Published Oct. 3rd. [Cleveland.com Article]
By Tony Brown, The Plain Dealer

Brutal and beautiful might appear to be strange bedfellows, but they are apt descriptors for Suzan-Lori Parks‘ engrossing play “The Book of Grace” and the stunning production of it that opened over the weekend at Cleveland Public Theatre.

Parks, who won a 2002 Pulitzer Prize for “Top Dog/Underdog,” has a gift for capturing humanity, in our brutality and beauty, with her glancing dialogue, people talking to each other by talking past each other.

Less cryptic and more narrative than “Top Dog,” “The Book of Grace” turns on the dynamics of a family so dysfunctional and estranged it’s barely a family.

Vet, a veteran of the first war against Iraq and now a U.S. Border Patrol guard, is a brute who says he’s “on the good foot” with his second wife, Grace, but he’s dug a grave in the back yard as a reminder who’s in charge.

Grace is by all appearances his doormat, but she slowly reveals herself to be person of desires and of substance, longing for a red dress in a department store window, and having a voracious sexual appetite and a secret volume of rebelliously poetic observations under the floorboards.

Into this little world enters Buddy, who unlike Grace and Vet, is black. He returns after 15 years, and after serving in Persian Gulf II, with vengeance in mind and a grenade in pocket, to a set right some ancient wrong — but whether real or perceived is never made clear.

Although a kitchen sink is involved, this is no throw-back to 1950s-era domestic plays.

These characters are meant to be real people, but they are also symbols for America and its boundaries. Vet sees borders everywhere, on his TV, in the creases he irons in his uniform trousers, and even in that hole.

The CPT production, the first since the play premiered in New York earlier this year, is directed with a haunting touch, but with both feet planted firmly in reality, by Sheffia Randall Dooley.

She gets assists from set and lighting designer Trad A Burns, who encloses everything in fencing and provides a functional utlities, and from a cast that performs as if intent on outdoing each other and eliciting from each other their best work.

Rod Lawrence quivers with pent-up rage as the literally ready-to-explode Buddy. He gets his chance to shine when he faces his own camcorder to document, mass murderer style, what he believes to be his final words before setting off to claim fame and infamy and revenge.

As Vet, veteran Cleveland area actor Chuck Kartali — in a role at polar opposites with the dad in the Cleveland Play House’s long-running “A Christmas Story” — expresses his own rage with simple acts. Kartali tells us more with the spray button on an electric iron and few clipped words than many another actor could with wild gestures and paragraphs of prose.

As fine as those two performances are, Sally Groth’s Grace mesmerizing presence here. Seductive, poetic, trembling to make her escape, she is both spell-binding and liberating, completely lost in the moment and yet able to transport us miles from this world to the great beyond of human experience. This is wow time.

The play occasionally makes its argument too neatly (and life is never neat). And the ending, both in the writing and staging, verges toward the mawkish.

But “The Book of Grace” is one of those rare theatrical experiences — a rare experiences of any kind — that leave one forever changed for having had it.

[Cleveland.com Article] [PDF]

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Dale Omori, Plain Dealer file photographDancers rehearse at the Gordon Square Theatre in 2005. The Ohio Department of Development today said it was providing $200,000 for removal of asbestos from the theater's ceiling.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Federal stimulus money will help with the continued renovation of the Cleveland Public Theatre, in Cleveland’s Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood.

The Ohio Department of Development said today that $200,000 from a new fund to clean up and revitalize historic sites is headed to the theater, for asbestos removal.

The theater is part of the historic Gordon Square Arts District, which has seen a multimillion-dollar redevelopment in recent years.

The new money should pay for asbestos removal in the ceiling of Gordon Square Theatre, one of three performance venues that constitute Cleveland Public Theatre, said general manager Denis Griesmer.

The work is scheduled from January to March, when the Gordon Square Theatre is typically closed, Griesmer said.

