Cleveland Public TheatreDancer and cChoreographer Kenya Woods performs her “Through Her Eyes,” which will be presented Feb. 11-13, as part of Cleveland Public Theatre’s eight-week Big Box festival.
Time once again for Cleveland’s premiere festival of brand-new works: never before tested, gutty and brainy.
It is called Cleveland Public Theatre’s Big Box series, and it begins Friday, Jan. 14.
CPT executive artistic director Raymond Bobgan hands over the keys to 6415 Detroit Ave. to a group of artists who have the run of the place for a week, culminating in a weekend of three performances. The series runs through Sunday, March 6.
This year, the most ambitious yet, will see shows by Cleveland State University students and recent graduates, as well as out-of-town artists drawn by CPT’s reputation as an avant-garde theater that welcomes risk taking.
Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $15. Go to cptonline.org or call 216-631-2727.
Week 1: Jan. 14-16“Ya Mama!” Written and performed by Nina Domingue and directed by Cathy Hartenstein, this one-woman show explores the life of an artist, wife, mother, Christian and black woman.
“She Cried at the Circus.” Jeff Glover writes a story about a woman who discovers at a young age that she has power beyond dreams, wealth beyond imagination and presence that inspires fear.
Week 2: Jan. 21-23 “Soliciting for Change.” Bitch, terrorist, dreamer. Those are some of the names people callplaywright/performer Molly Andrews-Hinders as she goes after corrupt corporations and advocates for working-class families. Directed by James Langa and Erin McCardle.
“Seppuku.” Written and performed by Melissa Crum and BC Miles, this piece weighs the differences between suicide and ritual suicide. Directed by James Kosmatka.
Week 3: Jan. 28-30“Mother/Tongue.” A family’s dysfunction surfaces as a workaholic mom obsessively makes Julia Child’s beef tongue, disappears for hours and speaks French. Written by Claire Robinson May and directed by Danielle Hisey.
Week 4: Feb. 4-6Everything Is Everything Project. Two plays, “A Sleep” and “A Wake,” written and performed by Val Kozlenko and Eric Perusek, explore what it is to be truly awake or to sleepwalk through life. A third play, “30 Awkward Minutes With Pat and Glenn,” written and performed by Renee Schilling and Lew Wallace, imagines two people trapped in the void of unreality.
“Sick F- – -.”John Robert Armstrong (of Indiana) will be directed by Noe Montez (who recently moved to Cleveland from Indiana) in a play by Paul Shoulberg (of Kansas) about a terminal cancer patient dealing with resentment, regret and heartache.
Week 5: Feb. 11-13 “Through Her Eyes.” Choreographed and performed by Kenya Woods, this dance piece is about three women finding grace through being broken by fears and frustrations, crisis and the job of motherhood.
“Fast Forward-Rewind-Stop.” The Marquez Dance Project does a piece choreographed by Jennifer Sandoval about the pursuit of gender equilibrium.
Week 6: Feb. 18-20“Sonic Cinema.” FiveOne Music performs a fusion of local films and new music composed by Michael Bratt and Jeremy Allen. Week 7: Feb. 25-27“Cowboy Poet.” A country musical by Deborah Magid, directed by Douglas Farren, looks at a cowboy poet, a WASP socialite and an ex-con who throw a benefit gala for adult literacy in New Mexico.
Week 8: March 4-6“Voice Over.” Conceived and directed by Pandora Robertson, this piece asks, “Who am I?,” “Do other people know who I really am?” and “Will I ever be the same person again?”
“Side Effects May Include.” Former “Seinfeld” writer Marc Jaffe and Cleveland Heights playwright Eric Coble write about a man with a lovely wife, a lovely kid and a lovely life, until Parkinson’s disease and the side effects of the medicines that treat it invade his home. Eric Schmeidl directs Nick Koesters.
View full sizeGus Chan / The Plain DealerThe Cleveland Foundation is awarding a $250,000 grant to the Gordon Square Arts District to begin the second phase of renovations to Cleveland Public Theatre.
CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cleveland Foundation on Friday awarded $12.9 million in grants to nonprofit groups, including $150,000 to support the transition of Cuyahoga County’s government.
The year-end awards show the foundation’s annual giving — about $80 million in 2010 — is back in line with what it was before the economic downturn, said Robert Eckardt, the foundation’s senior vice president for programs and evaluation.
Last year, as the foundation’s holdings dipped, it provided about $2 million less in grants than it had the year before.
At their peak, the Cleveland Foundation’s assets totaled about $2 billion. That fell to about $1.6 billion at the depth of the recent financial crisis, Eckardt said, but had rebounded to about $1.7 billion by Sept. 30.
The Cleveland Foundation, like many college endowments and other substantial grant-making organizations, considers its finances over several years rather than snapshots in time. That prevents sudden drop-offs and sudden rises in grant making, Eckardt said.
Much of the grant money awarded Friday funds economic transformation, public-education reform and neighborhood redevelopment.
Yet $150,000 was set aside as a special grant to help the county.
“The change to a new form of county government is dramatic,” Eckardt said in a prepared statement. “We believe that getting the right people into the right positions is critical for the success of this structure.”
Matt Carroll, who is directing the transition, said the grant was awarded to the Economic Growth Foundation — part of the Greater Cleveland Partnership — and will be spent in three ways:
• About $110,000 will pay for a national search to fill three jobs — fiscal officer, chief information officer and director of development.
• About $20,000 will pay for the ongoing integrity audit that incoming County Executive Ed FitzGerald launched shortly after his election. FitzGerald hired a former FBI agent who is also a certified public accountant for the job. He will submit his report examining possible misconduct and waste by year’s end.
• About $20,000 will pay transition staffing costs.
Carroll said he has had informal talks with other grant-making bodies about funding that would pay for headhunters to help fill other key positions in the new government.
“We are wide open for the best possible people to come in,” Carroll said, adding that interim staff members will fill key positions until permanent workers are hired.
Some of the other grants awarded by the Cleveland Foundation included:
• Three grants worth $970,000 to the lead partners of MyCom, a countywide youth development program. More than half the money — $550,000 — will be spent on activities for children when school is not in session.
• A $400,000 grant to Shorebank Enterprise Group to support Green City Growers, a sprawling greenhouse at East 55th Street and Kinsman Road that will grow lettuce and herbs without using soil. The greens will be sold to local hospitals and food distributors.
• A $250,000 grant to the Gordon Square Arts District to begin the second phase of renovations to Cleveland Public Theatre.
“The Friday@7 concert at Severance was sublime! Thanks to the Happy Dog we had a wonderful evening with friends while experiencing the best that Cleveland has to offer! The concert featured Mahler and showcased a top-notch array of musical talent led by a fabulous conductor. The low bass was phenomenal! Thanks Happy Dog! Thanks Gordon Square!” – Samantha Schartman
YOU’RE CORDIALLY INVITED
to an evening at XYZ & CPT to benefit GSAD
in the heart of the Gordon Square Arts District
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2010
The evening kicks off at the District’s newest establishment:
5:30 p.m. XYZ Tavern
6421 Detroit Avenue (next to CPT)
Cocktails & hors’ d’oeuvres
and continues to Cleveland Public Theatre
6:30 p.m. More cocktails and seating at CPT
7:00 p.m. “Connie’s Avant Garde Restaurant”
for a five-course dinner and theatre
This uproarious musical performance is a unique theatrical-culinary event mixing the ingredients of fine food, wine and ensemble theatre together in a hilarious parody of avant garde grandiosity. Comedy, death, violence and a five-course meal!
Individual tickets: $75
Reservations: Call Maria Asher @ 216.961.4242 x222 or masher@gordonsquare.org
RSVP: by Friday, December 3, 2010
Five-Course Menu
(With local produce subject to availability)
Roasted chestnuts and mushroom tartine
Curried butternut squash soup
Herbed apple and fennel salad
Maple-glazed ham with cranberry compote
Brown-buttered radishes
Sage-roasted sweet potatoes
Drunken chocolate Bundt cake
Dietary restrictions: Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant is able to accommodate food allergies and vegetarian needs. Please contact the box office to communicate dietary restrictions in your party. (216) 631-2727 or rcole@cptonline.org.
