The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)
Performed in repertory with The Taming of the Shrew
July 16 – August 22, 2004
By Adam Long, Daniel Singer & Jess Winfield • Directed by Charles Fee

Press Release

Great Lakes Theater Festival Opens 2004 Season With A New Summer Repertory

June 16, 2004
GLTF kicks off 43rd season with productions of The Taming of the Shrew and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) performed in rotating repertory.

CLEVELAND, OH – Great Lakes Theater Festival (GLTF) opens its 43rd season with a new Summer Repertory that features William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and Adam Long, Daniel Singer, Jess Winfield’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). The productions will be performed in rotating repertory at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center, July 16 – August 22, 2004. The Summer Repertory event features a single company of eighteen actors performing two plays in alternation on the same stage over six weeks. Drew Barr will direct The Taming of the Shrew and GLTF’s Producing Artistic Director, Charles Fee, will direct The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). This season marks the first time since 1990 that Great Lakes Theater Festival has produced theater in the summertime.

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s 43rd season is sponsored by National City Bank and Armada Funds. Media sponsors for the Festival’s 2004 season are WCPN 90.3 ideastream, WKYC Channel 3 and The Free Times. The Taming of the Shrew is presented with additional generous support from the Kulas Foundation. Production sponsors for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) are Jones Day and Voice-Pro, Inc.

“We couldn’t be more excited to return to producing theater in the summer,” said Charles Fee, the director of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) and GLTF’s Producing Artistic Director. “It is the foundation on which this company was built, and it will be the springboard for our success in the future. The Theater District is a truly exciting part of downtown Cleveland. With sidewalk dining, street performers and great live theater there is simply no place like it in Cleveland during the summertime. We are absolutely thrilled that this year Shakespeare and our gifted acting company will be at the center of the celebration.”

“Performing two plays in rotating repertory is an absolute blast,” continued Fee. “The opportunity to see a single acting company perform two plays on the same stage makes the Great Lakes Theater Festival experience a unique one in Northern Ohio.” Drew Barr, the director of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)’s counterpart The Taming of the Shrew echoed Mr. Fee’s sentiments. “I think performing plays in rotating repertory is exciting because it gets down to what is essential to the theater,” said Barr. “It reminds the audience and the actor that this event happens anew every night. Both of these texts are very demanding, so for an actor, rehearsing and performing in repertory is like training for a marathon. But that said, the rehearsals are quite a lot of fun. It is an interesting dichotomy, really, because the challenge is always very present.”

In William Shakespeare’s classic comedy The Taming of the Shrew, a wealthy Paduan merchant named Baptista is the patriarch of two daughters: the gentle, lovable Bianca, and the razor-tongued Katherina. Because of Katherina’s shrewish disposition, Baptista declares that no one shall wed Bianca until such time as the elder Katherina has found a husband. Bianca’s disappointed suitors find hope for their difficult situation with the arrival of the boorish Petruchio who announces his willingness to marry any woman with a large enough dowry. Bianca’s dilemma seems to be solved. But is it possible that Petruchio has met his match in the wild Kate? Marriage, money and mayhem take center stage in Shakespeare’s uproarious battle of the sexes, The Taming of the Shrew. It’s a clash of wits and wills as fortune-hunting Petruchio drags quick-tempered Kate to the altar to become the wife she never imagined she’d be. Will love tame a shrewish heart?

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) leads audiences on an irreverent, fast-paced romp through the Bard’s entire canon. Three male actors, clad in Converse tennis shoes and Elizabethan pumpkin pants, cram all thirty-seven of William Shakespeare’s plays into two acts and send the Bard rolling in his grave. The comedy written by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield is a high-speed, roller coaster condensation of all that is Shakespeare. Patrons are advised to keep their hands and feet inside the theater at all times as seat belts will NOT be installed in the theater for the production. In addition, audience members are asked to remain seated until the laughter has come to a complete stop.

GLTF’s Summer Repertory features a single company of eighteen actors performing roles in both plays. “Top to bottom, this is an absolutely outstanding classical company of actors,” said Charles Fee of his repertory ensemble. “To the person, this cast is experienced, skilled and very, very talented. To have them all together on one stage is a real privilege.”