The project will not only make the building safer, but will also help in the job-generating restoration of the neighborhood, state development Director Lisa Patt-McDaniel said in a news release.

[Original Article on Cleveland.com] [PDF]

Published: Friday, July 02, 2010, 2:31 PM     Updated: Tuesday, July 06, 2010, 3:34 PM

VINCENT SACCO This scene makes it look as though it might be called “Tony n’ Tina’s Shotgun Wedding,” but it’s actually “Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant.” And even though it will be performed with a five-course meal next season at Cleveland Public Theatre, Miss Conni Convergence and the Avantgardists dare you to call it dinner theater.

Raymond Bobgan is cool. And five years into his executive artistic directorship of Cleveland Public Theatre, he just keeps getting cooler, mixing sound business decisions with risky artistry at the city’s leading dispenser of cool theater. After finishing the 2009-10 season with the strongest one-two programming punch of the year in Cleveland (“Open Mind Firmament” and “Wanderlust”), Bobgan has just announced the city’s most promising-sounding 2010-11 season. Dig all this:

• Four world premieres, including “Don’t Call Me Fat” by Turkish playwright Ozen Yula and “My Dog Barking” by Cleveland Heights scribe Eric Coble.

• Four Midwest premieres: The second production anywhere (after New York’s Public Theatre) of Pulitzer Prize-winning Suzan-Lori Parks’ latest; an avant-garde dinner-theater (!) offering; and a play co-authored by a creator of the upcoming Broadway musical “Spider-Man.”

• And a beefed-up new works development program to join CPT’s already strong Big Box and Little Box series, including a remount of Chris Seibert and Bobgan’s critically acclaimed one-woman tour de force, “Cut to Pieces,” which will then tour.

Bottom line: While most other theaters in the area are sticking to the reduced schedules and calculatedly mainstream productions instituted to cope with the recession, Bobgan and CPT are out at high noon on Detroit Avenue at West 65th Street with avant-garde guns blazing.

Meanwhile, in his spare time, Bobgan is also overseeing CPT’s partnership in developing the Gordon Square Arts District, including the ongoing renovation of CPT’s expansive campus.

So, take a breath and get a gander at what’s up next season at 6415 Detroit. If you want more information, go to cptonline.org or call 216-631-2727. Or you can catch Bobgan re-caffeinating himself several times a day next door to the theater at Gypsy Beans & Baking Co.

Shows open on a Thursday and close on a Saturday unless otherwise noted.

Saturday, Sept. 11: Pandemonium 10: The West Wild Side. CPT’s annual wacky arts, food and beverage fundraiser comes of age.

Sept. 30-Oct. 16: “The Book of Grace.” CPT regular Sheffia Randall Dooley directs Parks’ multilayered confrontation between Buddy, a veteran of the Iraq war, and his estranged father, a Desert Storm vet who now works as a border guard.

Oct. 7-30: “Don’t Call Me Fat.” Yula, who’s at CPT and Cleveland State University on a grant from the Cleveland Foundation, directs his satire about an obese man’s journey from sickbed to talk-show fame.

Oct. 14-30: “Kill Will.” Playing off the title of a Quentin Tarantino movie, husband-and-wife writers Josh Brown and Kelly Elliott edit the Shakespeare canon down to one evening of the Bard’s best fights and murders. Veteran CPT hand Alison Garrigan directs the world premiere.

Friday, Oct. 22 and Sunday, Oct. 24: “Il Tabarro.” CPT collaborates with Opera Per Tutti, a Northeast Ohio company whose name is Italian for “opera for all,” on Puccini’s tale of love, desperation and violent jealousy. Scott Skiba directs.

Nov. 5-7: Y-Haven Project. CPT stages the 11th annual collaboration with residents of an inner-city Cleveland center for homeless men in treatment for drug addiction.

Nov. 11-Sunday, Nov. 21: Little Box series. Staged readings of new plays by local playwrights are followed by audience discussions.

