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.”
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.
What: Cleveland Public Theatre presents the play by Suzan-Lori Parks, directed by Sheffia Randall Dooley. When: Through Saturday, Oct. 16. Where: 6415 Detroit Ave. Tickets: $10-$25; cptonline.org or call 216-631-2727.
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.
Published: Friday, September 24, 2010, 1:24 PM Updated: Friday, September 24, 2010, 1:42 PM
Into the freshened night life of Cleveland’s Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood alights Roseangel, an upscale taco place calling itself “A Moderne Tacqueria.” The vintage storefront has been redone in a Fashion Week version of a Mexican “Day of the Dead” palette. The room dances in orange and cherry walls in alligator-skin textures and white tabletops with black polka dots. It’s serious, candy-colored fun.
The menu? Tacos. Mostly tacos. And why not? Across the street is Happy Dog, the hot-dog emporium. A few blocks away are notable spots for Vietnamese (Minh Anh), Hispanic (Rincon Criollo) and Irish pub food (Stone Mad). New American joints (Luxe, Gypsy Bean, Latitude 41 N) attract their own loyal crowds.
If any neighborhood can handle fancy tacos, this one can, especially as a dinner-and-a-show stop for Cleveland Public Theatre, the refurbished Capitol Theatre or any one of the downtown venues several minutes away.
It helps that these are out-of-the-ordinary tacos. Chef and co-owner Marlin Kaplan, an artful conceptualist in Cleveland’s dining scene, already is in the neighborhood with Luxe. Portion-size options are one of Luxe’s draws, something tacos wrap around easily, too. Not too hungry? Order one taco. Really hungry? Go for more. Roseangel offers bread-plate sizes of these hand-held specialties, most at $4.25 each, and in slightly discounted trios ($11.75) or a platter of four pairs ($30). It’s up to you and your merry band to mix and match flavors from more than 12 well-selected versions.
WE WANT YOUR REVIEW
Have you been to Roseangel in Cleveland? E-mail us your review of the food, service and atmosphere. Include your full name and where you live. We’ll publish a sampling on Cleveland.com and in The Plain Dealer. E-mail food@plaind.com to sound off.
Tacos come with soft or hard shells, with soft recommended for the neatest sharing. That’s the easy part. The list of fillings is long and sometimes frustrating. We’d go back in a second for the hanger steak taco with crispy onions and chipotle mayo, or the spicy lobster with cucumber and green chile cream (add $2.50). Everything we had was fabulously fresh and nicely matched in texture, making us think the kitchen turns on a dime. Witness the bronzed edges of fried eggplant, plushly crisp breading on the perch and just the right chew for the steak and the grilled pork. Taco choices also include duck confit, potato-crusted chicken and tofu, among others.
What was sometimes missing was a vibrancy implied by the word taco. We don’t mean chile-pepper hot. (When they say spicy on the menu here, they hardly mean it.) But more of a pungent, pepper or herbal counterpoint would do for a younger or more adventurous palate. It’s all there on the menu, with nine different salsas offered. An extra dab of the right one on the plate — or at least a recommendation from the menu — would give an option to customers wanting complexity, not just comfort. That’s true, too, for side dishes of rice and beans, which tasted a little more reserved than necessary.
Nothing is missing from the guacamole, a must-order appetizer with avocado, onions, cilantro, lime and jalapenos in just the right balance. Among salsas, we loved the zesty red picante and enjoyed the sweet aftertaste of the pineapple and roasted chile. To finish, don’t miss the house caramel custard, a cumulus cloud of creamy sweetness ($7).
One confession here. Kaplan knows us and spotted us on the first visit — even when we arrived at the end of the trailing group, wearing sunglasses. Service that night seemed to be provided by a seemingly stressed-out staff. Kaplan wasn’t there for our second try, when everything worked at a fine pace but was marred by a promise of fresh-squeezed lemonade. That substance turned out, we were later told, to be a “mix” that the bartender “dumped” after we complained of an off-flavor. The offending drinks were taken from the bill.
Roseangel has a staggeringly long list of margaritas, specialty drinks, wine and beer. We can testify only to the Rosita, a hibiscus-infused Rosangel tequila with pomegranate, lemon and a great need to be sipped slowly. It was a $9.50 pleasure. And easier than asking for lemonade.
Prices: Starters, $5.50-$12.50; salsas, $2.50; tacos, $4.25 (with discounts for three or eight); desserts, $7.
Reservations: Taken for parties of six or more.
Credit cards: Most major cards accepted.
Cuisine: New American, Mexican
Kid-friendliness: Taco onesies will do it.
Bar service: Full.
Accessibility: Full.
Grade: **
Ratings: One star means fair; 2 stars, good; 3 stars, very good; 4 stars, ex ceptional. Zero stars: not recom mended.) Plain Dealer reviewers make at least two anonymous visits to each restaurant and do not accept complimentary meals. Read past reviews at cleveland.com/dining.