Roger MastroianniPinchas Steinberg conducts a 2005 performance with the Cleveland Orchestra. The maestro returns to Severance Hall this week to lead a program featuring Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 and Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto.
A few days ago, Pinchas Steinberg was Turin, Italy, conducting a popular production of Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly.” So successful was the run, in fact, that the presenter, Teatro Regio, added a performance to satisfy demand.
Something similar is about to befall Steinberg this weekend at the Cleveland Orchestra. Concerts haven’t yet sold out, but a special arrangement surrounding his concert Friday already has prompted the rental of an additional bus to transport patrons back and forth between Severance Hall and a West-side establishment known as Happy Dog.
“This is the kind of thing that happens when you get excited about an area,” said Joy Roller, executive director of Cleveland’s Gordon Square Arts District, a partner in the project. “We’re knitting the city together.”
The arrangement centers on the orchestra’s upcoming “Fridays @ 7″ concert, featuring Steinberg conducting Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 — one of the composer’s most readily accessible symphonies — and the overture to Nicolai’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”
That night, there’s also pre-concert music by bansuri bamboo flutist Steve Gorn and tabla player Hom Nath Upadhyaya, and a post-concert show by the New York Gypsy All-Stars, led by clarinetist Ismail Lumanovski.
PREVIEW
Cleveland Orchestra
What: Pinchas Steinberg conducts works by Nicolai, Nielsen, and Mahler
When: 8 p.m. Dec. 2 and Dec. 4, and 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 3.
Tickets:: $25-$117. 216-231-1111 or the orchestra’s Web site.
Concerts Thursday and Saturday follow a traditional format, without the post-concert show, and include another clarinet virtuoso, principal clarinetist Franklin Cohen, performing Carl Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto, a work he described in a written program note as“a portrait of a very complete person, someone who’s lived and experienced all that life has to offer.”
Essentially, the Happy Dog arrangement is an audience exchange, through which patrons who buy in (for $25, using promo code 8795) can begin or end their evenings at Happy Dog or Severance Hall. Either way, they’ll be transported back and forth between destinations, and they’ll experience both classical and rock music.
Bus service to Severance leaves Happy Dog (5801 Detroit Ave., Cleveland) at 6 p.m., and after the 7 p.m. orchestra concert, patrons can be shuttled back to Happy Dog to hear the Tadpoles and reclusive singer-songwriter Bill Fox. The last bus back to Severance leaves at midnight.
View full sizeJoshua Gunter, The PDA happy crowd at the Happy Dog, courtesy of musicians from the Cleveland Orchestra. This Friday, listeners are being encouraged to attend concerts at both Severance Hall and Happy Dog in the same evening.
“Bill’s sound is more accessible, but it’s still amazing rock-n-roll, and it’s Cleveland,” said Sean Watterson, co-owner of Happy Dog and author of the exchange, explaining his selection of Fox. “It’s a combination of being accessible and the best of what we’ve got to offer.”
Watterson didn’t come up with the exchange out of nowhere. The arrangement stems from the still-blossoming relationship between the orchestra and Happy Dog through which members of the orchestra have been performing classical music in the laid-back setting of the bar.
The idea also builds on Watterson’s often-expressed desire to link the institutions of University Circle with those of his neighborhood, Gordon Square.
“We just sat at the bar and talked about how we can keep innovating,” he said. “We wanted to keep the momentum going, and this kind of jelled.”
For his part, Steinberg said he’s glad to be back in Northeast Ohio, whatever the circumstances, even after the success in Turin. “Every time I say the same thing,” he said. “Cleveland is my favorite orchestra. And I mean it. They are the Rolls-Royce of orchestras.”
