January is coming and the theatre and dance season looks promising!
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association and Dance Critics Association)
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January in Cleveland is normally dark and dreary, but attending a dance or theatre offering can be a good break from the overcast skies. Here’s a list of offerings that you can experience.
SUPPORT LOCAL THEATRE AND DANCE!
DOBAMA
BLUE DOOR
Box Office:
January 29-February 21
Left alone by his wife, an African American math professor is forced to face the ghosts of his ancestors as they shatter the silence of his insomnia.
KARAMU
A HOUSE WITH NO WALLS
January 23-February 15
Box Office: 216-795-7070
The grounds of George Washington’s presidential home erupt into an emotional minefield when two opposing African-American politicos weigh in on how to honor both American liberty and the memory of the nine slaves who lived in the eight-by-eight foot square quarters on site. Based on real events, the play exposes a modern challenge of successful African-Americans while revealing still-hidden prejudices.
ACTORS’ SUMMIT
NOBODY DON’T LIKE YOGI
Box Office: 330-342-0800
January 7-January 24
An evening with baseball legend Yogi Berra, the man who said: "I didn't really say everything I said."
PLAYHOUSE SQUARE CENTER
Box Office for all Playhouse Square Center shows: 216-241-6000
CHICAGO
Palace Theatre
January 12- 24
Broadway's hit musical, the recipient of six Tony Awards, two Olivier Awards and a Grammy, is a tale of sin, corruption and all that jazz. If you loved the Academy Award-winning film, nothing beats the live show, and if you are already intimately acquainted with the musical, experience that sizzle again.
CLEVELAND: THE MUSICAL
Hanna Theatre
January 16
Jon Leiken and Friends relate the untold story of the greatest city on the earth through speech and song. Special guests: Michelle Federer (WICKED), David Wain (THE STATE), Larry Marrow, and students from Mercer School and Shaker Heights High School. This performance a benefit for the Great Lakes Theatre Festival.
BILL T. JONES/ARNIE ZANE DANCE COMPANY
Ohio Theatre
January 30
Presented by Dance Cleveland and Cuyahoga Community College
Bill T. Jones’s newest work, FONDLY DO WE HOPE…FERVENTLY DO WE PRAY, examines the legacy of Abraham Lincoln.
VERB BALLETS
Breen Center opposite St. Ignatius High School
Tickets: 216-961-2560
January 17
Program: PETER AND THE WOLF, VESPERS, LADY BE GOOD AND SPEED
CLEVELAND PLAY HOUSE
LOST IN YONKERS
January 8-31
Tickets: 216-795-7000
Neil Simon’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning comedy which is set in Yonkers, New York, in 1942, focuses on two young brothers, Arty and Jay, left in the care of their feuding relatives, Grandma Kurnitz (played by Broadway veteran Rosemary Prinz) and Aunt Bella.
GROUNDWORKS
Groundworks at the new Breen Center
2008 W. 30th Street, Cleveland
Tickets: 216-961-2560
January 22 and 23, 2010 at 8 p.m.
Program: World Premiere of a commissioned work by choreographer Dianne McIntyre with composer Olu Dara; DELAYED by Zvi Gotheiner; POLARITY by David Shimotakahara
TRUENORTH AT FRENCH CREEK NATURE PRESERVE
THE LAST FIVE YEARS
January 8-24
4530 Colorado Avenue in Sheffield Village, Ohio
Tickets: 440-949-5200
Jason Robert Brown’s play about Jamie, who is an up-and-coming Jewish writer and Cathy an up-and coming summer stock actress. Mirroring their self-absorbed identities, Jamie and Cathy sing the story of their marriage from differing perspectives: Jamie from beginning to end, Cathy from ending to beginning. And never the two shall meet?
CLEVELAND PUBLIC THEATRE/THEATRE NINJAS
January 28 - February 13
Anna Bella Eema
Tickets: 216-631-2727 x501
Written by Lisa D'Amour
Anna Bella Eema is a dark comedy about a woman, her daughter, and a strange girl in a trailer park. Written by Obie Award Winning playwright Lisa D'Amour, it combines creepy campfire stories, music, sound and fairy tales in an original, highly stylized one-act.
