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Carousel Dinner Theatre unlikely to have cash for ticket refunds
by
Tony Brown / Plain Dealer Theater Critic
Monday January 05, 2009, 6:34 PM
Carousel Dinner Theatre owner Joe Palmer on Monday posted a statement on the Akron's venue's Web site about the possible ways customers could try to get refunds for season tickets to the canceled 2009 lineup.If you used a credit card to buy a season ticket to Carousel Dinner Theatre's canceled 2009 season, you might be able to get a refund.
If you paid with a debit card, your chances are slimmer, but it's probably worth a shot to contact your bank. But if you paid by cash or check, it looks like you'll be stuck with a bad investment.
Carousel owners Joe Palmer and David Slaght on Monday did not return telephone messages and e-mails asking for details about the sequence of financial events that led, over the weekend, to the demise of the 800-seat Akron restaurant and theater.
But Palmer, who formally announced the theater's closing in a curtain speech at Saturday night's final, sold-out performance of "All Shook Up," posted a statement on the Carousel's Web site, www.carouseldinnertheatre.com.
Continue reading "Carousel Dinner Theatre unlikely to have cash for ticket refunds" »
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Tough times call for hard sell from Cleveland-area theaters
by
Tony Brown/Plain Dealer Theater Critic
Monday January 05, 2009, 6:54 AM
Cleveland-area theaters are trying hard to avoid going the way of Akron's Carousel Dinner Theatre -- out of business -- by working hard at selling tickets.They're shocked by the sudden demise of Akron's Carousel Dinner Theatre, and they're stinging from 20 percent drops in ticket sales for popular holiday shows.
But instead of panicking, Cleveland-area theaters are taking precautionary measures to stay alive and well:
• The Cleveland Play House will reduce its main stage offerings from nine shows this season to seven shows this coming season, the first time in decades that number has fallen below eight.
• Cleveland Public Theatre will postpone a world premiere of a locally written play to save on the heating bill.
• And PlayhouseSquare and the producers of next week's touring Broadway show, "Frost/Nixon" starring Stacy Keach, have discounted tickets a whopping 55 percent to $25.
Akron's Carousel Dinner Theatre has its final performance
by
Tony Brown/Plain Dealer Theater Critic
Saturday January 03, 2009, 11:12 PM
The marquee of Northeast Ohio's last dinner theater glows Saturday, welcoming a sold-out crowd to the theater's last show -- "All Shook Up." The owners of Akron's Carousel Dinner Theatre announced the theater's demise Friday on the business's Web site, saying the economy had hurt ticket sales.UPDATED at 2:45 a.m.
AKRON -- We came not to bury Carousel Dinner Theatre, but to enjoy ourselves one last time at the country's biggest beef-and-Broadway operation.
We came down Interstate 77 and across Interstate 76 to attend the last Saturday night closing of the last show at Carousel, a Northeast Ohio institution for 35 years.
We came to pay tribute to the latest victim of the global financial meltdown, an abstract-sounding label that is all too real for the 150 people who work at Carousel.
We came, as have up to 200,000 other customers a year.
And we came in strength, a sold-out crowd of nearly 800 of us, thanks to 400 reservations made since the bad news leaked New Year's Day.
Continue reading "Akron's Carousel Dinner Theatre has its final performance" »Original cast member Adam Pascal returns as 'Rent' makes a stop at Cleveland's PlayhouseSquare
by
Tony Brown / Plain Dealer Theater Critic
Friday January 02, 2009, 4:01 PM
Anthony Rapp, left, retrieves the phone message from Mom once more and Adam Pascal tries to write that "one great song" all over again in a new national tour of "Rent" that launches in Cleveland starting Tuesday.
PREVIEW
"Rent"
What: PlayhouseSquare presents the new tour of the Broadway musical by Jonathan Larson, directed by Michael Greif.
When: Opens for previews Tuesday, opens officially on Thursday, and runs through Sunday, Jan. 11. Performances at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, Jan. 9; 5 and 9 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 10; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Jan. 11.
Where: Palace Theatre, PlayhouseSquare, Cleveland.
Tickets: $10-$60. Call 216-241-6000.
"Rent," the rock musical adaptation of "La Boheme" that took Broadway by storm in 1996, is reinventing itself, with three of the original stars -- including Adam Pascal -- right here in Cleveland.
The last time a "Rent" tour came to town, in 2006, it was seen at PlayhouseSquare in a dreary, nonunion tour production.
But now that the Broadway show has closed (in December, after 5,124 performances), three of the original stars -- Pascal, Anthony Rapp and Gwen Stewart -- are reuniting at PlayhouseSquare's Palace Theatre to rehearse and launch a new tour.
Also appearing will be a pair of players who appeared, along with Stewart, in the final New York cast of "Rent": Justin Johnston and Shaker Heights native Michael McElroy.
Pascal revisited "Rent" for the 2006 film and rejoined the New York cast for a summer in 1997. Now he's back once again playing the guitar-playing, heroin-shooting, AIDS-infected Roger Davis.
Continue reading "Original cast member Adam Pascal returns as 'Rent' makes a stop at Cleveland's PlayhouseSquare" »UPDATED: Akron's Carousel Dinner Theatre closing this weekend after 35-year run
by Tony Brown/Plain Dealer Theater Critic
Friday January 02, 2009, 2:04 PM
Carousel Dinner Theatre owner Joe Palmer said he accepts "full responsibility" for the institution's closing.Akron, Ohio -- The final curtain falls on Carousel Dinner Theatre Saturday night when the Rubber City institution closes after 35 years of serving musicals and prime rib to hundreds of thousands of Northeast Ohioans hungry for live entertainment.