But it’s not just the prospect of driving a powerful musical vehicle that’s got Steinberg excited. A devotee of Mahler, he’s looking forward to re-entering the composer’s fastidiously detailed world and especially to re-exploring Symphony No. 1, a work steeped in vocal and folk music.
As for the occasion of “Fridays @ 7″ and the partnership with Happy Dog, Steinberg said he’s delighted not only to be involved but to have an opportunity to hook new listeners on Mahler.
“You have to get the people close to you, so they open their ears and their hearts,” he said. “The only thing you can do is give such a convincing performance that they cannot not listen to it. You grab them and they say ‘Wow.’ Then I win.”
View full sizeGus Chan/The Plain DealerCars line up to be valet parked at the Capitol Theater for a “Sex and the City” Girls Night Out party and screening in May. The Gordon Square Arts District is being recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National League of Cities.
Gordon Square, the emerging art district in the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood on Cleveland’s West Side, has won big time kudos from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National League of Cities.It has also pulled down $2.7 million in recent federal, state and local grants, which will be used to build or renovate community theaters that are central to its vision of using the arts to revive a city neighborhood. “Lots of good stuff is happening,” said Joy Roller, the district’s executive director. “To me, it’s an acknowledgement that what we’re doing is not only successful, but is a novel approach, a unique approach on how to revitalize an urban core.”
The NEA announced earlier this month that Gordon Square is one of 14 case studies in a new publication, “Creative Placemaking.”
Co-authored by arts advocates Ann Markusen and Ann Gadwa, the document is a project of the NEA’s Mayor’s Institute on City Design. The mission of the agency is to educate U.S. mayors to become the “chief urban designers” of their cities.
The case studies are intended to encourage mayors to think creatively about how everything from loft housing to art galleries can build economic value and encourage investment.
The chapter in the case study on Gordon Square praises the project for helping to leverage an estimated $500 million in related investments on the West Side of Cleveland over the past eight years, much of it in housing, even though Gordon Square is only halfway through a $30 million revitalization.
The goal of the district is to renovate two historic theaters — Cleveland Public and the Capitol — and to build a new home for Near West. By using the arts as an anchor for related retail, restaurant and housing development, the district is sparking new life in a 15-block corridor from W. 58th Street to West 73rd St., with Detroit Avenue as the spine.
The Capitol Theatre, located in the historic Gordon Square Arcade at W. 65th Street and Detroit Avenue, reopened in 2009 as a movie theater after a renovation. Work on Cleveland Public Theatre is ongoing. And the arts district has raised roughly half of the $6.5 million it needs to build a new Near West Theater, designed by Cleveland architect Richard Fleischman, Roller said.
“Creative Placemaking” said the district has ” revitalizing the area’s commercial core with arts offerings and new retail businesses while preserving and adding low-income housing units.”
Echoing the praise from the NEA, the National League of Cities has invited Roller to represent Gordon Square as one of 26 programs from the across the country that will be showcased in its upcoming National Congress of Cities in Denver, starting Tuesday.
In addition to the outside attention, Gordon Square announced it has received a $1 million matching grant from the Fowler Family Foundation and a $500,000 matching grant from the Gund Foundation, both for the Near West Theatre project. Roller said her organization has another $3.5 million to raise before it can build the theater.
“With Near West, we are inching closer to realizing our dream of building a new home for that theater,” Roller said.
A separate grant of $1 million in federal stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s State Energy Program will be used immediately to air condition Cleveland Public Theatre for the first time, which means it can be used year round, Roller said.
The State of Ohio has also kicked in $200,000 for asbestos removal at Cleveland Public, which will make the theater safer to use, Roller said.
The national attention focused on Gordon Square shouldn’t create the impression that the project has gone unnoticed locally. In June, the district won a Cleveland Arts Prize.
The national recognition for the district offers more proof that “Cleveland should be very proud of this model we’ve created in the Gordon Square Arts District,” Roller said. “It’s good news for Cleveland.”
