Great Lakes Theater Festival Names New Artistic Director

June 5, 2002
New Leader Holds Joint Appointment with Idaho Shakespeare Festival

Cleveland, OH – Great Lakes Theater Festival (GLTF) announced today that Charles Fee, artistic director of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival (ISF), has been selected as the Cleveland theater’s new producing artistic director. Mr. Fee will continue to direct and manage the 2002 summer season for the Idaho Shakespeare Festival before assuming the leadership of the 2002-03 fall/spring season at Great Lakes.

“I am absolutely thrilled to be joining Great Lakes Theater Festival,” Mr.Fee stated. “Great Lakes’ mission, programming and season schedule are a perfect match with the work we are doing at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. This may be the beginning of a revolution in the way we structure classical companies and produce theater in America. Our goal is to create the next generation of year-round, resident theater companies – with artists trained in, passionate about, and committed to creating exhilarating and accessible, productions of Shakespeare – while continuing to develop a body of work steeped in the traditions of American musical theater, and the dramatic literature of the classics. We want a company capable of performing Pericles on Tuesday night, Pygmalion on Thursday and My Fair Lady over the weekend,” he added. “The Board of Trustees, for both companies, must be applauded for their vision and courage throughout this process. The Board of Great Lakes and staff are an amazing team – absolutely clear about their vision for the company and utterly passionate about theater in Cleveland.”

David Porter, President of GLTF’s Board and member of its search committee, expressed great satisfaction with the appointment. “We conducted a comprehensive search and talked with many incredibly dynamic candidates during our process,” Mr. Porter said. “Charles Fee will mount great theater on the Ohio Theatre stage, and provide strong internal artistic and executive leadership. Charles’ passion for classic theater and his devotion to a strong classic theater education program is a perfect match with our mission of bringing the pleasure, power and relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience in Northeast Ohio. James Bundy has been a fantastic leader for Great Lakes and for Cleveland’s arts community; Charles’ tremendous success with the Idaho Shakespeare Festival gives us another proven leader. I am sure Charlie will be a powerful voice for the future of theater and the performing arts in Northern Ohio.”

Dianne H. Robertson, President of the Trustees/Directors for ISF commented, “The Idaho Shakespeare Festival Board of Directors is delighted with the appointment of Charles Fee as producing artistic director to Great Lakes Theater Festival, and with Charles’ continuance as artistic director of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. After eleven years of outstanding leadership, that saw the rapid growth of Festival programs, audiences and renown, we know that Charles will be a wonderful asset bringing great management, artistic excellence and innovative ideas to Great Lakes Theater Festival. We look forward to a unique collaborative relationship with Great Lakes, and to the many opportunities that Charles will have to further develop professionally and artistically.”

Charles Fee joined the Idaho Shakespeare Festival as artistic director in December of 1991. Over the past eleven years, Mr. Fee has directed more than thirteen productions for the Festival’s main season which include plays by William Shakespeare, Molière, Noel Coward and George Bernard Shaw. Significant titles for ISF include Macbeth, Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Tartuffe, Private Lives, and Arms And The Man. Under his tenure, the Idaho Shakespeare Festival merged with Idaho Theater for Youth forming the state’s largest educational outreach program with school tours, apprenticeships, residencies and drama training programs that annually reach more than 60,000 students ages K-12. In 1996, the Festival initiated a campaign to build a permanent home under the leadership of Mr. Fee: The Idaho Shakespeare Festival Amphitheater & Reserve is a state-of-the-art outdoor theater situated along the bank of the Boise River. In 2002, the Festival will celebrate twenty-six seasons in Idaho. Attendance for the Festival has more than doubled under Mr. Fee’s leadership, with estimated attendance for the 2002 season at 50,000. Charles previously held the position of artistic director at the Sierra Repertory Theatre in northern California from 1988 to 1992, and has worked with such companies as the Old Globe Theatres, La Jolla Playhouse, the Milwaukee and Missouri Repertory Theaters, Actors Theatre of Phoenix, and the Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival.

In addition to his work with the Festival, Mr. Fee holds a faculty position in theater arts at Boise State University, and is active within the community where he has served as a member of the strategic planning committee for the Morrison Center, as producer of the FUNDSY Award Gala and as producer of the 1996 Governor’s Awards in the Arts. He received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of the Pacific and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of California, San Diego. The Idaho Shakespeare Festival traces its origins to 1977 when a group of actors rallied their talents to stage a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at an outdoor restaurant in downtown Boise. The Festival initiated a campaign to build a permanent home in 1996. Today, the Festival is a world-class, outdoor Amphitheater set along the banks of the Boise River. Against the backdrop of the Boise foothills, the Festival produces the works of William Shakespeare and other classical playwrights to audiences who come from across the Treasure Valley, the State and the region. Recognized as Idaho’s premier professional repertory company, the Festival works in partnership with the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation, the Idaho Foundation for Parks & Lands, and with corporate, individual and foundation partners. The Festival is an integral part of the Treasure Valley and the Idaho cultural and economic community.

The Idaho Shakespeare Festival’s 2002 season, which runs from June 7 through September 28, includes Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night and Macbeth all by William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw’s Arms And The Man and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown based on the comic strip by Charles M. Schulz, book, music and lyrics by Clark Gesner.

Great Lakes Theater Festival is a professional, resident, non-profit theater that’s a constituent organization of Playhouse Square. Since its formation in 1961, the theater’s mission has been to bring the pleasure, power and relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience in northern Ohio. GLTF creates five mainstage productions in each season, which runs from October through May, performing in the Ohio Theatre in downtown Cleveland. Additionally, GLTF generates the largest theater education program in the state of Ohio, including a school residency program, student matinees and community outreach programs.

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s upcoming season, announced in March, includes Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Anything Goes, music and lyrics by Cole Porter with book by Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, Athol Fugard’s “Master Harold”…and the Boys and a Director’s Choice, slotted for the end of the 2002-03 season.

Mr. Fee follows James Bundy as artistic director of GLTF. In October 2001, Mr. Bundy was named the Dean of the Yale School of Drama and Artistic Director of the Yale Repertory Theatre. Mr. Fee is GLTF’s sixth artistic director, following in the footsteps of Arthur Lithgow, Lawrence Carra, Vincent Dowling, Gerald Freedman and Mr. Bundy. Mr. Fee and his wife, Lidia, who teaches at Boise State University, are the proud parents of 7-year-old Alexa Elisabetta Fee.