Wednesday, Dec. 1-18: “Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant.” CPT presents an audience-participation dinner-theater show (a la “Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding,” but way weirder) served up by Miss Conni Convergence and the Avantgardists.

Friday, Jan. 14-Sunday, March 6: Big Box series. Eight weekends of new works as CPT opens its doors to area artists.

March 3-19: “Darwinii.” Glen Berger, now at work with “The Lion King’s” Julie Taymor and U2′s Bono on “Spider-Man,” collaborates with CPT regular Brett Keyser on a play about a thief who’s convinced he’s the great-great-great-bastard-grandson of Charles Darwin.

Friday, March 11-Sunday, March 27: NEOMFA Playwrights Festival. Three new works by students in the Northeast Ohio MFA Creative Writing Program, a collaboration of four area schools.

Thursday, March 24: Women’s Voices. The 12th annual female version of the Y-Haven Project, a collaboration with the Elyria YWCA’s Women’s Campus Project.

April 7-23: “Fever/Dream.” CPT staffer Beth Wood directs the Midwest premiere of Sheila Callaghan’s update of 17th-century Spanish playwright Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s “Life Is a Dream.”

April 7-23: “I Hate This” and “And Then You Die.” Local playwright, actor and director David Hansen presents his two previously produced one-man shows (one about personal loss and the other about personal victory) in repertory. Directed by Garrigan.

April 21-May 7: “Insomnia.” Holly Holsinger (Bobgan’s wife) collaborates with Karin Randoja and Seibert on a new play, starring Holsinger and Seibert and directed by Randoja, about a woman on the brink of something like death, mental collapse or self-discovery.

May 5-Sunday June 5: DanceWorks. Five companies perform world premieres in CPT’s 11th annual dance showcase.

May 12-28: “My Dog Barking.” Jeremy Paul, on loan from Theater Ninjas, directs the latest from Coble, about two lonely people’s lives taking a bizarre turn when a starving coyote appears at their doors.

May 26-June 4: “Cut to Pieces.” Bobgan and Seibert restage their shattering 2009 multimedia adaptation of the Persephone myth to lay bare Seibert’s soul.

Dates to be announced: Developing works. They include “My Hemisphere and Your Hemisphere Live Across the Street,” “People4Change” and Bobgan’s own “Rusted Heart Broadcast,” which he described as “a radical new play with an ensemble cast [that] re-examines religion, art and community in the heart of America.”

And, “I think it takes place in a tent and travels like a revival.”

How cool is that?

Photos from June 12th, Discover Gordon Square Arts District Day Gallery

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Photos from June 11th, ‘Made in the 216′ 2010 store opening & ‘Out of Place’ Midnight Show

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View and share these photos on Gordon Square Arts District Facebook page.

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Photos from the Business Leaders Breakfast event at the Capitol Theatre.

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Related articles and press in the News!

WKYC Article: Cleveland: Governor praises Gordon Square Arts District economic investment

CLEVELAND — Governor Ted Strickland touted the Gordon Square Arts District when he addressed about 200 business and civic leaders gathered for a leadership breakfast Friday morning at the recently renovated Capitol Theatre.

Strickland said the District is a great example of how to create jobs and investment in a city neighborhood.

“You are creating long-term economic growth, and new jobs,”  said Strickland. “In the short term, you are creating construction jobs. In fact, dollar for dollar, an investment in a building rehabilitation project creates more jobs than an investment even in a highway construction project.”

Team NEO, an economic clearinghouse for the 16 counties in Ohio’s northeast corner, has tracked the economic impact of the arts district as a dramatic $317 million in Cleveland alone through 2013.

In comparison, the five major projects of the arts district — three theatres, a stylish streetscape and added parking — represent a total investment of just $30 million.

The state of Ohio has invested $1.9 million in capital funds and provided leveraging for $4.4 million in federal tax credits.

Other funds have come from a variety of sources, including the city of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, foundations and private contributions.

