Milestone Year for BIG BOX at CPT

Supporting new work and local artists, this innovative series gives independent artists the space, time and resources to create new work. CPT provides the theatre, the basic production staff and advertising, and the artists weave their magic.

 

January 5 – February 18, 2012

Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:00pm

Tickets:  General Admission $15 | Students and Seniors $12

 

Executive Artistic Director Raymond Bobgan gives us a peek into how Big Box has evolved.

 

“When we started Big Box, we thought it would be valuable but we thought it would be quite small — maybe 3 or 4 weekends. We also weren’t sure about the level of performance. Big Box quickly grew into a two month series of work that is at a production level well beyond a staged reading or work-in-progress. This continues to show the strength of our community. All the works in Big Box are created by local artists, and they are all world premieres,” Bobgan says.

 

In a nutshell, Bobgan gives some insight into the lineup. “This year’s selection was quite competitive. The resulting series has an incredible diversity of form and content. CPT has been a leader in our community for aesthetic diversity, and Big Box is at the heart of this work where artist can express themselves in new ways and explore directions that may better address our contemporary lives.”

 

So what’s on the bill? Here’s the rundown, with special details provided by writers Lew Wallace, Amy Compton and Lisa Langford.

 

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January 5-7 (Double-Bill)

Written and Performed by Amy Compton

 

The Dreamer is a solo, multi-media performance examining how a dreamer resolves her unrealistic expectations of unrequited love while struggling between make-believe and reality. Weaved together like patches on an old quilt, The Dreamer is presented non-linearly through various artistic expressions including dance, monologue, karaoke, and original films.   

 

Compton: I was nursing a broken heart.  This show is based on real experiences of unrequited love.  Also, I felt stuck… stuck on the relationship not working out the way I’d wanted; stuck in my professional life; stuck in my economic situation and my so called “lot in life”.  After returning from a trip to New York City and experiencing a series of synchronicities, I decided to stop limiting myself and pay more attention to my gut... I think the biggest removal of limitations for me was when I decided I could be more than just a dancer/choreographer. If I wanted to write a song AND sing it in public, then “Why the hell not”?  If I wanted to draw and then animate my drawings, well then, I probably should. I let go of my fear of being an expert at something. I just dove in a created stuff. It’s my new “da Vinci” approach.

 

Compton: I want them to experience the show and not just watch it. I want them to laugh and cry with me, root for me and hope with me. I want them to join me in seeing beauty even during life’s disappointments. I want to inspire them to create for themselves and not be limited by their own fears.

 

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Conceived and Directed by Tim Tavcar

Produced by Word Stage; a Chamber Music Theatre

 

My Dear Boy is developed from love letters and diary entries by prominent men throughout history from Marcus Aurelius to Allen Ginsberg. The writings are a treasure trove of literary styles written with incredible emotional resonance reflecting the universality of human emotion and amorous relationships. While being heartfelt, hilarious, sexy, angry and intoxicating, the text is underscored with music, movement and visual projections.

 

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January 12 - 14

Created by Danielle Hisey, Rose Sengenberger and Ben Gantose

Based on a short story by Neil Gaiman

 

October in the Chair will be a theatrical evening of unlikely storytellers, playful shadows, make-believe monsters and adventures as real as your dreams. The story follows a boy who runs away from home to find the future he imagines, after being overshadowed by his brothers and ignored by his parents. However, a world he has only dreamt of is found, he soon discovers that to begin your greatest adventure, you must leave something behind.

 

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January 19 – 21 (Double Bill)

To the Sea… An Original Work Inspired by Decroux, Lecoq, and Synge

Created by Bernadette Clemens, Wendy Kriss, Christine McBurney and Derdriu Ring.

Directed by Bernadette Clemens

Produced by Mamai Theatre Company

 

Three actors, three inspirations, one journey. This devised piece, created by the newly founded Mamai Theatre Company, offers an exciting artistic exchange between the musicality and imagery in John M. Synge's lyrical Riders to the Sea, the goals of Etienne Decroux techniques and the immediacy and spontaneity of Jacques Lecoq. The blend of these two traditions in physical theatre will maximize the rhythm and articulation of Synge’s text within a heightened style.

