williamstown, and Skylight Opera in Milwaukee.  In New York, he has designed
commercially off-Broadway for Ensemble Studio Theatre’s current production
of Roulette as well as for last season’s hit Last Sunday in June.  For
ACTIVE EYE, he created the set/installation for Woyzeck.

Junghyun Georgia Lee (costume design) is a freelance costume and scenic
designer working in New York and across the country.  This season she
designed costumes for the Berkshire Theatre Festival, Omnium Gatherum
off-Broadway, and the Humana Festival.  Past work with Jyana includes sets
and costumes for Siegfried’s Nerve and costumes for ACTIVE EYE’s Woyzeck.
Georgia is originally from Seoul, Korea, and is a graduate of the Yale
School of Drama.

Trad A Burns (lighting design) is CPT’s resident lighting designer.  Past
productions at CPT include Nickel and Dimed, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Blue Sky
Transmission, Summer and Smoke, One Flea Spare, Fugitive Pieces, and Gross
Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.  His other recent work includes
designs featured at The Cincinnati Ballet, BalletMet, Columbus, Knott’s
Berry Farm, Cedar Point, MorrisonDance, and Cleveland Contemporary Dance
Theatre. Along with his many free-lance projects, Trad is the resident
lighting designer for the Cincinnati Ballet, creating the lighting most
recently for George Balanchine’s Jewels, Serenade, and Concerto Barocco,
Kirk Peterson’s Sleeping Beauty, Blue Until June, and John Butler’s Carmina
Burana.  His work has been seen at Disneyland, Disney World, Disneyland
Japan, Universal Studios, Florida, California and Japan, Islands of
Adventure, Knott’s Berry Farm, Six Flags, and Cedar Point.  Trad received
his MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

Kristine Kuroiwa (actor) has been working with ACTIVE EYE since 2000,
appearing in Izutsu, Senjo, and Woyzeck. Additional New York credits
include: Siegfried’s Nerve (Target Margin), Love, Sex and Hollow, Holy
Places (WOW Café), and The Double Digit Club (Surf Reality).  Kristine
received a BA in Performance from Fordham University at Lincoln Center and
studied on scholarship at ACT’s Young Conservatory.  She spent the last
summer in Italy participating in an acting workshop focusing on physical
acting inspired by the Grotowski method.

Jazmin Corona is currently an actor-teacher with Great Lakes Theatre
Festival, David Loy was recently featured at CPT in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Tom
Weaver is an actor-teacher at Great Lakes Theatre Festival who made his
Cleveland theatre debut in Amy’s View at Dobama, and Robert J. Williams is
an actor and musician who has performed in numerous CPT productions
including The Hairy Ape, Fugitive Pieces, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

The production will also feature pianist Russell Brown, who has studied
piano, improvisation, and composition at Baldwin-Wallace College and the
Institute for Jacques Dalcroze Education in Maryland.

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.

Dojoji receives funding from Meet the Composer, Inc., provided with the
support of the National Endowment for the Arts, ASCAP, and Virgil Thomson
Foundation.

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,
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, O’Neill
Foundation, Stocker Foundation, Key Foundation, Nordson Foundation, Nord
Family Foundation, Martha Holden Jennings Foundation, Wolpert Foundation,
The Heartland Arts Fund, Wolf Foundation, The Doll Family Foundation,
Raymond John Wean Foundation, The Ellie Foundation, Cyrus Eaton Foundation,
Greater Cleveland Community Shares, Forest City, Alcoa, Third Federal,
Huntington National Bank, National City Bank, Marous Brothers Construction,
and other corporate and individual contributors.
Cleveland Public Theatre Fact Sheet
Production
Dojoji
written by Andrew Grusetskie
music by Rika Iino

Artistic Staff
Director, Jyana S. Gregory
Scenic Design, Takeshi Kata
Lighting Design, Trad A Burns
Costume Design, Junghyun Georgia Lee
Stage Manager, Bill Amato

Cast
Woman:  Kristine Kuroiwa
Monk:  Tom Weaver
Chorus:  Jazmin Corona, David Loy, Robert J. Williams
Pianist:  Russell Brown

Performance Dates and Times
Opening 		Friday, May 21, 2004				8:00 p.m.
Closing			Saturday, June 5, 2004				8:00 p.m.
Run			May 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30, June 3, 4, 5
Sunday Matinees	May 23 and 30					3:00 p.m.
Times			Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 		8:00 p.m.
			Sundays at 					3:00 p.m.
Talkbacks		Saturday, May 22 and Sunday, May 23

Ticket Prices
Regular Admission $15
Students and Seniors Admission:  $12

Reservations and information
216/631-2727

Location
Upstairs Theatre

“Pay What You Can” Policy
Patrons who cannot afford the regular ticket price can request a “Pay What
You Can” ticket by coming to the CPT Box Office the day of the performance.
There is a $1 minimum, with a maximum of a four-person party.  Patrons will
either be sold a ticket, or depending on demand, placed on a waiting list
for tickets to be released at curtain time.  “Pay What You Can” is not
available for advance purchases.