Cleveland actors Andrew May and Laura Perrotta assume the leading roles of Petruchio and Katherina in GLTF’s production of The Taming of the Shrew. A Cleveland Heights native, Mr. May is currently the Associate Artistic Director for Great Lakes Theater Festival and most recently played the role of Elyot in GLTF’s 2004 production of Private Lives. During last season, he was also a member of the A Christmas Carol, Hamlet and Tartuffe casts. Mr. May made his debut with the Festival in 2003 as Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He has performed at various theatres across the country, including The Cleveland Play House (where he was seen in over twenty-three productions) and the Milwaukee Repertory Company (where he performed in over twenty-two productions). A winner of Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Award for acting, Mr. May was also artistic director of Chicago’s Free Shakespeare Company. Another Cleveland Heights native, Laura Perrotta shared the spotlight with Mr. May in last season’s Private Lives. Ms. Perrotta’s 2003-2004 Great Lakes Theater Festival credits include Gertrude in Hamlet, Dorine in Tartuffe and Mother Cleaveland in A Christmas Carol. Ms. Perrotta has performed in Great Lakes Theater Festival productions of Arms and the Man, Gypsy, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and The Wild Duck. She has been seen on stage at various theaters throughout the country, ranging from The Cleveland Play House to The Acting Company in New York.

Actors Lynn Robert Berg, Jeffrey C. Hawkins and M.A. Taylor comprise the three man cast for GLTF’s production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). Lynn Robert Berg was last seen at Great Lakes Theater Festival in the Festival’s fifteenth anniversary production of A Christmas Carol. He made his Festival debut in 2003 as Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mr. Berg has worked at the Maine Shakespeare Festival and has been a member of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival acting company for six seasons. As a member of GLTF’s Summer Repertory company, he will also portray the role of Hortensio in The Taming of the Shrew. Jeffrey C. Hawkins returns to the Great Lakes Theater Festival stage after having recently portrayed Scrooge’s effervescent Nephew Fred in A Christmas Carol, Barnardo in Hamlet and Valère in Tartuffe last season. Like Berg, he made his debut with the Festival in 2003 with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A company member at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival for the last seven seasons, Mr. Hawkins’ other regional credits include work with the PCPA Theaterfest, Phoenix Theatre, Feast of Fools and the Guthrie Theater Lab. In GLTF’s production of The Taming of the Shrew, he will assume the role of Tranio. M.A. Taylor returns to Great Lakes Theater Festival after making his debut in the Festival’s 2003 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He received his undergrad training at the University of Utah and recently completed MFA studies at the University of Delaware’s Professional Theater Training Program. Mr. Taylor has also worked with the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival and has been a company member of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival for ten seasons. In The Taming of the Shrew he will play the role of Grumio.

The Summer Repertory acting company features the return of many Great Lakes Theater Festival veterans. Scott Plate, a ten-year resident of Cleveland who has been seen in Great Lakes Theater Festival productions of Hamlet, Tartuffe, Private Lives, A Christmas Carol, Travels With My Aunt, Antony and Cleopatra and Twelfth Night, will play the role of Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew. Derdriu Ring, familiar to Cleveland audiences for her work with The Cleveland Play House (Proof, The Dinner Party, Far Away, etc), Dobama Theatre (Amy’s View, etc.) and Great Lakes Theater Festival (A Moon for the Misbegotten), returns to the Festival stage to play the role of Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew. A cast member of the recent, acclaimed, Cleveland Public Theatre/Great Lakes Theater Festival production of Nickel and Dimed, George Roth will assume the role of Pedant in The Taming of the Shrew. Dudley Swetland, star of GLTF’s annual production of A Christmas Carol in the role of Ebeneezer Scrooge, will tackle the role of Baptista. Actor Wayne S. Turney will return to the GLTF stage to portray Gremio in The Taming of the Shrew. At the Festival, Mr Turney most recently played the dual roles of Polonius and M. Loyal in last season’s Fall Repertory productions of Hamlet and Tartuffe.