CPT” Kill Will,” at Cleveland Public Theatre Oct. 14-30, tells the story: All of the good murders and fight scenes from all of Shakespeare’s plays, presented in one bloody evening.
As the timid cut back on programming, Cleveland Public Theatre executive artistic director Raymond Bobgan goes forward with his biggest and most ambitious season at the city’s leading alternative theater. It includes four world premieres and four Midwest premieres, everything from opera for the people to dinner theater for the avant-garde.
Cramming this bounty into a single season at a facility with three venues under one roof, at 6415 Detroit Ave., was no easy task for Bobgan and associate artistic director Beth Wood. Part of the solution was in staggering the evening curtains; some shows start at 7 and others at 7:30. Unless otherwise noted, shows preview on the first Thursday and Friday, open the first Saturday, and close on the final Saturday, with most performances on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings throughout the run. The curtain rises at 3 p.m. on the second Sunday of each run, and there is an evening performance on the second Monday, unless otherwise noted.
Flex passes good for six tickets are $120. Single tickets are $10-$25, except as indicated. For more information, go to cptonline.org or call 216-631-2727.
Starting at 7Thursday,Sept. 30-Saturday, Oct. 16, Levin Theatre: “The Book of Grace.” CPT regular Sheffia Randall Dooley directs Suzan-Lori Parks’ passionate confrontation between Buddy, a veteran of the Iraq war, and his estranged father, a Desert Storm veteran and border guard.
Thursday, Oct. 14-Saturday, Oct. 30, Storefront Studio: “Kill Will.” Playing off the Quentin Tarantino title, 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. Alison Garrigan directs.
Friday, Oct. 22, and Sunday, Oct. 24, Levin: “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 violence. Scott Skiba directs. No previews. $25.
Thursday, Dec. 2-Sunday, Dec. 19, Gordon Square: “Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant.” CPT presents an audience-participation, five-course dinner-theater show (a la “Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding,” but way weirder) served up by Miss Conni Convergence and the Avantgardists. Performances at 7 p.m. every Sunday. No matinee. No Monday curtain. $50.
Thursday, March 3-Saturday, March 19, Storefront: “Darwinii.” Glen Berger, now at work with the “The Lion King’s” Julie Taymor and U2′s Bono on the “Spider-Man” musical, collaborates with Brett Keyseron a play about a thief who thinks he’s the great-great-great-bastard-grandson of Charles Darwin.
Thursday, April 7-Saturday, April 23, Gordon Square Theatre: “Fever/Dream.” Wood directs Sheila Callaghan’s update of 17th-century Spanish playwright Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s “Life Is a Dream.”
Thursday, April 7-Saturday, April 23, Storefront: “I Hate This” and “And Then You Die.” Local playwright, actor and director David Hansen presents his two one-man shows (one about personal loss and the other about personal victory) in repertory. Directed by Garrigan.
Thursday, April 21-Saturday, May 7, Levin:“Insomnia.” Holly Holsinger (Bobgan’s wife) collaborates with Karin Randoja and Chris Seibert on a new play about a woman on the precipice of seismic change. But is it death, mental collapse or self-discovery? Thursday, May 12-Saturday, May 28, Storefront: “My Barking Dog.” Jeremy Paul, on loan from Theater Ninjas, directs the latest from Cleveland Heights playwright Eric Coble, about two lonely people’s lives taking a bizarre turn when a starving coyote appears at their doors.
Thursday, May 26-Saturday, June 4, Levin: “Cut to Pieces.” Bobgan and Seibert restage their shattering 2009 adaptation of the Persephone myth to lay bare Seibert’s soul. This production might tour, Bobgan said. Matinee on the first Sunday. Evening curtain on the first Monday.
Starting at 7:30Thursday,Oct. 7-Saturday, Oct. 30, Gordon Square: “Don’t Call Me Fat.” Turkish playwright Ozen Yula, in residence at CPT and Cleveland State University, directs his satire about an obese man’s journey from sickbed to talk-show fame.
Thursday, Nov. 4-Sunday, Nov. 7, Gordon Square: Y-Haven Project. The 11th annual collaboration with residents of aCleveland center for homeless men in treatment for drug addiction. No previews. Matinee on Sunday. Free on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Saturday night will be a benefit performance for Y-Haven. Ticket prices will be announced. Go to yhaven.org or call 216-431-2018.
Thursday, Nov. 11-Sunday, Nov. 21, Storefront: Little Box series. Staged readings of new works by local artists. No previews. Matinee every Sunday. No Monday curtain. $8-$10.
Friday, Jan. 14-Sunday, March 6, Levin: Big Box series. Eight weekends of new works. No previews. No Thursday night shows. Matinees every Sunday. No Monday curtain. $13-$15.
