[NEohioPAL] Great Lakes Theater Festival Announces Expanded 50th Anniversary Season

[Todd Krispinsky]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, February 14, 2011

Cleveland's Classic Theater Company
Celebrates 50th Anniversary With
An Expanded 6-Show Season

The 2011-12 lineup features a Tony Award-winning musical,
a pair of Shakespeare's most popular classics,
Agatha Christie's murder mystery masterpiece
and a blockbuster salute to Stephen Sondheim.

CLEVELAND, OH - Charles Fee, Producing Artistic Director of Great Lakes
Theater Festival (GLTF), unveiled an expanded season to commemorate the
classic theater company's fiftieth anniversary. The new season, which
will include an additional sixth production, is scheduled to run from
September 2011 through June 2012 at PlayhouseSquare's Hanna and Ohio
Theatres. "Since our successful move to the Hanna Theatre in 2008, we
began to imagine growing to a six-play season," said GLTF Producing
Artistic Director, Charles Fee of the Festival's expanded offerings.
"Our fiftieth anniversary is the perfect opportunity to celebrate our
history and point toward our future with this exciting development in
our company."               

GLTF will commence its fiftieth season with the Tony Award-winning
musical, Cabaret presented in rotating repertory with Shakespeare's
uproarious battle of the sexes, The Taming of the Shrew (September 23 -
October 30, 2011). The Festival's annual production of Dickens' holiday
classic, A Christmas Carol (December 2 - 23, 2011) will bisect the
season. In the spring, GLTF will present Agatha Christie's murder
mystery masterpiece, The Mousetrap (March 9 - 25, 2012) followed by
Shakespeare's tragic love story, Romeo and Juliet (April 13 - 28, 2012).
The Festival will crown its season with a landmark, musical salute to
Stephen Sondheim, one of Broadway's greatest composer-lyricists,
entitled Sondheim on Sondheim (May 30 - June 17, 2012).

"Our golden anniversary season will be a celebration of the rich legacy
of Great Lakes Theater Festival's commitment to the classics, the city
of Cleveland, and our fifty year history as one of the region's most
vital providers of educational programming," said Fee.  "We're planning
our most expansive programming in decades, a six-play season running
from September through June, featuring two of Shakespeare's most
captivating plays, The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet; an
iconic murder mystery from the Queen of Crime herself, Agatha Christie's
The Mousetrap; our traditional holiday offering by Mr. Dickens, A
Christmas Carol; and a pair of musicals - one, a daring classic, Cabaret
and the other, the newest work by America's greatest composer for the
theatre, Sondheim On Sondheim." 

Great Lakes Theater Festival's fiftieth anniversary season is generously
funded by the citizens of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts and
Culture. The Festival receives additional season support from The
Cleveland Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council.

Five of the Festival's 2011-12 season offerings (Cabaret, Shrew,
Mousetrap, Romeo and Juliet and Sondheim on Sondheim), will take place
in GLTF's revolutionary, audience-friendly home at PlayhouseSquare's
Hanna Theatre while A Christmas Carol will remain in its traditional
Ohio Theatre setting.

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. 

Subscriptions to Great Lakes Theater Festival's 2011-12 season are on
sale now. An adult subscription to Great Lakes Theater Festival starts
as low as $120.  Student subscriptions begin at $39.  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 - $70.  Regular priced
student/youth tickets for the Hanna Theatre are $13 ($26 for A Christmas
Carol in the Ohio Theatre) and will be available for all performances.
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::http://www.greatlakestheater.org/>  and by visiting the
PlayhouseSquare Ticket Office. Groups of ten or more receive discounts. 

Great Lakes Theater Festival has brought the pleasure, power and
relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience since 1962.
The first resident company of PlayhouseSquare, GLTF will celebrate its
30th 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::mailto:tkrispinsky at greatlakestheater.org> 



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