Cleveland’s Classic Theater Company Announces Ambitious 2007-08 Season
Great Lakes Theater Festival celebrates its twenty-fifth year at Playhouse Square Center in downtown Cleveland with a profound sense of optimism and a dynamic season lineup

CLEVELAND, OH – Charles Fee, Producing Artistic Director of Great Lakes Theater Festival (GLTF), announced plans for the classic theater company’s forty-sixth season on Monday, April 9th at an exclusive Season Sneak Peek event for subscribers, members and invited guests.

“These are exciting times for Great Lakes Theater Festival,” said Fee to the crowd of guests assembled at Playhouse Square Center’s Hanna Theatre for the announcement. “Twenty-five years ago, we embarked on an amazing journey when we moved from our home at Lakewood High School to the Ohio Theatre in downtown Cleveland. Working with our great partners at Playhouse Square Center, the next two and a half decades would prove to be a period of remarkable artistic and financial growth for the Festival. We are proud to set the bar in regards to the amazing things that are possible when you think creatively and work collaboratively toward your mission. And, it is absolutely essential that we continue to think dynamically – that we think boldly and change with our world in order to remain vital and relevant to our community. I am thrilled to say that Great Lakes Theater Festival stands at the brink of the next exciting leg of the journey that it began twenty-five years ago – the details of which we look forward to announcing very soon. Working together with our amazing resident company of artists, our loyal and adventurous audience, our region’s educators and students and with our great community partners like Playhouse Square Center, we look forward with optimism to the future. And this bright future begins today with the announcement of our forty-sixth season of classic theater – our twenty-fifth in downtown Cleveland - one that exemplifies the bold, ambitious artistic vision and dynamic, entrepreneurial spirit that has made this company great.”

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s 2007-08 season will run from September through April, and will feature a Fall Repertory, the Festival’s annual holiday classic A Christmas Carol and a Spring Repertory. In the fall (September 21- October 21, 2007), GLTF will present Joseph Kesselring’s great American comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, directed by veteran Festival director Drew Barr, in rotating repertory with William Shakespeare’s middle-period play, Measure for Measure, directed by Risa Brainin. GLTF’s nineteenth annual production of Charles Dickens’ holiday classic, A Christmas Carol (November 23-December 23, 2007), adapted and directed by Gerald Freedman, will be staged by GLTF Associate Artistic Director Andrew May for the third consecutive season. The Festival will conclude its 2007-08 season with a Spring Repertory (March 28-April 27, 2008) pairing Arthur Miller’s powerful American drama, The Crucible, with William Shakespeare’s rarely produced comedy, All’s Well That Ends Well. The directors of both Spring Repertory productions will be announced at a later date. All season offerings will be presented in the Ohio Theatre at Playhouse Square Center. Each repertory will run for five weeks, while the Festival’s production of A Christmas Carol will run for four weeks. (Consult the enclosed season performance calendars for complete details.)

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s unique rotating repertory format has played a key role in the theater company’s success with its audience.

“Presenting a pair of classic plays in rotating repertory is a great challenge for artists and great fun for audiences,” offered Fee in a recent conversation. “The opportunity to see a single resident company of actors perform two plays on the same stage alternating shows every few nights makes the Great Lakes Theater Festival experience a unique one in Northern Ohio. Producing plays in repertory enables audience members to ‘get to know’ the actors in our company on a much deeper level while simultaneously allowing us the opportunity to showcase the company members’ considerable talents. It is amazing to witness the actors’ transformation each night as they take the stage.”

GLTF’s Fall Repertory directing corps features faces familiar to Festival audiences. Drew Barr will celebrate his sixth consecutive season with Great Lakes Theater Festival when he returns to direct the 2007-08 season opener, Arsenic and Old Lace, after acclaimed GLTF productions of Love’s Labour’s Lost (2006), You Can’t Take It With You (2005) and The Taming of the Shrew (2004). Barr has directed in each year of Fee’s tenure at GLTF. Rounding out the Fall Repertory, Risa Brainin will direct Measure for Measure and mark her third season with the Festival. Brainin’s 2004 production of Julius Caesar at Great Lakes Theater Festival was named the Northern Ohio Live Award of Achievement winner for Theater.