 

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Written by India Burton

Directed by Benjamin Rexroad

Produced by Heads Up Productions

 

Heads Up Productions, a new movement based ensemble in Akron, began developing 1,000 Hills in 2010. The piece follows the struggle of three tourists who find themselves in Rwanda just as genocidal violence breaks out.  As tension mounts, the tourists have their emotions and morals put to the test.

 

Featuring seven actors with young actors playing old, white actors playing black and females playing males, this production put the audience’s mind to the test.

 

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January 26 – 28 (Double Bill)

Written and Directed by Lisa L. Langford

 

The Negro Perkins looks at history before it congeals into the accepted narrative seen in history books. This piece looks back on an often ignored time in African-American history – the late 19th Century during the small pox outbreak. By following three African-Americans quarantined during the outbreak, this play seeks a new context to examine the mercurial nature of freedom.

 

Langford: I was listening to Terry Gross interview Michael Willrich, author of Pox: An American History, [and from the Fresh Air series.] He mentioned pest houses and I had never heard of them before. I was a history major, so naturally, I wanted to find out more about the subject. While doing research, I discovered a lot about civil liberties and the meaning of freedom at that time and today.

 

Langford: I have a great cast! Kimberly Brown as Mary Mae; Antuane Rogers as Macon, Neal Hodges as Fractious, and Anne McEvoy as Pheenie.

 

Langford: I'd love for people to take an interest in history. We have so much information inundating us from day to day. It's often hard to put into context the things we hold dear when we don't know their history.

 

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Choreographed by Jennifer Sandoval 

Produced by Marquez Dance Project

 

In a world of emails, texting, tweeting and Facebook, intimate personal interaction has diminished. We have become a society that prefers conversing with other individuals through technology rather than in person. The Art of Social Graces is an inside look on how proper etiquette has evolved over the years.

 

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February 2 – 4

Written, Composed and Directed by Deborah Magid

In collaboration with Verb Ballets

 

In The Berlioz Project, a man converts depression and misfortune into creation. Poor Hector Berlioz: disowned by his mother, disdained by the critics, his lifestyle is dissed by the woman he’s stalking. It’s the Summer of Love in Haight-Ashbury, and rock-star-wannabe Berlioz trips his way to creating a masterpiece concept album, the better to bag Harriet Smithson. The Berlioz Project: transforms the story behind Romantic Era composer Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique through updated music, multiple styles of dance, and visual media encompassing slides, film, and live video.   

 

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February 9 – 11 (Double Bill)

Written and Performed by Melissa Barber

Directed by Paula Kline-Messner

 

Our heroine was married to a man who enjoyed dressing up like Batman... for Halloween, but after 15 years the marriage ended in divorce.  In her vulnerable state, she tried everything; online dating, dating services, blind dates, dating co-workers, older men and more.  Our heroine, who still believes in marriage, shares her vulnerabilities, mistakes, faith, wacky imagination and courageous break-throughs as she shares her journey of self-discovery after divorce.

 

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Written and Performed by Lew Wallace

Directed by Renee Schilling

 

It is the end of the world… maybe... and one man remains trapped in a bathroom stall. Now, he must track the journey of his life and discover what it all meant and whether he understood any of it. As the sole survivor of the apocalypse is he at all qualified to represent the human race? To whom does he answer? Answers do not come so easily when the only words left are graffiti upon the wall.

 

Wallace: It is my belief that true inspiration comes from unlikely places and when you least expect it. The inspiration for my show came from a piece of bathroom graffiti that I read one day. After that, it spiraled and snowballed into the manifestation of a thought and experience which I feel has not been given enough credit in today's world. If we are watchful and open in our everyday lives, inspiration will strike us in unusual and exhilarating ways.

 

Wallace: I simply want the audience to remain open to whatever it is they may take from the performance. I don't make any assumptions as to what any one member of the audience will get out of it. I wish only for honesty.

 

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February 16 - 18

Written by Cat Kenney

Directed by Margi Herwald-Zitelli

 

The Sophists seem like a theatre company striving for brave, challenging works - but what happens when it all starts to fold in on itself? Actors in this disintegrating theatre company attempt to decipher the cryptic mysteries of life, fractal geometry, and each other in this dark drama that questions patterns, roles and the inevitability of chaos theory.

 

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Cleveland Public Theatre – 6415 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44102

Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:00pm

Tickets:  General Admission $15 | Students and Seniors $12