Published: Friday, November 05, 2010, 4:42 PM Updated: Friday, November 05, 2010, 4:55 PM
Cathy Brown with, from left, the Latitude Attitude Sicilian, sweet and russet potato fries, the Island of Lesbos pizza, fried dough with honey-cinnamon butter, and the Twisted Cobb salad. Latitude 41 gallery (5 photos)
Cathy Brown is a believer in business begetting business, and as the owner of Latitude 41 N, she is in the right place.
Since opening the casual restaurant in 2008, the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood and Gordon Square Arts District that surround it on Cleveland’s West Side have seen dramatic growth. It is now one of Greater Cleveland’s destinations, offering everything from live theater at Cleveland Public Theatre, to movies at the renovated Capitol Theater, to live bands at the Happy Dog. There are also many spots to grab a drink or get a good meal.
This is all music to Brown’s ears.
“I have always been watching this neighborhood,” she said, and her restaurant is now a solid part of it.
Latitude 41 N follows Brown’s last restaurant venture, Snickers, a popular spot also on Cleveland’s Near West Side that she opened in 1994 and sold in 1998.
The attitude at Latitude 41 N is laid back. Customers order and pay at the counter, and food is then delivered to the table. The staff makes regular passes through the two dining areas to top off your coffee and keep your table clean. It’s a system designed for expediency, but things can get a little slow and confused when the restaurant is exceptionally busy.
Note, too, that Latitude 41 N offers free Wi Fi, and Brown has no problem if you want to spend the afternoon there updating your Facebook profile and enjoying a glass of wine.
“I have had people tell me that this place feels like home,” she said. “That’s what I am going for.”
Latitude’s busiest hours are during breakfast, lunch and Sunday brunch, but Brown hopes to make dinner just as popular with the upcoming addition of new pastas and other Italian fare.
The menu, however, is already interesting and extensive, comprising breakfasts, soups, salads, sandwiches and calzones, pizzas, and pasta bakes.
“This is very Cleveland-American, this restaurant,” Brown said describing the food.
The fact that breakfast is so popular is easily explained by offerings like the Cure for a Hangover pizza ($10), a winner no matter what state you are in. The 10-inch pizza’s herb-y crust is topped with tangy red sauce, potatoes, house-made sausage, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and two sunny-side-up eggs. The pizza can serve two diners of even the heartiest appetites. Easily.
The Menage a Trois breakfast ($3.95) is the classic combination of two eggs, bacon, sausage, home fries, toast and a cup of coffee. Little wonder that it is Latitude’s most popular breakfast.
Those looking for omelets will find no shortage. Latitude’s menu features five (each $8.50), all huge, and all served with breakfast potatoes and toast. The Midwest omelet is stuffed with ham, sweetened fried apple, and cheddar cheese. It’s a creative combination of ingredients that prompted a friend to say, “I am not even hungry anymore, but I can’t stop eating this.”
Ever popular, pizzas at Latitude are no exception. A favorite is the Island of Lesbos ($11.50 four-cut, $16.50 “polite” eight-cut, $20 “sloppy” eight-cut). The pie is topped with pesto; mozzarella, provolone, parmesan and feta cheeses; oven-dried tomatoes; grilled artichoke hearts; spinach; and Italian seasonings.
Latitude 41 N is at 5712 Detroit Ave., Cleveland. Hours are 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, until 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. Call (216) 961-0000 or log onto eatatlatitude41n.com.
Midnight Syndicate FilmsZombies and vampires, oh my! “The Dead Matter” is one of seven films in the marathon.
PREVIEW Horror Movie Marathon What: Melt Bar & Grilled Late Shift presents “12 Hours of Terror,” a seven-movie marathon. Where: Capitol Theatre, 1390 West 65th St., Cleveland. When: 10 p.m. Saturday through 10 a.m. Sunday. Restrictions: No one under 18 admitted. Tickets: $25 in advance; $30 on Saturday. Available at any Cleveland Cinemas theater.
We’re talented sitters. We sit through those dopey ads and endless trailers at movie theaters. All summer, we sit at Progressive Field and watch the Indians lose. In the fall, we sit on our couches to watch the Browns lose.