Eight members of the Summer Repertory acting company are making their debut with Great Lakes Theater Festival. Mark Alan Gordon, the Associate Director of the Cleveland Play House/Case Western Reserve University Theatre Program will assume the role of Vincentio in The Taming of the Shrew. An actor, teacher, and director, Mr. Gordon began his professional life as an intern with Great Lakes Theater Festival under the artistic leadership of Vincent Dowling and Gerald Freedman. He is a founding member of NYC’s Signature Theatre Company (having assisted Michael Kahn in the direction of the Obie-Award winning Sleep Deprivation Chamber by Adrienne Kennedy), was the Artistic Director of the Champlain Shakespeare Festival from 1986 to 1989 and has worked on more than two-hundred regional theater productions. Ronald Thomas Wilson, the Katherine Bakeless Nason Professor of Theater and Department Chair of the Case Western Reserve Theater Department, will take on the role of the Tailor in The Taming of the Shrew. The founder and artistic director of The Actors’ Mime Theater (1976-78), Professor Wilson has worked as an actor, director, playwright, and teacher for nearly three decades. In addition to his work at CWRU, he has taught acting, playwriting, screenwriting, production movement, and fight choreography at institutions of higher learning such as Ohio University and Cornell University. Nicholas Koesters will assume the role of Biondello in The Taming of the Shrew. Mr. Koesters has collaborated with a host of arts organizations across Northern Ohio including Bad Epitaph Theater Company, The Cleveland Play House, Porthouse Theater and, most recently, Playhouse Square Center in the recent production of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. Other actors in the Summer Repertory company that will make their debut with the Festival include: Meg Chamberlain (Widow), Nathan Gurr (Ensemble), Joshua McKay (Curtis), Lelund Thompson (Ensemble), and Tom Weaver (Ensemble).

The artistic team for the Great Lakes Theater Festival Summer Repertory is comprised of Stan Kozak, Rick Martin, Narelle Sissons, Kim Krumm Sorenson, Peter John Still, Gage Williams and Charlotte Yetman. Narelle Sissons will design scenery for the Festival’s production of The Taming of the Shrew while Gage Williams will handle scenic design responsibilities for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). Costume designer Kim Krumm Sorenson, who designed the costumes for GLTF’s productions of Much Ado About Nothing and Tartuffe, will create the clothing for The Taming of the Shrew, and Charlotte Yetman, who provided the costume design for Private Lives, will design costumes for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). Lighting Designer Rick Martin will supply designs for both productions in the repertory. Sound design duties for the Summer Repertory will be split between Stan Kozak (The Taming of the Shrew) and Peter John Still (The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)).

Drew Barr will direct GLTF’s season opening production of The Taming of the Shrew. Mr. Barr returns to Great Lakes Theater Festival after directing critically acclaimed productions of Tartuffe (2003) and Much Ado About Nothing (2002) for the Festival. Mr. Barr has also worked extensively with the Idaho Shakespeare Festival (ISF). Previously for the ISF, Drew directed The Fantasticks, Much Ado About Nothing and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Other recent credits include Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession for NYU’s Graduate Acting Program and Donald Margulies’ Dinner With Friends for PlayMakers Repertory Company, where Drew is an artistic associate and where he has directed productions of Wit, Side Man and Violet. Barr has worked for a host of arts organizations across the country including: Portland Stage Company in Maine, and the University of Washington’s School of Drama. His New York credits include Off-Broadway premieres of Adam Bock’s The Typographer’s Dream (Clubbed Thumb at HERE) and Steve Murray’s This Passion Thing (The Working Group at MCC), revivals of Harry Kondoleon’s Christmas On Mars and Self-Torture and Strenuous Exercise (Producers Club Theater), a workshop of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a grown-up version of A.A. Milne’s play for children The Ugly Duckling (both for the Lincoln Center Theater Director’s Lab). He has directed for New York Stage and Film, the HB Playwright’s Foundation, P-73 Productions, the West Bank Café Theater and the Young Playwrights Festival. Drew received his BA from Stanford University and his MFA from the Graduate Acting Program of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Charles Fee will direct The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). Fee, GLTF’s Producing Artistic Director, joined Great Lakes Theater Festival in July, 2002. During his first two seasons with the Festival, he directed acclaimed productions of Arms and the Man, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (nominated for a Northern Ohio Live Award of Achievement) and Hamlet. He has strengthened the Festival’s partnership with Playhouse Square Center Foundation, setting in motion plans for this season’s Summer Repertory. Mr. Fee is also the Producing Artistic Director for the Idaho Shakespeare Festival (ISF), a position he has held since December, 1991. For the five years prior to joining the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Charlie held the position of Artistic Director at the Sierra Repertory Theatre in northern California. He has worked with such companies as The Old Globe Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, the Milwaukee and Missouri Repertory Theaters, Actor’s Theatre of Phoenix and the Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival. He received his Bachelors degree from the University of the Pacific and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of California, San Diego.