“Our urban agenda in Ohio is clear,” said Strickland. “We must build upon the great resources already existing within our cities, we must revitalize forgotten treasures and we must celebrate the cultural and economic vitality that pulses through our cities.”

“The Gordon Square Arts District serves as an example for cities across the nation of how to uncover a neighborhood’s assets, invest in them and watch it take off and deliver more than a tenfold return,” said Christopher M. Connor, chairman and CEO of Sherwin-Williams.

“The non-profits and civic leadership behind its revival have cleverly leveraged the arts into a newly revived, productive community.”

Connor is also chair of Team NEO.

The Gordon Square Arts District, a collaborative work of three nonprofits — the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization, Cleveland Public Theatre and the Near West Theatre — is seen as a national model of how the arts can stimulate economic development.

The Team NEO study did not measure additional real estate and development activity, which is estimated by the Gordon Square Arts District and Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization at an additional $400 million or more.

Most of the restaurants, shops, galleries and other businesses are flourishing, with 33 new ones opening since 2006.

Housing ranging from live-work spaces for artists to spacious condominiums for successful entrepreneurs is in demand.

Additional components include streetscape improvements on Detroit Avenue between West 58th and West 73rd streets and new parking to accommodate residents and visitors.

The theatres provide unique entertainment to attract audiences from throughout the region.

For more information about Gordon Square, please contact 216-961-4242 or visit online www.gordonsquare.org

© 2010 WKYC-TV

[WKYC Article] [PDF]

WTAM 1100 Article: Leaders tout Gordon Square

(Cleveland) – Local leaders met at the renovated Capital Theatre at West 65th and Detroit to talk about the success of the Gordon Square Arts District.

The $30 million revitalization program is expected to pump $317 million into the economy of the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood by 2017. Backers say the Gordon Square project has created 950 permanent jobs, plus 310 construction jobs.

Gordon Square Co-Chairman Dick Pogue says fundraising continues. Governor Strickland says the project is an amazing success. Chris Conner of Sherwin-Williams and team NEO agrees.

Plans are now underway to link Gordon Square to Lake Erie allowing residents to walk from the arts district to the shoreline.

[WTAM 1100 Online Article]

By Tony Brown, The Plain Dealer

May 20, 2010, 6:00AM

View full sizeSteve WagnerScholar Barton Friedman (John Stuehr, left) writes about Irish hero Cuchulain (Ray McNiece) and poet W.B. Yeats (Brett Keyser) in “Open Mind Firmament.”REVIEW Open Mind Firmament What: Cleveland Public Theatre presents a play based on the works of W.B. Yeats and Barton Friedman, adapted and directed by Raymond Bobgan.When: Through Saturday, June 5. Performances at 7 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. Matinee at 3 p.m. Sunday; 7 p.m. performance Monday.Where: Cleveland Public Theatre’s Gordon Square Theatre, 6415 Detroit Ave.Tickets: $10-$21. Go to cptonline.org or call 216-631-2727, ext. 501. “I want to create for myself an unpopular theater.”

So said William Butler Yeats, the Irish poet, playwright, politician and playboy (1865-1939).

Cleveland Public Theatre’s “Open Mind Firmament” is nothing of the sort, yet is also true to Yeats’ vision of “a mysterious theater” that is more “a memory and a prophecy” than realistic.

Engrossing, hypnotic and viscerally literary, this homage to both Yeats and Cleveland State University Yeats scholar Barton Friedman entailed a year’s worth of hard physical and mental work by an ensemble of 14 performers led by CPT executive artistic director Raymond Bobgan.

Bobgan specializes in this sort of thing, having produced original adaptations of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, “Summer and Smoke” and plays by Gao Xingjian.

As brilliant as those were, it is tempting now to say that “Open Mind Firmament” surpasses them all. But let’s just say it is everything theater ought to be but so rarely is: revelatory.