Friday, March 11-Sunday, March 27, Levin: NEOMFA Playwrights Festival. Three new works by students in the Northeast Ohio MFA Creative Writing Program. No Thursday performances. Matinee every Sunday. No Monday curtain. $13-$15.
Wednesday, March 23, Gordon Square: Women’s Voices. The 12th annual female version of the Y-Haven Project, a collaboration with the Elyria YWCA’s Women’s Campus Project. Free.
Thursday, May 5-Sunday, June 5, Gordon Square: DanceWorks. Five companies perform world premieres in the 11th annual dance showcase. No previews. Matinee every Sunday. No Monday curtain.
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.
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 TheaterNinjas, 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.”
Gus Chan, The Plain Dealer “Sex and the City 2″ Girls Night Out party at the Capitol Theatre– a one-time silent-film theater that was renovated and reopened in 2009 — is an example of the vitality of the Gordon Square neighborhood. The Gordon Square Arts District capital campaign is the recipient of a 2010 Cleveland Arts Prize.
It took a small village to raise the Gordon Square Arts District capital campaign from toddler to noisy, energetic adolescent. It’s appropriate that the village will be among those honored Saturday as winners of the 2010 Cleveland Arts Prize.
It’s the first time in recent memory that a Cleveland Arts Prize has been awarded not to a person or an organization but to a neighborhood.
“No one person could have done what Gordon Square Arts District is doing,” said the district’s executive director, Joy Roller. “To give it to one person would be totally unfair. I congratulate the Arts Prize for getting it.”
The Cleveland Arts Prizes — given to creative artists whose work enriches Northeast Ohio and whose accomplishments set a standard of excellence — were announced in May. Artists will be honored at the annual awards event Saturday at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Gordon Square was awarded a Martha Joseph Prize for Distinguished Service to the Arts, given to an individual or organization whose vision or philanthropy has made a significant contribution to the arts in Northeast Ohio.
While only Cleveland City Councilman Matt Zone will go onstage to accept the prize on behalf of Gordon Square, nearly a dozen other civic leaders will receive an Arts Prize medal. They include Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization executive director Jeff Ramsey, Gordon Square Arts District executive director Joy Roller and Cleveland Public Theatre executive artistic director Raymond Bobgan.
The district is a collaboration among Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization, Cleveland Public Theatre and the Near West Theatre.
Its capital campaign has set a goal of raising $30 million for five projects in Cleveland’s Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood, involving the area’s theaters, streetscaping and parking, Roller said.
Gordon Square claims it has generated more than $500 million in economic development in the surrounding community near West 65th Street and Detroit Avenue.
“It’s using the arts for a catalyst for economic development,” Roller said. “The Gordon Square Arts District story is many layers deep.”
A ribbon-cutting for the first phase of Cleveland Public Theatre’s capital campaign was part of Gordon Square Arts District Day on June 12. The neighborhood celebrated with walking tours, music and classic cartoons at the Capitol Theatre.
Among the other prizes to be bestowed are the Robert P. Bergman Prize for leaders who are dedicated to a democratic vision of the arts as well as awards for emerging and midcareer artists, and lifetime achievement.
The Cleveland Arts Prize board of directors solicits nominations, and a jury chooses the winners, said executive director Marcie Bergman.
In Gordon Square’s case, the jury originally received a nomination for just two of the movers and shakers, but the jury felt more of the people involved also deserved recognition, Bergman said.
John Zayac, president of the Project Group, a Cleveland-based firm that manages capital projects, originally nominated Zone and Ramsey for their work with Gordon Square.
Zayac, who lives in Detroit-Shoreway, knew about the neighborhood’s transformation. The Project Group was project manager for the Capitol Theatre and Cleveland Public Theatre capitalprojects. The Project Group also served as fiscal agent for the district.
While serving as an arts-prize juror in 2009, Zayac noticed the nomination list was heavy with artists living or affiliated with organizations on the East Side. Determined to correct that, the following year he nominated Zone and Ramsey, and resigned as a juror to avoid conflict of interest.
As deliberations were under way, Zayac got a call from a jury chairman asking if Zayac would mind if the jury chose to honor Gordon Square instead of two individuals.
“It’s great the entire district is getting the award,” Zayac said. “Jeff and Matt are first among equals.”
Midnight Syndicate FilmsZombies and vampires, oh my! “The Dead Matter” is one of seven films in the marathon.
CPT” Kill Will,” at Cleveland Public Theatre Oct. 14-30, tells the story: All of the good murders and fight scenes from all of Shakespeare’s plays, presented in one bloody evening.
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.
Gus Chan, The Plain Dealer “Sex and the City 2″ Girls Night Out party at the Capitol Theatre– a one-time silent-film theater that was renovated and reopened in 2009 — is an example of the vitality of the Gordon Square neighborhood. The Gordon Square Arts District capital campaign is the recipient of a 2010 Cleveland Arts Prize.
sending...
