[NEohioPAL] Great Lakes Theater Festival Announces 2008-09 Season

Wed Feb 13 15:20:28 PST 2008

For Immediate Release
February 11, 2008

Great Lakes Theater Festival 
Announces Ambitious 2008-09 Season in 
New Home at the Hanna Theatre 
The Festival's 47th season features a dynamic line-up of theater
offerings, 
an expanded performance calendar and A Christmas Carol's twentieth
anniversary.

CLEVELAND, OH - Charles Fee, Producing Artistic Director of Great Lakes
Theater Festival (GLTF), announced plans for the classic theater
company's forty-seventh season today.  The Festival's four regular
season offerings in 2008-09 will take place in GLTF's new home at
Playhouse Square's Hanna Theatre while A Christmas Carol will remain in
its traditional Ohio Theatre setting. "The design of our new home is
truly remarkable," said Fee.  "The creative opportunities that the
're-imagined' Hanna Theatre will afford our artists, our audiences and
our community are absolutely extraordinary.  What is particularly
exciting for us as a company is that the design of our new home is
really a metaphor for the kind of work that we do on stage each
season...re-imagining classics.  We can't wait to share this new
experience with our audience.  Working together with our amazing
resident company of artists, our loyal and adventurous audience, our
region's educators and students and with our great community partners
like Playhouse Square, we look forward with optimism to the future.  And
this bright future begins today with the announcement of our
forty-seventh season of classic theater - one that exemplifies the bold,
ambitious artistic vision and dynamic, entrepreneurial spirit that has
made this company great."

Great Lakes Theater Festival's new 550-seat home at the Hanna Theatre
will feature a flexible thrust stage and afford its audiences an
exciting and uniquely intimate theater experience.  The Hanna's new
"Great Room" inspired design concept will create a single unified
environment that integrates the artist and audience experience into one
realm and dissolve the formal separation between the social experience
of the lobby and the artistic experience of the stage.  The new Hanna
will offer patrons a variety of seating options including traditional
theater seats, club chairs, banquettes, private boxes and lounge/bar
seating.  This variety of options will enable each visitor to
self-define their experience at the theater.

Great Lakes Theater Festival's 2008-09 season will run from September
through May and will feature a Fall Repertory, the Festival's annual
holiday classic A Christmas Carol and a Spring Repertory.  In the fall
(September 24-November 8, 2008), GLTF will present William Shakespeare's
towering tragedy Macbeth, directed by GLTF Producing Artistic Director
Charles Fee, in rotating repertory with Stephen Sondheim's enchanting
musical, Into the Woods, directed by Victoria Bussert.  GLTF's annual
production of Charles Dickens' holiday classic, A Christmas Carol
(November 28-December 23, 2008), adapted and directed by Gerald
Freedman, will mark the midpoint of the Festival's forty-seventh year.
GLTF will continue its 2008-09 season with a Spring Repertory (March
25-May 3, 2009) pairing William Shakespeare's fantastic farce The Comedy
of Errors with Anton Chekhov's soaring classic, The Seagull.  The
directors of The Comedy of Errors, The Seagull and A Christmas Carol
will be announced at a later date. 

The season sponsor of Great Lakes Theater Festival's inaugural year at
the Hanna Theatre is National City.  The season will be presented with
additional generous support from The Cleveland Foundation, Cuyahoga Arts
and Culture, the Ohio Arts Council and SCK Design.

The Festival will expand its Fall and Spring Repertory performance
calendars in 2008-09 to satisfy increased audience demand for public
performances and to accommodate GLTF's significant student matinee
audience.  The company's Fall Repertory will expand its run from five
weeks in 2007 to seven weeks in 2008.  Similarly, the Festival's Spring
Repertory run will expand from five weeks in 2008 to six weeks in 2009.
The performance calendar for A Christmas Carol will remain consistent
with past seasons.

Great Lakes Theater Festival's unique rotating repertory format has
played a key role in the theater company's success with audiences over
the past several seasons.  The Festival returned to a rotating repertory
format in 2003 with alternating productions of Hamlet and Tartuffe.
"Presenting a pair of classic plays in rotating repertory is a great
challenge for artists and great fun for audiences," said Charles Fee.
"The opportunity to see a single resident company of actors perform two
plays on the same stage, alternating shows every few nights, makes the
Great Lakes Theater Festival experience unique in northern Ohio.
Producing plays in repertory enables audience members to 'get to know'
the actors in our company on a much deeper level while simultaneously
allowing us the opportunity to showcase the company members'
considerable talents.  It is amazing to witness the actors'
transformation each night as they take the stage."

Great Lakes Theater Festival's annual production of A Christmas Carol
will celebrate its twentieth anniversary in 2008.  Originally adapted
and directed by former GLTF Artistic Director Gerald Freedman in 1989, A
Christmas Carol has entertained over 450,000 adults and students over
the course of its history.  The production will remain in its
traditional home at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square.

Great Lakes Theater Festival's expanded 2008-09 performance calendar
includes two new features:  1) a pair of additional Preview performances
and 2) a new Friday evening Press/Media Opening performance for each of
the company's regular season offerings.  The remainder of the 2008-09
season schedule remains consistent with historic Festival offerings.
Opening Night performances of Macbeth, Into the Woods, The Comedy of
Errors and The Seagull have been scheduled for Saturday evenings, while
A Christmas Carol's Opening Night is slated for a Friday night.  Curtain
times for all evening performances will remain at 7:30 p.m., with a 1:30
p.m. curtain time for Saturday matinees and a 3:00 p.m. curtain time for
Sunday matinees.  All five productions in the Festival's forty-seventh
season will continue to offer sign interpreted and audio described
performances as well as the popular Director's Night and Playnotes
pre-show discussion series.

Subscriptions to Great Lakes Theater Festival's 2008-09 season will go
on sale to the general public beginning April 1, 2008 and subscription
renewals for 2007-08 season subscribers will begin on February 11, 2008.
An adult subscription to Great Lakes Theater Festival starts as low as
$93.  Student subscriptions begin at $36.  For more information about
becoming a Festival subscriber, patrons should contact the Great Lakes
Theater Festival subscription office at (216) 664-6064 or visit
www.greatlakestheater.org.

Single tickets will be available beginning in July.  Regular priced
adult single tickets will range from $15 - $69.  Regular priced
student/youth tickets for the Hanna Theatre are $13 ($28 for A Christmas
Carol in the Ohio Theatre) and will be available for all performances.
Additional handling fees may apply and may vary depending on point of
purchase.  Further details and pricing specifics will be announced in
July.  Single tickets will be available by calling (216) 241-6000, by
ordering online at www.greatlakestheater.org
<http://www.greatlakestheater.org/>  and by visiting the Playhouse
Square Ticket office. Groups of ten or more receive discounts as do
educators.

The first resident company of Playhouse Square, Great Lakes Theater
Festival will celebrate twenty-five years in the Theatre District this
season.  Since 1962, the Festival has brought the pleasure, power and
relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience in northern
Ohio.  

#     #     #

For More Information
Todd Krispinsky
Marketing and Public Relations Director
(216) 241-5490 x317
tkrispinsky at greatlakestheater.org
www.greatlakestheater.org <http://www.greatlakestheater.org/> 

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