[NEohioPAL]Poe Play Returns to Akron-Summit Library

Mon Oct 9 16:44:07 PDT 2006

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Akron-Summit County Public Library  to Host the Return of the

 Largely Literary Theater Company's /The Tell-Tale Play/

/ /A Two-act Collection of Poems and

 Stories by Edgar Allan Poe

The Akron-Summit County Public Library welcomes back the Largely 
Literary Theater Company's /The Tell-Tale Play, /a two-act collection of 
poems and stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Arranged and directed by Mark 
Dawidziak, the encore presentation will be staged in the Main Library 
auditorium at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, October 18.
    Designed for high school students and older, the performance is free 
and open to the public. Last year's world premiere of /The Tell-Tale 
Play /filled the Main Library auditorium to near capacity./    /
    Three popular area actors -- Tom Stephan, Sara Showman and Alex J. 
Nine -- interpret Poe's works, telling the audience along the way about 
the writer's short but eventful life and career. Perhaps best known for 
its acclaimed three-person version of Charles Dickens' /A Christmas 
Carol, /the Largely Literary Theater Company specializes in faithful 
adaptations of great literary works. Its dual mission is to promote 
interest in literature and live theater.
     Three of Poe's classic short stories are presented in /The 
Tell-Tale Play/: "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Cask of Amontillado" and 
"The Masque of the Red Death." Also included are three of his major 
poems: "The Raven," "Annabel Lee" and "The Bells." Other poems in the 
play are "Alone," "Eldorado," "Dreamland" and "Spirits of the Dead."
     The set for the Largely Literary Theater Company production is 
relatively simple. The lights go up on three lecterns -- one covered in 
rich velvety material -- arranged before a succession of black curtains.
    There are three chairs set behind the lecterns, with assorted 
pillars, candelabra and gothic set pieces establishing the mood. The 
three actors enter, dressed in period costumes, acknowledge each other, 
open their scripts, then Showman steps forward, stopping down stage and 
center, to welcome the audience.
    Before the first offering, Stephan's interpretation of "The 
Tell-Tale Heart," the three actors take a moment or two to tell the 
audience about "Poe's brief, brilliant and tortured life." Born in 
Boston on January 19, 1809, Poe "spent only 40 years on this planet," 
yet he "found the time to create the detective story and write a couple 
dozen of the most influential horror stories ever put to paper."
    The popular image of Poe is that of a doomed genius, and the 
stereotype, we learn, certainly has its roots in reality. But the 
collected works of Poe span seventeen volumes and include not only 
poems, terror tales and mystery stories, but satire, essays, literary 
criticism and comic pieces.

     /The Tell-Tale Play, /however, celebrates Poe as the master of the 
macabre, making it an ideal Halloween theater treat.

     Parking is free in the High/Market garage if you arrive after 6 
p.m. For more information, contact the Library's Marketing Department at 
330-643-9091.

     The Largely Literary Theater Company was founded by Dawidziak and 
Showman in late 2001. In addition to /A Christmas Carol /(now in its 
fifth year)/ /and /The Tell-Tale Play, /the company's repertoire 
includes a /A Stevenson Treasury /(a two-act production featuring Robert 
Louis Stevenson's /A Child's Garden of Verses /and "The Bottle Imp") and 
a two-act collection of Mark Twain sketches, /The Reports of My Death 
Are Greatly Exaggerated./

     Dawidziak, the company's artistic director, is the TV critic at the 
Cleveland Plain Dealer. His nine published books include a novel, /Grave 
Secrets, /and such non-fiction works as /Mark My Words: Mark Twain on 
Writing, The Columbo Phile: A Casebook, The Barter Theatre Story: Love 
Made Visible, The Night Stalker Companion /and /Horton Foote's The Shape 
of the River: The Lost Teleplay About Mark Twain./

/     /For bookings, contact Dawidziak and Showman at the Largely 
Literary Theater Company: 330-923-8350 or at hlgrouch at sbcglobal.net 
<mailto:hlgrouch at megsinet.net>