A new feature of the Festival’s upcoming Summer Repertory is a free, nightly, outdoor event on Euclid Avenue, just outside the Ohio Theatre, called The Queen’s Arrival that will commence one half hour before each GLTF performance. “The Queen’s Arrival was conceived in the Green Show tradition that has long been a popular part of summer Shakespeare festivals across the country. We are excited to introduce the concept to Cleveland,” said GLTF Associate Artistic Director Andrew May. “We were very interested in how the concept might work in an urban, downtown setting. The event is free, interactive and family friendly. It will feature the arrival of Queen Elizabeth I in a horse-drawn carriage and will be a great way to kick off your evening downtown, whether or not you are coming to the show. We hope that you will join us for the festivities.” The Queen’s Arrival is one of many initiatives born from the Festival’s work with the Leadership Cleveland Class of 2004 focus group.

“2004 is an exciting time for Great Lakes Theater Festival. We have really reinvented this institution from the ground up,” said Fee of the Festival. “Of all the changes that we have made, I think the thing that is most exciting to me is to have been able to renew our commitment as an organization to the idea of company. On an artistic level, on an administrative level and in our work throughout this vibrant community, the idea of company has and will continue to yield great results for the Festival. I look forward to the opportunity to produce another amazing season of great, classic theater in collaboration with this talented ensemble.”

Fee confirmed that Opening Night performances of The Taming of the Shrew and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) have been scheduled for Saturday evenings with preview performances of both productions scheduled for Friday nights. Performance calendars for the 2004 season have been expanded to include Wednesday evening performances. Curtain times for all evening performances will remain at 7:30 p.m., with a 1:30 p.m. curtain time for Saturday matinees and a 3:00 p.m. curtain time for Sunday matinees. The Sunday, August 8th curtain time for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) has been adjusted to 7:00 p.m. to accommodate other events at Playhouse Square Center. Both productions in GLTF’s Summer Repertory will continue to offer sign interpreted and audio described performances as well as the popular Director’s Night and Playnotes pre-show discussion series. (Consult the season performance calendars for complete details.)

Single tickets for the summer repertory productions range in price from $20-$45 and are available by calling (216) 241-6000, by ordering online, by visiting the Playhouse Square Center Box office or any Tickets.com outlet located within all Tops Friendly Markets. Groups of ten or more receive discounts as do educators and students. (Consult the information sheet for complete ticketing and contact details.)

Since 1962, Great Lakes Theater Festival has brought the pleasure, power and relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience in Northern Ohio.

Reviews

The Plain Dealer
Monday, August 02, 2004
3 Zanies Tackle Bard Spoof in High-Tops, and Win
By Tony Brown

An impassioned Romeo, trying to talk Juliet into forgetting that his last name is Montague, says, "Call me but love, and I'll be new baptiz'd."

In Great Lakes Theater Festival's "The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)," however, the line comes out a little differently: "Just call me butt-love."

That is but one of many, many, many laugh lines to be had over 2½ hours in the Ohio Theatre at Playhouse Square, where the latest version of the Bard spoof opened over the weekend.