But here’s the Halloween-season question: Can you sit still and be scared for 12 hours straight? It will be fun to see how many survive Saturday night. Cleveland Cinemas is hosting “12 Hours of Terror,” a horror movie marathon that kicks off at 10 p.m. Saturday at the Capitol Theatre and runs through 10 a.m. Sunday. It’s seven movies for $30 ($25 if you buy your ticket today).
“If it goes well, hopefully this will be the first annual of many,” said David Huffman, Cleveland Cinemas’ director of marketing. “Or maybe we’ll try for 16 hours next year.”
Huffman cooked up the idea after attending a Bad Movie festival in Chicago last winter. “I was so underwhelmed,” he said. “There was bad projection, cacophonous noise, people talking the whole time. I just thought, ‘Oh, we could do this so much better.’ ”
He wants the audience to have fun, but constant chatter will be discouraged. “This isn’t ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000,’ ” he said.
The Capitol’s main theater holds 422. There will be a 10-minute break between films. RJ the Movie Critic, from WKNR AM/850′s “Really Big Show,” will be hosting and awarding door prizes including haunted house passes and movie tickets. Much to the delight of the surrounding Gordon Square Arts District neighborhood, there will also be a “Loudest Scream Contest.”
If the blood and gore proves too much for some folks, one of the Capitol’s upstairs theaters will serve as a “Coward’s Corner,” showing cartoons and goofy TV shows. Before the last film screens, they’ll serve a free continental breakfast. The one restriction is that you must be 18 or older to attend.
Here’s the fright festival lineup (times approximate):
• 10 p.m. : “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” Wes Craven’s 1984 original introduced the world to Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), the slash-meister who gets you in your dreams.
• 11:40: “The Dead Matter.” Shot in Ohio in 2008 by director Edward Douglas, who decided to balance his blood-sucking vampires with a bunch of zombies.
• 1:20 a.m.: Mystery Movie. No one will know which scary film it is until the opening sequence flashes by. The horror!
• 3:00: “Night of the Creeps.”At this point in the evening (morning?) you’ll appreciate Fred Dekker’s sense of humor with his 1986 flick that includes alien creepy crawlers, frat boys, sorority girls, and, of course, zombies.
• 4:40: “The Devil’s Rejects.” Speaking of zombies, Rob Zombie wrote and directed this hard-core 2005 sequel to his “House of 1000 Corpses,” so we could learn about the unique crime-fighting methods of Sheriff Wydell (William Forsythe).
• 6:00: “Splinter.”One of the better porcupine-zombie-torn-flesh movies, from director Toby Wilkins in 2008. Two couples get trapped in a gas-station quickie mart with spiky things. Note the superb dialogue: “I’m nothing like your white-trash, drugged-out girlfriend!” and “It’s OK, we’ll cut off your arm!” Followed by the breakfast break.
• 8:00: “Child’s Play.”Before Jon Gruden, before “Bride of Chucky,” there was Tom Holland’s decidedly non-children’s movie, from 1988, about a doll with crazed eyes and a menacing mind of his own. And sharp objects.
To get you in proper Halloween-scream mode, here are five favorites for your renting and viewing pleasure. Don’t watch them alone!
• “Night of the Living Dead”(1968). George A. Romero’s wonder of independent filmmaking was a cult classic that became a much-imitated standard-bearer of scares. Not just zombies, but flesh-eating zombies. A new twist at the time.
• “Psycho” (1960). Alfred Hitchcock brilliantly broke his own rules of suspense, inserting totally random violence into a motel bathroom. “Mother” Bates still creeps me out.
• “Halloween” (1978).John Carpenter made life hell for baby-sitters, especially ones who think they’ve already killed the bad guy. You’d think Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) sticking a bent clothes hanger into Michael Myers’ eye would surely do the trick. Think again.