*COMPANY BIOS for /The Tell-Tale Play/*

     *Alex J. Nine* has acted or directed at most of the theaters in the 
greater Akron area. An Akron native, he is a Kenmore High School and 
University of Akron graduate. Some of his favorite roles are Freddie in 
/Noises Off/ at Hudson Players, Brick in /Cat on a Hot Tin Roof/ at 
Weathervane Playhouse and Hamlet at Coach House Theatre (for which he 
won his first of four Royal Coach Awards). Other notable roles include 
include Oberon, Lysander and Demetrius in /A Midsummer Night's Dream/, 
Master Ford in /The Merry Wives of Windsor/, Leonard Vole in /Witness 
for the Prosecution/, William Blore in /Ten Little Indians/, John 
Proctor in /The Crucible/, Shep Henderson in /Bell, Book and Candle/, 
Joe Pendleton in /Heaven Can Wait/ and Willum Cubbert in /The Nerd/. He 
directed Neil Simon's /Broadway Bound /at Coach House, where he has 
appeared in eleven shows, including /Chapter Two, Crimes of the Heart, 6 
Rms Riv Vu, Private Lives /and /The Real Thing. /He is currently a 
member of the Stow Players' Production Committee and he directed another 
Neil Simon comedy, /The Sunshine Boys/, at Stow this year. For four 
years, he was a member of the Board of Trustees for Tree City Players in 
Kent, serving as vice president for three of those years. During those 
years, he directed seven shows for the company, ranging from 
Shakespeare's /Love's Labours Lost/ to William
Saroyan's /Hello, Out There!/ and Eileen Moushey's /My Fatal Valentine/. 
His directing credits also include /The Odd Couple/ and /The Foreigner/ 
at North Canton Playhouse and /Communicating Doors/ at Hudson Players. 
He recently played several roles in /The Reports of My Death Are Greatly 
Exaggerated, /the Largely Literary Theater Company's two-act adaptation 
of sketches by Mark Twain.

     *Sara Showman* has appeared in many productions in Ohio since 
moving to the Akron area in 1983. She has worked with professional 
companies, as well as college, children's and community theaters. She 
has appeared at Kent State, Weathervane, Coach House Theatre, the Beck 
Center for the Performing Arts, the Canton Players Guild, Porthouse 
Theatre Company, the Working Theater and Actors Summit Theater. An 
Equity membership candidate, she earned a bachelor of fine arts degree 
in acting and directing from Kent State University. Favorite roles 
include Bella in /Lost in Yonkers/, Melissa in /Love Letters/, Clara in 
/I'm Not Rappaport/ and Shirley in /Shirley Valentine/. She also has 
appeared in four Shakespeare productions at Stan Hywet. Before moving to 
Ohio, she appeared in several productions for theater companies in her 
native Tennessee, including /Another Part of the Forest/, /A Little 
Night Music/, /A Streetcar Named Desire/, /Ten Little Indians/ and 
/Inherit the Wind. /She is the co-founder and managing director of the 
Largely Literary Theater Company, playing 15 roles in /A Christmas 
Carol/ and six roles in /The Reports of My Death Are Greatly Exaggerated./

     *Tom Stephan* combined his acting avocation with his vocational 
pursuits for 31 years before he retired from English and drama teaching 
at Stow-Munroe Falls High School. He was recognized as a "child star" at 
the age of seven when he first appeared onstage in Canton, Ohio, but it 
was actually at the age of 21 when he began teaching school that the 
drama bug bit once more. He started with a supporting role in a Stow 
Players production, and has now been seen in over 70 major productions 
in the greater Akron-Canton area, including the Weathervane Playhouse, 
Coach House Theater, Goodyear Theater, the old Bath Players, and the 
Players Guild of Canton. He has won three Best Actor and one Best 
Supporting Actor Awards from the Weathervane Playhouse, and was honored 
by the State Department of Education for implementation of a middle 
school program called "Drama in the Classroom." For 15 years he has 
either succumbed as murder victim or triumphed as scoundrel in numerous 
"Mysteries by Moushey," audience interactive murder mysteries, in the 
Akron/Cleveland/Canton area. Several years ago he branched out into 
radio and TV , serving as spokesman and voice-over talent for commercial 
and industrial work. As a retired teacher, he intends to pursue acting, 
voice work, radio-TV, commercial work, and all other performance 
ventures that look both interesting and lucrative. This will be his 
fifth year playing Ebenezer Scrooge in the Largely Literary Theater 
Company's three-person adaptation of /A Christmas Carol. / 