"Compleat Works" was written more than a decade ago by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield, members of the RSC the Reduced Shakespeare Company.

At Great Lakes, the show remains true to its origins as an absurdly fast-paced romp through all 37 of Shakespeare's plays (and sonnets) by three tirelessly zany actors wearing extremely large codpieces and Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star high-tops.

Julia Child leads a cooking-show rendition of "Titus Androgynous." A crown-passing football game ("the quarterback passes to the hunchback") stands in for the history plays, with King Lear penalized for being a fictional character.

Shakespeare's 17 comedies, criticized for being similar (with their identical twins, shipwrecks, cross-dressing, mistaken identities and classical roots), get reduced to one.

And "Hamlet" is performed, with lots of audience participation, not once but four times: fast, faster, fastest and, in a flabbergasting encore, backward.

But "Compleat Works" has always been a malleable work-in-progress with topical jokes that are meant to be updated by its director (Charles Fee, Great Lakes artistic director) and its actors: Lynn Robert Berg (our bald, friendly narrator), Jeffrey C. Hawkins (the intense intellectual) and M.A. Taylor (the bearded nonconformist).

This team leaves a highly political stamp on the show (it leans left, but a few gibes hit at the recently completed Democratic National Convention).

The aesthetic is heavily influenced by motion pictures, with slick references to everything from "The Deer Hunter" and "The Lord of the Rings" to Alfred Hitchcock (both "North by Northwest" and "Psycho") and "Harry Potter."

Fee and his performers also add a prologue of sorts, with Berg as a persnickety Red Coat (a Playhouse Square usher), Hawkins as a learned Shakespeare scholar and Taylor as a rowdy, rule-breaking member of the audience. (You might also bump into the three actors in the lobby or men's room before the show; watch for the telltale sneakers.)

This warm-up has its charms, including several opportunities for Cleveland-specific humor. But it also tends to overinflate the show, which ran just under two hours when performed by the RSC.

The prologue and the first few minutes of the play proper sometimes felt a little forced at Friday night's preview (though that may have been a function of the actors trying out the routines in front of an audience for the very first time). The comedy didn't start flowing freely until well into the first act.

But once it does, it flows in a torrent that you cannot but love.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:tbrown@plaind.com 216-999-4181  © 2004 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.

Photos

Lynn Robert Berg (left), M.A. Taylor (center) and Jeffrey C. Hawkins (right) star in the Great Lakes Theater Festival production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). The production runs in rotating repertory with The Taming of the Shrew through August 22 at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photo by Roger Mastroianni		Lynn Robert Berg (left), Jeffrey C. Hawkins (center) and M.A. Taylor (right) star in the Great Lakes Theater Festival production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). The production runs in rotating repertory with The Taming of the Shrew through August 22 at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photo by Roger Mastroianni
Lynn Robert Berg (left), M.A. Taylor (center) and Jeffrey C. Hawkins (right) star in the Great Lakes Theater Festival production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). The production runs in rotating repertory with The Taming of the Shrew through August 22 at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photo by Roger Mastroianni
Lynn Robert Berg (left), Jeffrey C. Hawkins (center) and M.A. Taylor (right) star in the Great Lakes Theater Festival production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). The production runs in rotating repertory with The Taming of the Shrew through August 22 at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photo by Roger Mastroianni		Lynn Robert Berg (left), Jeffrey C. Hawkins (center) and M.A. Taylor (right) star in the Great Lakes Theater Festival production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). The production runs in rotating repertory with The Taming of the Shrew through August 22 at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photo by Roger Mastroianni
Lynn Robert Berg (left), M.A. Taylor (center) and Jeffrey C. Hawkins (right) star in the Great Lakes Theater Festival production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). The production runs in rotating repertory with The Taming of the Shrew through August 22 at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photo by Roger Mastroianni		Lynn Robert Berg (left), M.A. Taylor (center) and Jeffrey C. Hawkins (right) star in the Great Lakes Theater Festival production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). The production runs in rotating repertory with The Taming of the Shrew through August 22 at the Ohio Theatre, Playhouse Square Center. Photo by Roger Mastroianni