[NEohioPAL] OOPS - Cleveland Play House (history)

Thu Apr 16 08:18:16 PDT 2009

As you can see below, I somehow left off Wayne Turney's name as being a cast member of The Shadow Box. He played The Interviewer, and I also remember our class at Chautauqua discussing the fact that though the script had the Interviewer onstage during Agnes' interview, the CPH cast suspected it must have been done that way on Broadway because the interviewer wanted some onstage time. In fact, it worked INFINITELY better with the Interviewer offstage.

Cindi

Remember All the World's a Stage - Be on It!!!

Some people have one of those DAYS - I have one of those LIVES!

"If we don't live happily ever after, at least we survive until the end of the week!" - Kermit the Frog

--- On Wed, 4/15/09, CVActor <cverbelun at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: CVActor <cverbelun at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [NEohioPAL] Cleveland Play House (history)
To: neohiopal at listserve.com
Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2009, 5:24 AM

I've been actively around the Play House since 1978, and studied with the Repertory Company in '78 and '79 at Chautauqua Institution.

One of my first experiences at The Play House was watching a performance of "Scapino," during which Will Rhys commenced a chase scene into the audience, by climbing over our chairs. Only Will could pull something like that off successfully. (A friend who was with me at that show looked at me after Will climbed up in-between our seats and said: "Well, that just made my day!") I studied with Will, Ken Albers, Carolyn Reed, Dudley Swetland and a number of the Repertory Company at Case until 1983, as well, and consider myself very blessed to have been part of that time. It offered me major exposure to The Actors Company, and I am told that you can say that name almost anywhere in the world and people will know who and what you are talking about. I think that's an amazing accomplishment.

To this day, the '79 season remains my favorite Play House Season ever.

Opening with Margaret Hamilton and James Richards in "Night Must Fall;"

Continuing with "The Shadow Box," starring James Kisicki, Jo Farwell, David Frazier, Carolyn Reed, Will Rhys, Paul Florianio, June Gibbons, Carol Schultz (ironically, both Jo and Carolyn would die from Cancer years later - yet both of them played "survivor characters - Jo was Maggie and Carolyn was Beverly - in the production);

Then "Gemini" with James Kisicki and Evie McElroy, a HILARIOUS show - I will see this Italian family in South Philly in my mind every time I eat spaghetti;

"Equus" with Ken Albers as Dysart, Robby Rhys as Alan and Jo Farwell as Hester (This production is so seared into my mind that I never saw another production until Bill Roudebush mounted it at Beck last year, because I never thought anyone else could match it. Bill's production was different, of course, but every bit as electrifying.);

Next was "Threads," an original piece by Jonathan Bolt starring Theresa Wright;

"The Last of the Marx Brothers Writers" - I think both Wayne Turney and Harper McAdoo were in this one;

And finally "The Odyssey," a musical version of the epic, and I think Robby Rhys played Odysseus.

I have many very fond memories of the Repertory Company, and I was very upset when they were fired with the entrance of Ms. Abady, and even more incensed to hear that she would not allow them to say goodbye in their final program bios, so they responded by not allowing bios or headshots in that production's program, making "The Immigrant" the only CPH program I am aware of to not have cast bios and pictures in it. Ms. Abady was promising that there would be a repertory company at CPH, but had already fired them. However, the Company members did have the last word. While Ms. Abady was in NYC, partying with the bigwigs, the cast was saying goodbye to the audiences during the curtain calls of "The Immigrant."

I will always cherish the memory of sitting with some of the Company members and the crew and director up in the fake balcony of the Bolton for the final Immigrant performance. It was a great day, with many very funny moments, but a very sad day as well.

I am glad to see that some of these actors have performed at CPH again, and still occasionally do. The latest to return was Ken Albers, who played Reb Saunders in "The Chosen." I was in the audience at a performance, and the first time he spoke, I remember thinking that it had been WAY too long since those golden tones had been heard in a CPH Theatre.

One other memory sticks out in my mind, which occurred after Ms. Abady took over the reigns from Will Rhys, (who I honestly felt should have been given the Artistic Director position officially, and I know I was not alone in this thought).

I run the Saturday Evening 2 Usher crew, and am at CPH. On this particular evening we were to see a show called "Holiday Heart." We got our instructions for the show, the last instruction being that the Paradise Club Cross Dressers were attending that evening's performance. None of us really thought much about it, as we'd gotten so many instructions over the years. Then they showed up. Let's just say it made for a very interesting scene, and some unanswered questions, such as what restroom someone uses when they are one gender, but are dressed as another. That said, the show was one of the most amazing evenings I've spent in the theatre. A real slice-of-life piece of theatre, with an incredible tour-de-force performance by Keith Randolph Smith (the NY Times review is here: 

http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9E0DE0D91530F932A15752C0A962958260)

The show was so well done that people still ask today if the Play House will ever do it again. (BTW, I saw the movie, and Hollywood, as usual, changed the ending and TOTALLY ruined the message the play was trying to send, so if you rent it, just watch for the acting aspect.)

I will always miss the early Play House days.  I'm just hoping that I don't have to miss seeing the building standing at 85th and Euclid as well.

Cindi Verbelun

Remember All the World's a Stage - Be on It!!!

Some people have one of those DAYS - I have one of those LIVES!

"If we don't live happily ever after, at least we survive until the end of the week!" - Kermit the Frog______________________________________
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