Yeats, determined to write plays about Ireland’s heroic age to compensate for what he saw as the portrayal of his countrymen as buffoons by other Irish playwrights, produced a six-play “Ulster Cycle,” five about legendary Celtic hero Cuchulain.

None of these plays is staged today because their pure poetry makes them all but unplayable.

Bobgan and company mix excerpts of the plays and Yeats’ muscular poetry, the subtle gestures of the Japanese Noh theater that fascinated Yeats, and the lectures and written works of Friedman (1935-2009).

The resulting swirl of words and actions — moistened by water, heightened by ladders, shrouded in sheer scarves, and lighted in stark lights and darks by designer Trad A Burns – is a dreamlike melange of playfully sensuous allures.

The story arc, if there is one, emerges from several directions and eventually builds itself into a meditation on the nature of the writer as hero of his own work, author of his own life and anticipator of his own death. Yeats is Cuchulain — and so is Friedman.

The ensemble functions as an organic, protoplasmic whole that ebbs and flows and oozes on the Gordon Square arena stage. But it has four ringleaders.

Brett Keyser‘s Yeats has both dignity and mischief in his eye. Chris Seibert casts spells as Cathbad (the chief druid of Irish mythology) and as a blind seer. Raymond McNiece embodies Cuchulain’s physical and poetic prowess. And John Stuehr haunts the sidelines as Friedman.

If you know little or nothing about Yeats and his work, just let the production pour over your senses, and afterward pick up one of the informative limited-edition programs ($5) in the lobby, take it home and pore over it. Then go to the library and get some actual Yeats (the cast whispers some recommendations to the audience at the end of the show).

Yeats finished his wish for an “unpopular theater” by saying he also wanted “an audience like a secret society, where admission is by favor.”

Do yourself a favor, experience “Open Mind Firmament” and become a member of Yeats’ secret society.

[Original Cleveland.com Article] [PDF]

LITTLE BIG SHOWS

We get our share of big, big shows in Northeast Ohio, especially since PlayhouseSquare is the country’s second-largest performing-arts complex. But sometimes the action shifts to a slightly smaller scale. Take “Wanderlust: A History of Walking” at Cleveland Public Theatre, right. New York-based director Matthew Earnest has crafted a world-premiere show from a nonfiction book by Rebecca Solnit that is in fact a history of walking. But the play is much more than that, theater critic Tony Brown insists — “a nonstop, highly choreographed dance-theater piece” realized by an “indefatigable” ensemble of seven. Through Saturday, May 29, at CPT’s Gordon Square Theatre, 6415 Detroit Ave. Tickets are $10-$21. Go to cptonline.org or call 216-231-2727.

Dobama Theatre, a small but feisty off-Euclid company, is wowing ‘em with “Humble Boy,” which critic Brown calls a “thoughtful production of a brilliant play that buzzes with intelligence and packs a sordid sting.” Full of family dysfunction and black humor, Charlotte Jones’ play concerns a group of five characters in the backyard of a dead British beekeeper stung to death by his own hive. There’s a big pot of gazpacho, too. Through Sunday, May 30, at Dobama, 2340 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights. Tickets are $10-$22. Go to dobama.org or call 216-932-3396.

Viktor Schreckengost was Cleveland’s quintessential Renaissance man, an “artist, teacher and industrial designer who transformed America through his own work and that of the generations of students he taught at the Cleveland Institute of Art,” as art critic Steven Litt wrote in 2008, when Schreckengost died at 101. Now the region’s first posthumous exhibit devoted entirely to his work is here, called “From Jazz to Design: The Art of Viktor Schreckengost” in the modest confines of Bonfoey Gallery. On view is a sampling of the master’s work in a wide range of media: industrial designs, sculpture, pastels and watercolors. Through Saturday, June 5, at 1710 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. Go to bonfoey.com or call 216-621-0178. Free.

By Plain Dealer staff May 16, 2010, 12:25AM

[Original Cleveland.com Article] [PDF]