[NEohioPAL] Great Lakes Theater Festival Reveals Robust 2009-10 Season

[Todd Krispinsky]

For Immediate Release
February 16, 2009 

 

Great Lakes Theater Festival 
Reveals Robust 2009-10 Season To 
Headline Hanna Theatre Home

 
The Festival's 48th SEASON features 
an exuberant pair of award-winning musicals and 
a dynamic duo of Shakespearean comedies.  

 
25% of the seats at every performance are priced at $25 or less.

 

CLEVELAND, OH - Charles Fee, Producing Artistic Director of Great Lakes
Theater Festival (GLTF), announced plans for the company's ambitious
forty-eighth season to Festival Members earlier this week.  Scheduled to
run from September through May, GLTF's 2009-10 season will feature a
Fall Repertory, the Festival's annual holiday classic and a Spring
Repertory.  



In the fall (September 24-November 1, 2009), the Festival will present
Rupert Holmes' Tony Award-winning solve-it-yourself musical, The Mystery
of Edwin Drood (Drood) in rotating repertory with Shakespeare's
enchanting comedy, Twelfth Night.  GLTF's annual production of Charles
Dickens' holiday classic, A Christmas Carol (December 4-December 23,
2009), originally adapted and directed by Gerald Freedman, will mark the
midpoint of the Festival's 48th season.  GLTF will round out its 2009-10
season with a Spring Repertory (April 8-May 16, 2010) by pairing Keythe
Farley and Brian Flemming's outrageous Off-Broadway hit Bat Boy: The
Musical with Shakespeare's magical masterpiece, A Midsummer Night's
Dream.  



The Festival's four regular season offerings in 2009-10 will take place
in GLTF's revolutionary, audience-friendly new home at PlayhouseSquare's
Hanna Theatre while A Christmas Carol will remain in its traditional
Ohio Theatre setting. 



The Festival's 48th season is presented with generous support from The
Cleveland Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council.  In addition, Great
Lakes Theater Festival is generously funded by the citizens of Cuyahoga
County through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.



"After experiencing, first-hand with our audience, the extraordinary
artistic and social potential of the re-imagined Hanna Theatre during
our 2008 fall rep, we're thrilled to have been able to select a season
of plays in 2009-10 that fully utilizes the signature attributes our new
home," said GLTF Producing Artistic Director Charles Fee.  "The energy,
vitality and intimacy that the Hanna Theatre affords its audiences is a
perfect marriage for the spirited season line-up of productions in our
48th year."



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



GLTF's 2009-10 season of plays is a perfect fit for the company's new
home at the Hanna Theatre.  "Our season and our performance space work
together to provide a theatrical experience unlike any other in the
region," explained Charles Fee.  "With our exuberant season-opener The
Mystery of Edwin Drood, we're able to highlight the exceptional
storytelling ability of our artists - aided immensely by the Hanna's
intimate setting.  With Drood we'll even invite our audiences to
participate first-hand in the event by empowering them to choose the
musical's ending.  Our productions of Twelfth Night and A Midsummer
Night Dream in the Hanna offer patrons the extraordinary opportunity to
experience Shakespeare's classics as they were originally intended - on
a thrust stage that breaks the limitation of the proscenium and brings
all of the energy of the performance out into the house.  And with Bat
Boy: The Musical, a rock-infused romp, we'll joyfully engage the
audiences, both young and young-at-heart - who came out in droves for
our 2008 fall rep productions - in a venue that is technologically
unparalleled in the region.  We designed this theater on the promise of
cultivating the next generation of theater-goers, and we intend on
keeping that promise." 



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.  "Presenting 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,
from musicals to Shakespeare, makes the Great Lakes Theater Festival
experience unique in northern Ohio."



In 2009-10, Great Lakes Theater Festival will unveil a new regular
season pricing structure designed to increase accessibility for
audiences.  As part of the program, 25% of the seats at every GLTF Hanna
Theatre performance are priced at $25 or under.  Furthermore, tickets
for every regular season performance always begin at $15.  "It is
absolutely vital to the mission and long-term health of our organization
that we create affordable opportunities for every person in our region
to experience live theater," said Charles Fee.  "Last season, we created
a pricing structure with that in mind.  This season, we have not only
continued that mandate, but expanded it.  In 2009-10, we have increased
the number of seats at $25 or less making the Great Lakes Theater
Festival experience one of the most affordable entertainment options in
our region."



In 2009-10, Opening Night performances of The Mystery of Edwin Drood,
Twelfth Night, Bat Boy: The Musical and A Midsummer Night's Dream have
been scheduled for Saturday evenings, while A Christmas Carol's Opening
Night is slated for a Friday night.  Great Lakes Theater Festival's
upcoming performance calendar also includes a Friday evening Press
Preview Performance for each of the company's Hanna Theatre offerings.
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 48th 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.  (Click here to consult the
2009-10 season performance calendars
<blocked::BLOCKED::http://www.greatlakestheater.org/calendar/default.sht
m#fall2009> .)



Subscriptions to Great Lakes Theater Festival's 2009-10 season are on
sale now.  An adult subscription to Great Lakes Theater Festival starts
as low as $102.  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
<blocked::http://www.greatlakestheater.org> .  



Single tickets will be available beginning in August.  Regular priced
adult single tickets will range from $15 - $69.  Regular priced
student/youth tickets for the Hanna Theatre are $11 ($26 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 for single performance
tickets will be announced in August.  Single tickets will be available
by calling (216) 241-6000, by ordering online at
www.greatlakestheater.org
<blocked::BLOCKED::http://www.greatlakestheater.org/>  and by visiting
the PlayhouseSquare Ticket Office. Groups of ten or more receive
discounts, as do educators. 



Great Lakes Theater Festival has brought the pleasure, power and
relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience in northern
Ohio since 1962.  The first resident company of PlayhouseSquare, GLTF
will celebrate its 27th year in downtown Cleveland this season.
Festival programming reaches 85,000 adults and students annually.



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

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