A World Premiere Adaption of Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary Tours to Twenty-One Venues Across NE Ohio
Great Lakes Theater (GLT) will launch the world premiere of THE SECRET ADVERSARY, a free touring production scheduled to visit twenty-one neighborhood venues throughout northeast Ohio, to kick off the company’s 2016 series of Surround outreachprogramming. The one-act play is an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel The Secret Adversary, written by David Hansen, GLT Education Outreach Associate and directed by GLT Director of Educational Programming Lisa Ortenzi, and features a touring company of five actors. Thetour commences on February 16th, continues through March 10th and isdesigned to support Great Lakes Theater’s upcoming mainstage production of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None at the Hanna Theatre, Playhouse Square which opens in February. All performances of the touring production are free and open to the public, with the exception of performances at area schools, which are private.
Great Lakes Theater and the company’s 2016 series of Surround programming, which includes The Secret Adversary, is supported by the residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, the GAR Foundation and the Nord Family Foundation. Generous season support is also provided by The Cleveland Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council.
“What an amazing opportunity we have here at Great Lakes Theater to bring live, free professional theater into the community in the form of our educational outreach tours,” said Lisa Ortenzi, GLT Director of Educational Programming about the company’s annual tour. “For over 25 years, our touring productions have created meaningful dialogues with audiences at high schools, assisted living facilities, local community theaters and libraries across northeast Ohio. We look forward to engaging audiences in the theatrical process again this year. We are grateful to the many generous supporters who make this work possible and enable us to fulfill our mission while reaching out to the community.”
Who is the “secret adversary”? For her second novel, Agatha Christie created the youthful, jazz-era characters, Thomas Beresford and Prudence “Tuppence” Crowley. Down on their luck, Tommy and Tuppence decide to become adventurers for hire and swiftly find themselves in an international plot to bring down the British government. Time is not on their side as they work to uncover the mysterious “Mister Brown.”
The five-actor touring company features Cleveland actors Ray Caspio, Deborah Cluts, James Rankin, Brittni Shambaugh, and Devon Turchan.Lisa Ortenzi, Great Lakes Theater’s Director of Educational Programming, directs the production. The design trio of Terry Martin (scenic design), Esther Haberlen (costume design) and Richard Ingraham (sound design)complete the play’s creative team.
THE SECRET ADVERSARY is an eighty-minute program that includes an introduction andpost-performance discussion. Times and dates are subject to change. Call individual venues for more information.
THE SECRET ADVERSARY is part of a series of community outreach programs that surrounds Great Lakes Theater’s mainstage productions of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (Feb 26 – March 20, 2016) and William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost (April 8 – 24, 2016) at the Hanna Theatre, Playhouse Square. Great Lakes Theater’s spring Surround offers multiple educational programs designed to connect the issues in the plays that Cleveland’s classic company produces to the issues in people’s own lives. All Surround events are free and open to the public.
Posted on:
January 16, 2016
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