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<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">For Immediate Release Media Contact: Liz Conway, Board of Directors Chair<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">August 22, 2019 <a href="mailto:info@talespinnerchildrenstheatre.org" target="_blank">info@talespinnerchildrenstheatre.org</a></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;text-align:center"><b><br></b></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;text-align:center"><b>TCT FOUNDER ALISON GARRIGAN TO STEP DOWN FROM <br></b></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;text-align:center"><b>EXECUTIVE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR POSITION AT THE END OF 2019 SEASON</b><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">(Cleveland,
OH) Talespinner Children’s Theatre Board of Directors Chair Liz Conway
announced today that Founder and Executive Artistic Director Alison
Garrigan will step down from her executive leadership position with the
eight-year-old organization in December 2019.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Garrigan,
well-known within the Greater Cleveland theatre community as a
multifaceted artist, founded Talespinner Children’s Theatre (TCT) in
2011. In its inaugural season, the professional company produced two
world premiere plays exclusively designed and developed for children.
The organization quickly earned a strong local and regional reputation
for producing high-quality, intelligent and inclusive original works
that provide young audiences and their families with a passport to other
lands and cultures. Garrigan’s whimsical puppetry have been highlights
in each TCT production since inception. Under Garrigan’s brave
leadership TCT expanded its theatrical programming to five mainstage
productions, groundbreaking world premiere plays, a unique program for
playwrights, creative classes and workshops, residencies for schools and
family centers, and a flexible Pay-What-You-Can policy. In 2019, TCT
secured a two-year grant from The Cleveland Foundation as well as
additional funding from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture to create the TCT
Exceptional Inclusion (EI) program. This generous financial support has
allowed TCT to add four new uniquely designed productions to the
mainstage season for young people and adults living with disabilities,
thereby making theatre accessible to all.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Board
of Directors Chair Liz Conway says, “We are so grateful to Ali for
giving life to this incredible theatre. Over the past nine years, it was
her vision, her passion and her devotion which has made Talespinner the
vital community resource it is today, opening up the world to children
and families throughout the region.” Conway continues, “Our community is
a better place because of her compassion and leadership. We look to
honor her dedication by continuing to provide creative, joyful and
accessible arts programming to families throughout Northeast Ohio for
the next decade to come."</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Garrigan
bows out of her leadership position with the company in December 2019
and will redirect her focus on her family. She will remain an active
member of TCT’s talented company of artists, lending her unmatched
artistic and creative abilities to production design and direction
whenever possible. Garrigan also looks forward to continuing her
artistic work within the Northeast Ohio theatre community as a
professional freelance artist.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Garrigan
says, “TCT is a strong, vibrant, magical place that has grown and
thrived unbelievably for nearly nine years. I am excited to see what it
creates and becomes.” Additionally she adds, “I am forever grateful and I
am still in awe of the support we have received from the very
beginning. We are so proud to be a part of this community.”</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">The
TCT Board of Directors will begin a search for Garrigan’s successor in
September 2019 and will secure a qualified candidate by November 2019.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><div style="text-align:center"><b>ABOUT TALESPINNER CHILDREN’S THEATRE</b><br></div>Talespinner
Children's Theatre is a Cleveland-based company that develops and
produces highly imaginative, original, collaborative and interactive
professional works for children that also stimulate creative growth in
its artists. TCT's aim is to bring theatre to the community in its
fullest form providing excitement, growth and joy for all who are
involved in and/or touched by its work. TCT strives to reach across
socio-economic, cultural and traditional boundaries to help awaken and
bring better understanding by opening eyes, ears, hearts and
imaginations in the young people (and artists) of Cleveland and its
surrounds. TCT creates work that remembers that children are smaller
people, not lesser people.<br><div style="text-align:center"><b>###</b></div></div>
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