• “The Exorcist”(1973). Twelve-year-old girls can act rather devilish, but Linda Blair takes the concept to new lows in William’ Friedkin’s nightmare-provoking shocker. To paraphrase Roy Scheider in “Jaws,” “Father, you’re gonna need a bigger cross.”
• “The Shining”(1980). What’s creepier, the hatcheted twins or the old lady in the bathtub? Stanley Kubrick’s take on Stephen King not only features rivers of blood and an ax-wielding Jack Nicholson, it’s an elaborate psychological study of what it means to lose one’s mind.
“The marathon sounds extremely cool,” said “Dead Matter” director Douglas.
“It will appeal to people who like the old style of horror movies, the newer style, and we even have ours in there, which is an independent film. I just haven’t seen a lot of these kinds of things. I love the concept.”
Douglas is also one half (with Gavin Goszka) of the Chardon-based band Midnight Syndicate. The band is famous for Halloween instrumentals such as “Haunted Nursery” and “Grisly Reminder.”
The three-disc deluxe edition of “The Dead Matter” ($19.99), released earlier this year, includes making-of extras, music videos, the original motion picture soundtrack, and a Midnight Syndicate greatest hits collection, “Halloween Music.”
The mass appeal of the genre, said Douglas, comes down to escapism, “and for some of the horror films, maybe it’s a little therapeutic, to see those fears that you have up on the screen. But it’s not you, so it’s something you can walk away from.”
Douglas said he really wanted to be at the Capitol to introduce his film, but was already booked this weekend in Morgantown, W.Va.
Charnas spends the 75-minute first act in the suit, lying in bed in a hospital gown (after he spends 15 minutes in the thing before the curtain goes up).
Then, in Act 2, he is slimmed down to his normal size.
The length of time in the suit means it had to be as light (about 20 pounds) and comfy as possible. And his hands and face, his only acting tools besides his voice, had to be free.
Garrigan, a costume designer for 30 years and an actor-director, had to bring all of her skills to the project. Here is a look.
Garrigan looked at photographs of morbidly obese peopleand did sketches before rehearsals started in mid-August.
After consulting with Yula, who is directing, and taking Charnas’ measurements, she made the suit out of high-density upholstery foam (for shape), toy-animal fiberfill (lighter than foam) and lentil beans (for sag).
She covered it in breathable “peach-skin” fabric, used for dancers and figure skaters whose costumes need a “nude” look.
Once the suit was built, Garrigan worked with Charnas (seen in photo at right last week during technical rehearsals) to fine-tune the fit.
Garrigan carved out spaces where frozen cold packs could be inserted on the actor’s tummy and under his armpits to help him keep cool.
The last piece of the suit scheduled to go on every night will be the jowls (in photo at left).
Garrigan will apply pale makeup to Charnas’ face and dark circles around his eyes after he is in the suit. “He has to look really unhealthy.”
The actor’s supine position and the elevation of the stage meant that Garrigan had to use what artists call “forced perspective,” deliberately accentuating some body parts to make up for theaudience’s viewing angle.
The finished product is never, it seems, really finished.
In the technical-rehearsal photo at right, Charnas wears a bathrobe. But the next night, Yula decided to go with the hospital gown, which meant more adjustments.
Which is OK with Garrigan. “It’s been really interesting to take that kind of athletic body and turn it into the absolute opposite. And the hands-on work was not unpleasant at all, if you know what I mean.”
Cleveland Public TheatreDancer and cChoreographer Kenya Woods performs her “Through Her Eyes,” which will be presented Feb. 11-13, as part of Cleveland Public Theatre’s eight-week Big Box festival.
Roger MastroianniPinchas Steinberg conducts a 2005 performance with the Cleveland Orchestra. The maestro returns to Severance Hall this week to lead a program featuring Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 and Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto.
Cathy Brown with, from left, the Latitude Attitude Sicilian, sweet and russet potato fries, the Island of Lesbos pizza, fried dough with honey-cinnamon butter, and the Twisted Cobb salad. 
Midnight Syndicate FilmsZombies and vampires, oh my! “The Dead Matter” is one of seven films in the marathon.
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