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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color:windowtext">Spotlight on Eric Coble, Cleveland’s prolific playwright!</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">Special for ArtsAmerica.com
by Roy Berko</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">He’s been called “A
Playwright to Watch.” His writing has been praised as, “astute portraits [that]
hit home with rib-tickling acuity.”<span style>
</span>His work has been termed, “a tour-de-force.”<span style> </span>He’s been summarized as “the most astonishingly
accurate—eye and ear on society and its foibles--of any current writer.”<span style> </span>Who is this?<span style> </span>Eric Coble, the present day Cleveland area’s most prolific stage
writer.<span style> </span>And, according to Coble,
he owes it all to his children!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">Coble, who was born in
Edinburgh, Scotland, raised on the Navajo and Ute reservations in New Mexico and
Colorado, and has an MFA in Acting from Ohio University, had his sights set on performing
on stage.<span style> </span>But, when he became a stay-at-home
dad, he figured the casting agents weren’t going to let him tryout in his
living room, and he couldn’t ask the audiences to join him in his kitchen for a
family dinner, so he went down a different path. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:windowtext">Coble decided that he could
use his undergraduate degree in English, the imagination that allowed him to be
a cartoonist, and his curiosity in the logical and illogical view of current
events, to spin tales for stage, radio and books.<span style> </span>He set up a schedule around his kids…”they go off to
school, I go to my work of writing, they come home, I take off my professional
hat and put on my dad hat.”<span style> </span>The
results have been astonishing. </span><span style="color:windowtext">From 1994 until today, there are
over 100 works that have been produced.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="color:windowtext"><span style> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">In the next two months,
several plays will be transformed from page to stage in the local area.<span style> </span>A GIRL’S GUIDE TO COFFEE, which features
a barista whose creations elevate the humble bean to unknown heights, will be
produced at Actor’s Summit in Akron.<span style>
</span>It’s part of his “The Alexandra Plays,” a trilogy concerning commitment,
freedom, and how a person identifies him/herself.<span style> </span>Another of the series, VELOCITY OF AUTUMN, will be performed
at Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood.<span style>
</span>It will star Dorothy Silver, the grand dame of Cleveland theatre, as an
elderly woman with a wicked sense of humor, who finds herself in physical
decline.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">Where do the ideas come
from?<span style> </span>Coble admits he is addicted
to the media and when he reads on-line and watches TV, he starts asking who and
how would someone be affected by those instances.<span style> </span>“An idea just gestates.<span style> </span>Sometimes<span style> </span>it
takes five to six years.<span style> </span>I just
let it sit.<span style> </span>Come back to it.”<span style> </span>“You can’t force a good play and when
it’s time to be, it will be.”<span style> </span>He
indicates that he doesn’t have any half finished plays stuffed in a drawer. <span style> </span>Once he starts, he finishes. Fortunately,
Coble states, “I don’t get writer’s block.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">Surprisingly in this electronic
age, Coble hand writes his creations.<span style>
</span>The scripts are transferred to computer, but the #2 pencil, is his tool
of choice.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">He pays attention to the
readings and early productions of a show and makes adjustments after the
production.<span style> </span>“You see something
before an audience that you don’t see until the words take life.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">An Emmy nominee, the
recipient of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education Distinguished Play
Award for Best Adaptation, the winner of the AT&T Onstage Award, and the
Cleveland Arts Prize, Coble is a member of the Cleveland Play House Playwright’s
Unit.<span style> </span>The purpose of the group is
to critique each other’s work in order to aid members to produce a better
product.<span style> </span>He depends on these
writers and a select group of others to give him criticism that helps develop
the final product.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">Coble is a full-time
playwright, stay-at-home dad, a member of the Cleveland-University Heights
Board of Education, and obviously a talented writer of plays, media scripts and
books.<span style> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">His play BRIGHT IDEAS, which
premiered at the Cleveland Play House and went on to much off-Broadway praise,
may well be a way of describing Coble.<span style>
</span>He’s full of bright ideas, that seem to give birth to bright audience-pleasing
works.<br style>
<br style>
</span><span style="color:windowtext"></span></p>