-- 30 --

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<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Akron-Summit</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
 w:st="on">County</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>
Public Library  t<o:p></o:p>o Host the Return
of the <o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>Largely Literary
Theater Company’s<o:p> </o:p>The
Tell-Tale Play<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>A Two-act Collection
of Poems and<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>Stories by Edgar
Allan Poe<o:p></o:p>
The
Akron-Summit
County Public Library welcomes back the Largely Literary Theater
Company’s The Tell-Tale Play, a two-act collection
of poems and stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Arranged and directed by Mark
Dawidziak, the encore presentation will be staged in the Main Library
auditorium at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, October 18. 
    Designed for high school students and older, the performance is
free
and open to the public. Last year’s world premiere of The
Tell-Tale Play filled the Main Library auditorium to near
capacity.    
    Three popular area actors – Tom Stephan, Sara Showman and Alex J.
Nine
– interpret Poe’s works, telling the audience along the way about the
writer’s
short but eventful life and career. Perhaps best known for its
acclaimed
three-person version of Charles Dickens’ A
Christmas Carol, the Largely Literary Theater Company specializes
in
faithful adaptations of great literary works. Its dual mission is to
promote
interest in literature and live theater. 
     Three of Poe’s classic short stories are
presented in The Tell-Tale Play: “The
Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Masque of
the Red
Death.” Also included are three of his major poems: “The Raven,”
“Annabel Lee”
and “The Bells.” Other poems in the play are “Alone,” “Eldorado,”
“Dreamland”
and “Spirits of the Dead.” 
     The set for the
Largely Literary Theater Company production is relatively simple. The
lights go
up on three lecterns – one covered in rich velvety material – arranged
before a
succession of black curtains. 
    There are three chairs set behind
the lecterns, with assorted pillars, candelabra and gothic set pieces
establishing the mood. The three actors enter, dressed in period
costumes,
acknowledge each other, open their scripts, then Showman steps forward,
stopping down stage and center, to welcome the audience. 
    Before the first offering,
Stephan’s interpretation of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the three actors
take a
moment or two to tell the audience about “Poe’s brief, brilliant and
tortured
life.” Born in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Boston</st1:City></st1:place>
on <st1:date year="1809" day="19" month="1" w:st="on">January 19, 1809</st1:date>,
Poe “spent only 40 years on this planet,” yet he “found the time to
create the
detective story and write a couple dozen of the most influential horror
stories
ever put to paper.” 
    The popular image of Poe is that of
a doomed genius, and the stereotype, we learn, certainly has its roots
in
reality. But the collected works of Poe span seventeen volumes and
include not
only poems, terror tales and mystery stories, but satire, essays,
literary
criticism and comic pieces.
     The
Tell-Tale Play, however, celebrates
Poe as the master of the macabre, making it an ideal Halloween theater
treat.
     Parking is free in
the High/Market garage if you arrive after <st1:time minute="0"
 hour="18" w:st="on">6 p.m.</st1:time> For more information, contact
the Library’s
Marketing Department at 330-643-9091.
     The Largely
Literary Theater Company was founded by Dawidziak and Showman in late
2001. In
addition to A Christmas Carol (now in
its fifth year) and The Tell-Tale Play, the
company’s
repertoire includes a A Stevenson
Treasury (a two-act production featuring Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses and “The
Bottle Imp”) and a two-act collection of Mark Twain sketches, The Reports of My Death Are Greatly
Exaggerated.
     Dawidziak, the
company’s artistic director, is the TV critic at the Cleveland Plain
Dealer.
His nine published books include a novel, Grave
Secrets, and such non-fiction works as Mark
My Words: Mark Twain on Writing, The Columbo Phile: A Casebook, The
Barter
Theatre Story: Love Made Visible, The Night Stalker Companion and Horton Foote’s The Shape of the River: The
Lost Teleplay About Mark Twain.<o:p></o:p>
     For
bookings, contact Dawidziak and Showman
at the Largely Literary Theater Company: 330-923-8350 or at <a
 href="mailto:hlgrouch at megsinet.net">hlgrouch at sbcglobal.net</a> 
<o:p> </o:p>
COMPANY BIOS for The
Tell-Tale Play<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
     Alex J.
Nine has acted or directed at
most of the theaters in the greater <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City
 w:st="on">Akron</st1:City></st1:place>
area. An <st1:City w:st="on">Akron</st1:City> native, he is a <st1:PlaceName
 w:st="on">Kenmore</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">High School</st1:PlaceType>
and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType>
of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Akron</st1:PlaceName></st1:place>
graduate. Some of
his favorite roles are Freddie in Noises
Off at Hudson Players, Brick in Cat
on a Hot Tin Roof at Weathervane Playhouse and Hamlet at Coach
House
Theatre (for which he won his first of four Royal Coach Awards). Other
notable
roles include include Oberon, Lysander and Demetrius in A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Master Ford in The Merry
Wives of Windsor, Leonard Vole in Witness for the
Prosecution, William Blore in Ten Little Indians,
John Proctor in The Crucible, Shep Henderson in Bell,
Book and Candle, Joe Pendleton in Heaven
Can Wait and Willum Cubbert in The
Nerd. He directed Neil Simon’s Broadway
Bound at Coach House, where he has appeared in eleven shows,
including Chapter Two, Crimes of the Heart, 6 Rms Riv
Vu, Private Lives and The Real Thing.
He is currently a member of the Stow Players’ Production Committee
and he
directed another Neil Simon comedy, The
Sunshine Boys, at <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Stow</st1:place></st1:City>
this year. For four years, he was a member of the Board of Trustees for
Tree
City Players in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Kent</st1:country-region></st1:place>,
serving as vice president for three of those years. During those years,
he
directed seven shows for the company, ranging from Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours Lost to William 
Saroyan’s Hello, Out
There! and Eileen Moushey’s My Fatal
Valentine. His directing credits also include The Odd
Couple and The
Foreigner at North Canton Playhouse and Communicating
Doors at Hudson Players. He recently played several roles in The Reports of My Death Are Greatly Exaggerated,
the Largely Literary Theater Company’s two-act adaptation of
sketches by
Mark Twain.
<o:p> </o:p>
     Sara
Showman has appeared in many
productions in <st1:State w:st="on">Ohio</st1:State> since moving to
the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Akron</st1:City></st1:place>
area in 1983. She
has worked with professional companies, as well as college, children’s
and
community theaters. She has appeared at <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Kent</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceName w:st="on">State</st1:PlaceName>, Weathervane, Coach
House
Theatre, the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Beck</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Center</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> for the
Performing
Arts, the Canton Players Guild, Porthouse Theatre Company, the Working
Theater
and Actors Summit Theater. An Equity membership candidate, she earned a
bachelor of fine arts degree in acting and directing from <st1:place
 w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Kent</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceName
 w:st="on">State</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>.
Favorite roles include Bella
in Lost in Yonkers, Melissa in Love
Letters, Clara in I’m Not Rappaport and Shirley in
Shirley Valentine. She also has appeared
in four Shakespeare productions at Stan Hywet. Before moving to <st1:State
 w:st="on">Ohio</st1:State>, she appeared in several productions for
theater
companies in her native <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">Tennessee</st1:State></st1:place>,
including Another Part of the Forest,
A Little Night Music, A Streetcar Named
Desire, Ten Little Indians and Inherit
the Wind. She is the co-founder and
managing director of the Largely Literary Theater Company, playing 15
roles in A Christmas Carol and six roles in The Reports of My Death Are Greatly
Exaggerated. 
  