The Spring Repertory at Great Lakes Theater Festival is headlined by a significant Festival event designed to serve the company’s bi-fold mission of bringing “the pleasure, power and relevance to the widest possible audience…on its main stage and through its education programs...” This will be the first time Great Lakes Theater Festival has ever produced Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

“Part of what makes this company unique is that it was founded by parents, educators and civic leaders to provide a cultural resource for their children and for future generations,” responded Fee when asked about The Crucible as a programmatic choice. “Our revolutionary education programming is one of the great hallmarks of this company. Each year, we serve over forty thousand students, at the Ohio Theatre as well as in their own classrooms and neighborhoods, from over two-hundred schools across Northern Ohio. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a very important element in the curricula of many of these students and their teachers. I think we owe it to the educators and students of this region that they experience this great work the way that it was intended…live and of the highest artistic caliber. It is a massive undertaking. But whether it is a student matinee or a public performance, I think it will be a real treat for our audience. I can’t wait to bring it to life as only Great Lakes Theater Festival can in Cleveland.”

Cleveland favorite Andrew May will take center stage as an actor this season at Great Lakes Theater Festival playing multiple roles in 2007-08. May will portray Mortimer in Arsenic and Old Lace and Angelo in Measure for Measure during the Festival’s Fall Repertory. After staging A Christmas Carol, he will undertake the role of John Proctor in The Crucible.

“Andrew is one of the primary faces of our great resident acting company and audiences absolutely adore him,” said Fee of his artistic collaborator, Associate Artistic Director Andrew May. “This will be an amazing season for Andrew and for audiences that love him. He is an actor of great range and this season will allow him the opportunity to flex the full spectrum of his artistic muscles both dramatically and as a comic actor. We are very fortunate to have him as part of our acting company.”

Based on the extraordinary success of GLTF’s introductory discount subscription campaign over the past two years, GLTF will extend its Buy One Get One Free offer on new subscription purchases through the 2007- 08 season. As part of the offer, the Festival will match every NEW subscription package purchased with one FREE subscription package of equal value.

“The response of our audience to the Buy One Get One Free subscription offer has been overwhelmingly positive and has played a considerable role in the 37% increase in subscription ticket purchases that we have experienced over the past two seasons,” said Todd Krispinsky, GLTF’s Marketing and Public Relations Director. “What is even more thrilling to us is that new subscribers are returning. Last season, over 26% of the patrons who purchased subscriptions through our Buy One Get One Free program in 2005 returned for our 2006-07 season at full price. This retention rate is a real vote of confidence for us regarding the quality of theater that we are producing at Great Lakes Theater Festival.”

“The state of Great Lakes Theater Festival is stronger than ever,” said Fee of the Festival in a recent conversation. “Over the past three seasons we [GLTF] have had enormous success in righting the Festival’s financial ‘ship.’ We now feel confident that we are poised for the future. With the support of an amazing Board of Trustees and by employing sound management, a revolutionary business model and an amazingly talented staff of administrators and artists, we have been able to post a budget surplus in each of the last four seasons, erase every dollar of this company’s $1M debt while growing our subscription ticket base by 37%. That is a truly amazing turnaround in just three seasons. The future is bright for this company. Buttressed by our artistic success and newfound financial health, I simply can’t wait to see what the next five years hold for Cleveland’s classic theater.”

Opening Night performances of Arsenic and Old Lace, Measure for Measure, The Crucible and All’s Well That Ends Well have been scheduled for Saturday evenings, while A Christmas Carol’s opening night is slated for a Friday night. 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. All five productions in the Festival’s forty-sixth season 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.)

An adult subscription to Great Lakes Theater Festival starts as low as $84. Regular priced single tickets range from $22.00 - $56.00. Student/Youth (ages 25 years or younger) tickets for any seat in the Ohio Theatre are $13.00 ($28.00 for A Christmas Carol) and are available for all performances. (Additional handling fees may apply and may vary depending on point of purchase.) Subscriptions are available now by calling (216) 664-6064. Single tickets go on sale August 20, 2007, and will be available by calling (216) 241-6000, by ordering online at www.greatlakestheater.org and by visiting the Playhouse Square Center Ticket office. Groups of ten or more receive discounts as do educators. (Consult the Tickets & Subscriptions page for complete ticketing and contact details.)

The first resident company of Playhouse Square Center, Great Lakes Theater Festival will celebrate twenty-five years in the Theatre District this season. Since 1962, the Festival has brought the pleasure, power and relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience in Northern Ohio.