ON STAGE

Theater in Northeast Ohio with Tony Brown

'A Christmas Story' gets needed fresh take at Cleveland Play House

by Tony Brown / Plain Dealer Theater Critic

Tuesday December 02, 2008, 6:48 PM

Peter Jennings

Ralphie (Kolin Morgenstern, left), Mother (Elizabeth Townsend) and the Old Man (Chuck Kartali) stand in various states of awe in front of the iconic leg lamp in the Cleveland Play House's "A Christmas Story."

REVIEW
"A Christmas Story"
What: The Cleveland Play House presents the play by Philip Grecian, adapted from the Warner Bros. movie and stories by Jean Shepherd.
When: Through Sunday, Dec. 21. Performance schedule at www.clevelandplayhouse.com.
Where: Bolton Theatre at the Play House, 8500 Euclid Ave.
Tickets: Range from $49 to $59; discounts available. Call 216-795-7000.

Maybe it is just me. Maybe I was in some kind of neurotic holiday funk, and for reasons inexplicable, I didn't care that much for last year's two marquee holiday treats at area theaters.

And maybe, for reasons equally inexplicable (except to those with whom I may gab over drinks), I'm as bubbly and sweet this fall as a bottle of cheap champagne.

But maybe, just maybe, the Cleveland Play House and Great Lakes Theater Festival figured out that to keep long-running Christmas plays fresh, you gotta freshen 'em up once in awhile, and at the same time not screw up the essentials that make them so popular.

So it is with a glad heart that, a day after praising the revivification of "A Christmas Carol," now in its 20th year at Great Lakes, I can say the same thing about the Play House's fourth annual iteration of "A Christmas Story," which officially opens Wednesday night.

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Ctix kicks bucket, but cheap seats still plentiful at Cleveland-area performing arts venues

by Tony Brown/Plain Dealer Theater Critic

Monday December 01, 2008, 7:20 PM

James A. Ross

Just when you'd think we need it most, Cleveland's central discount ticket vendor for performing arts events died Monday.

The good new is, there are more tickets at more deeply discounted prices than when Ctix launched seven years ago.

In fact, that's the main reason Ctix went out of business, Positively Cleveland spokeswoman Tamera Brown said.

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Apocalypse soon: 'Boom' detonates laughs at Cleveland Public Theatre's Levin Theatre

by Tony Brown/Plain Dealer Theater Critic

Sunday November 30, 2008, 5:32 PM

CPTIt's survival of the fittest as Jo (Laurel Johnson) dominates Jules (Doug Snyder) in Cleveland Public Theatre's "Boom."

REVIEW

Boom

When: Through Saturday, Dec. 20. Per formances at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays.
Where: Cleveland Public Theatre's Levin Theatre, 6415 Detroit Ave.
Tickets: $10-$20 per person. (Cabaret table seating, $20 per party.) 216-631-2727, or www.cptonline.org.
Warning: Copious F-bombs.

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Apocalypse ensues.

The theory of recapitulation constitutes the punch line to one of the tsunami of sophisticated jokes that makes "Boom," which opened over the weekend at Cleveland Public Theatre, both the funniest play seen hereabouts this season and one of the most thoughtful.

That three-word theory also exemplifies what makes this comedy so darn good. It's a funny line, prima-facie, coming out of the mouth of a gay marine biologist whose Craigslist ad for casual sex has been answered by a female journalism student on an assignment.

But it's even funnier if you know about German zoologist Ernst Haeckel's 1866 theory that the embryonic development of an individual organism (ontogeny) follows its species' evolutionary history (phylogeny).

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Videos: 'A Christmas Story' at the Cleveland Play House and 'A Christmas Carol' at Great Lakes Theater Festival

by Tony Brown/Plain Dealer Theater Critic

Wednesday November 26, 2008, 6:04 PM

As we sign off from the old theater desk for a day of feasting and giving thanks before the deluge of Christmas-related plays that cranks up on Friday, here are vidoes of the Cleveland area's two franchise theatrical enterainments.

This one is last year's video from the Cleveland Play House's "A Christmas Story," with commentary from director Seth Gordon. Note that several key roles have been recast this year, the fourth annual rendition. For more information on tickets and performance times, click here.

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And this one is more or less of a TV commercial using still photos from past years' versions of "A Christmas Carol" at Great Lakes Theater Festival as well as some promotional images. The 20th annual version will have one big cast change: Aled Davies takes over the role of Ebenezer Scrooge after Dudley Swetland's 12-year run in the part. For ticketing and times, click here.

Enjoy, and happy holiday. See you on the other side.

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PlayhouseSquare dims its marquee lights downtown for Gerald Schoenfeld

by Tony Brown/Plain Dealer Theater Critic

Tuesday November 25, 2008, 11:38 PM

Associated PressGerald Schoenfeld, holding court in the Shubert Theatre in New York in 2001, linked the early 19th century birth of the American theater and what it became in the 21st.

PlayhouseSquare dimmed the lights on the marquees of its historic theaters in downtown
Cleveland Tuesday night in memory of Gerald Schoenfeld, the powerful theater impresario who died early Tuesday morning in his Manhattan apartment. He was 84.

Since 1972, Schoenfeld had been chairman of the Shubert Organization, the largest and most important theater owner on Broadway and in the United States.

Schoenfeld was one of the most influential figures in the American theater, as head both of the Shubert Organization and the nonprofit Shubert Foundation -- a role he shared with Bernard B. Jacobs, who died in 1996.

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Video: Cassidy Theatre's 'Scrooge' is a 'Christmas Carol' alternative

by Tony Brown/Plain Dealer Theater Critic

Tuesday November 25, 2008, 8:20 AM

Now comes Cleveland area community theater videographer Geoff Short to remind us that Great Lakes Theater Festival's "A Christmas Carol" might be the biggest adaptation around of Charles Dickens' classic tale of redemption, but hardly the one and only.

His witness: Parma Heights' Cassidy Theatre and its production of the Leslie Bricusse musical version, "Scrooge," a stage adaptation of Bricusse's 1970 Albert Finney film.

At Cassidy, Lester Currie directs and choreographs while Kira Seaton handles the music direction and Alex Nalbach plays Ebenezer Scrooge.

It opens Friday and runs through Dec. 21 at 6200 Pearl Road, Parma Heights. Performances are at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $15-$20. Call 440-842-4600, or simply click here.

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Selected holiday theater offerings in Cleveland

by Tony Brown/Plain Dealer Theater Critic

Sunday November 23, 2008, 5:19 PM

Aled Davies

Aled Davies, as he appears offstage, will be the new Scrooge this year in Great Lakes Theater Festival's "A Christmas Carol."

The holiday titles at the area's two major regional theaters remain the same: the Cleveland Play House's "A Christmas Story" and Great Lakes Theater Festival's "A Christmas Carol."

But new leading men take over beginning Friday.

The big news at Great Lakes' 20th-anniversary edition of Gerald Freedman's adaptation of Charles Dickens' story is that Dudley Swetland's 12-year run as Cleveland's leading Ebenezer Scrooge has ended.

This year, GLTF company member Aled Davies will become only the fourth actor to play the "Bah, humbug" role in the production's two decades.

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