     Tom Stephan
combined his acting
avocation with his vocational pursuits for 31 years before he retired
from
English and drama teaching at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
 w:st="on">Stow-Munroe</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Falls</st1:PlaceType>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">High School</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>. He
was recognized as a “child star"
at the age of seven when he first appeared onstage in <st1:place
 w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Canton</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">Ohio</st1:State></st1:place>,
but it was actually at the age of 21 when he began teaching school that
the
drama bug bit once more. He started with a supporting role in a Stow
Players
production, and has now been seen in over 70 major productions in the
greater
Akron-Canton area, including the Weathervane Playhouse, Coach House
Theater,
Goodyear Theater, the old Bath Players, and the Players Guild of
Canton. He has
won three Best Actor and one Best Supporting Actor Awards from the
Weathervane
Playhouse, and was honored by the State Department of Education for
implementation of a middle school program called “Drama in the
Classroom.” For
15 years he has either succumbed as murder victim or triumphed as
scoundrel in
numerous “Mysteries by Moushey,” audience interactive murder mysteries,
in the
Akron/Cleveland/Canton area. Several years ago he branched out into
radio and
TV , serving as spokesman and voice-over talent for commercial and
industrial
work. As a retired teacher, he intends to pursue acting, voice work,
radio-TV,
commercial work, and all other performance ventures that look both
interesting
and lucrative. This will be his fifth year playing Ebenezer Scrooge in
the
Largely Literary Theater Company’s three-person adaptation of A Christmas Carol.  
<o:p> </o:p>
-- 30 --
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