A calendar of Fall, 2012 Cleveland, Ohio theatre offerings
Here’s a partial list of what’s on the boards this fall in Cleveland’s professional theaters:
CLEVELAND PLAY HOUSE
216-241-6000 or go to www.clevelandplayhouse.com.
September 14 - October 7
LOMBARDI is a play not only about Hall of Fame football coach Vince Lombardi, but a family drama about integrity, fathers and sons.
November 2 - 25
THE WHIPPING MAN, which is set at the end of the Civil War, the play upends all the clichés of that period, drawing the audience into a world they’ve never seen before.
November 23 - December 23
A CAROL FOR CLEVELAND, a world premiere play by Cleveland playwright, Eric Coble, is based on a story by Clevelander Les Roberts.. It is a modern take on the Dickens classic and is for the entire family.
DOBAMA
216-932-3396 or dobama.org
September 14 - October 7
THE MOTHERF**KER WITH A HAT, which was nominated for 7 Tonys, is a dark comedy which centers on Jackie, a petty drug dealer, who is just out of prison and trying to stay clean with the help of Ralph, his AA sponsor.
October 26 - November 18
A BRIGHT NEW BOISE takes place in a corporate break room of a craft store in Idaho, where we find a disgraced Evangelical minister who has fled his rural hometown. It is a deeply empathetic comedy that won the 2011 OBIE AWARD.
December 7 - January 6
4000 MILES concerns 21 year-old Leon, who comes to his feisty 91 year old grandmother for solace. In a single month they infuriate, bewilder, and ultimately reach each other.
PLAYHOUSESQUARE
216-241-6000 or go to www.playhousesquare.org.
October 2 - 14
ANYTHING GOES is the so delightful, so delicious, so de-lovely Tony Award winning musical with such songs as I Get A Kick Out of You and You’re the Top.
October 12 and 13
THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS! is C.S. Lewis’ funny, provocative and witty tale of spiritual warfare from a demon’s point of view.
October 16 - November 4
DIXIE’S TUPPERWARE PARTY returns to the 14th Street Theatre to throw Tupperware Parties filled with outrageous tales. (For a review of the previous showing go to www.royberko.info)
November 6 -18
DISNEY’S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is the classic musical story of Belle, a young woman in a provincial town, and the Beast, who is really a young prince trapped in a spell placed by an enchantress. Can Belle succeed in getting the Beast to love and be loved, so the curse will end?
BECK CENTER
216-521-2540 or http://www.beckcenter.org
September 24 - October 14
XANADU is a musical based on Greek muse, Cilio, who descends from Mt. Olympus to Venice Beach, California on a quest to inspire a struggle artist to achieve the greatest creation of his life—a roller disco.
October 5 - November 11
THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED is a farce that examines the scandalous world of celebrities.
December 7 - January 6
ANNIE is the comic book inspired story of a spunky Depression-era orphan determined to find the parents who abandoned her on the doorstep of a New York City orphanage.
ACTOR'S SUMMIT
330-374-7568 or go to www.actorssummit.org
October 4 - 28 (No performance October 19)
WILL ROGERS’ U.S.A. is a one-man play about one of America’s great folk humorists which uses Rogers’ actual quotes to comment on current events.
November 29 – December 23
MY MOTHER’S LESBIAN JEWISH WICCAN WEDDING is the answer to the question, “What do you do when you are a straight white male and discover your mother is a lesbian?” You write a musical based on a true story that celebrates love in all its forms.
CLEVELAND PUBLIC THEATRE
216-631-2727 or go on line to www.cptonline.org
October 4 – 20
STANDING ON CEREMONY: The Gay Marriage Plays is a new work by 8 of the nation’s best playwrights (Jordan Harrison, Moisés Kaufman, Mo Gaffney, Neil LaBute, Wendy McLeod, José Rivera, Paul Rudnick, Doug Wright), which is staged to promote gay marriage rights and explore our ever evolving (and sometimes not) society.
October 4 - 20
THE KARDIAC KID is a one-person show in which Cleveland playwright Eric Schmiedl shares his love of the Browns and his shared disgrace at their 1981 defeat after the fateful “Red Right 88” play.
October 11 – 21
SPRINGBOARD features staged readings (not actors standing at podiums) in which audience members give feedback and engage in post-show discussions to help local playwrights improve their work.
November 1 – 3
LEAP/CONCEIVE is a developmental series intended to support work that is at the midpoint in the creation process by featuring 15 minute segments from larger works-in-progress.
LAKELAND THEATRE
440-525-7526
September 21-October 7
PROOF is a psychological mystery surrounding the authorship of a potentially revolutionary mathematical proof and the relationship between a father and his daughter.
ENSEMBLE THEATRE
216-321-2930
September 28 - October 21
NORMAL HEART is Larry Kramer’s political play about a tight group of friends who won’t let doctors, politicians and the press bury the truth of an unspoken epidemic (AIDS).
November 15-December 2
MIRACLE AND WONDER, written by Clevelander Jonathan Wilhelm, is set three days before Christmas when a kindergarten teacher receives jarring news about missing relatives, a drag queen, broken hearts, a Bette Davis movie, mistaken identity and Midrashic parables.
GREAT LAKES THEATRE
http://www.greatlakestheater.org or 216-241-6000
September 28 - November 4
THE WINTER’S TALE, Shakespeare’s epic of romance and renewal tells the story of a royal family ripped apart by suspicions of infidelity and exile.
October 5 - November 3
THE IMAGINARY INVALID is Moliere’s comedy, with music, about a house-bound hypochondriac who fears he has every illness he can imagine.
BLANK CANVAS
www.blankcanvastheatre.com
October 5th - October 21st
NEXT FALL looks at faith, commitment and unconditional love through the actions of Adam who is older, neurotic and an atheist and Luke who is impulsive, a struggling actor and a devout Christian.