The Carousel, the Cleveland-area's only dinner theater --a combination restaurant, bar and Broadway musical palace that seats 800 -- announced on Friday that it will go out of business after tonight.
Which means hundreds, if not thousands, of patrons who already signed up for the 2009 season of six shows -- which had been scheduled to begin Wednesday -- will be owed refunds. Season tickets for prime seats cost $309.
The announcement appears to make the Carousel the latest arts-related victim of the global financial crisis that has shuttered shows in New York and threatened arts institutions across the country.
(Pause) a moment to honor Harold Pinter and Eartha Kitt (with bonus videos)
by Tony Brown/Plain Dealer Theater Critic
Tuesday December 30, 2008, 3:49 PM
I was on vacation until Monday, so I didn't get a moment until today to observe the deaths of Harold Pinter (Christmas Eve) and Eartha Kitt (Christmas Day). Following is a Pinter apprection I based on a column I did in 2005 when the British playwright won the Nobel Prize for Literature. For a tribute to Kitt from the New York Times, click here.
Harold Pinter chatted with the media on the steps of his London home on the day in 2005 that he won the Nobel Prize. He had recently had a fall, necessitating a bandage on his head. Harold Pinter.
(Pause.)
Last week.
(Pause.)
Died.
(Long pause.)
Those sentences were written in a weak approximation of a staccato style of dialogue (abbreviated by significant and mysterious pauses) that has its own label: Pinteresque.
Few playwrights can lay claim to such a primal influence in the evolution of language. The only other playwright-adjectives that spring to mind are Shakespearean and Shavian.
Pinteresque will live on, but Pinter is no longer. He died Dec. 24 in his native London after a long battle with esophageal cancer. He was 78.
His was the first of two sad stage exits over the holidays.
Eartha Kitt shows off her gams in Paris on Dec. 23, 1950, exactly 58 years and two days before her death on Christmas Day 2008.The following day, Eartha Kitt, one of the first black actresses to become an American (as opposed to European) bombshell, died at 81. "Santa Baby" will now forever be sexy and bittersweet.
As significant as Kitt's career was, Pinter will be remembered for being -- at the time of his death -- one of the planet's two greatest living playwrights. The other, 80 and still going, is American Edward Albee.
Pinter's darkly enigmatic and influential output includes the plays "The Birthday Party," "The Caretaker," "The Homecoming" and "Betrayal," and the film "The French Lieutenant's Woman."
Continue reading "(Pause) a moment to honor Harold Pinter and Eartha Kitt (with bonus videos)" »The Top 10 and the bottom line in Cleveland theater in 2008
by Tony Brown/Plain Dealer Theater Critic
Friday December 26, 2008, 11:17 AM
PlayhouseSquare's Hanna Theatre one year ago, in December 2007, just after Great Lakes Theater Festival's $14.7 million renovation began with demolition of the 1990s additions to its historic 1921 interior.Real estate, construction, cost-cutting. Those are not the
most dramatic topics for a theatrical Top 10 list.
But those dry business issues dominate the biggest events and
trends on the roster of Cleveland's onstage and backstage doings in
2008.
Our theaters navigate troubled waters in the same leaky boat as
the rest of the country's theaters. Only more so, because it's
Cleveland.
But with only a couple of exceptions, our theaters have proven
resilient. Which doesn't mean there might not be further casualties in
2009 (and beyond).
Yet we've seen some amazing theater over the past year. With
luck -- and we'll need it -- those boring bottom-line moves will
make possible even more great theater in the future. With no further
caveats (drum roll, please), the Top 10.
The Hanna on opening night, in September 2008. What a difference nine months make!1. Fab Hanna's fab revival: Great Lakes Theater Festival, led by
producing artistic director and Plain Dealer theater person of the year
Charles Fee, poured $14.7 million into the last of PlayhouseSquare's
1920s theaters to be renovated.
The result is a stunning, audience-friendly and technologically
advanced new home for Great Lakes, which immediately made the best use
of the place with a stylish "Macbeth" that helped draw record
audiences for Cleveland's classical company.
NYC says sorry to Cleveland with free tickets to Broadway shows
by Tony Brown / Plain Dealer Theater Critic
Friday December 19, 2008, 1:38 AM
The Broadway production of "Chicago" the musical is offering free admission on select days to residents of Ohio.
New York has apologized to Cleveland. Really. Free tickets to Broadway shows beat roses, no matter where you live. All Clevelanders have to do is get there.
The big-dollar mea culpa comes courtesy of an ill-considered quote -- We hate tourists from Cleveland -- from Broadway ad executive Nancy Coyne in Tuesday's New York Times.
It became instantly infamous.
The New York Post blared, in typical fashion: "P.R. Poobah's B'way Bomb." And bloggers in both cities traded insults. One Web site, based in New York, identified Cleveland as the place Lake Erie caught fire.
Other New Yorkers, however, showed Cleveland some love by giving us free tickets -- free! -- that can cost upward of $300 a ticket.
Deal No. 1: "Chicago Loves Cleveland." Not Chicago the city; "Chicago" the musical. Show up on any Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday in January at Ambassador Theatre (219 W. 49th St.) with a government-issued photo ID proving you live in Ohio, and you get in free that night.
Deal No. 2: Coyne, who caused this drama and who runs an agency that represents 24 New York shows, will give away Broadway tickets in January and February on Cleveland radio.
OK. We accept the apology. We're sorry, too. Telling a lake from a river must be hard when you never leave an island at the center of the universe.
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