Brilliant, bizarre farce by John Guare won Obie Award for “Best American Play”
Tickets are now on sale for John Guare’s award winning “The House of Blue Leaves” playing at the Beck Center March 22 to April 21, 2013 on the Mackey Main Stage. Show times are 8:00 p.m. for Fridays and Saturdays and 3:00 p.m. on Sundays. There will be no performance on Sunday, March 31 (Easter Sunday).
This winner of the 1971 Drama Critics’ Circle Award for best play and the Obie Award for Best American Play is a convoluted story. Artie is a zookeeper by day and an aspiring songwriter by night. To fulfill his dreams to be a performer he works seedy lounges in the darker areas of New York City. His life is complicated with his marriage to Bananas who is schizophrenic coupled with his affair with Bunny, his mistress who is upset over his marriage to Bananas.
Enter an old school buddy who has left town to become a successful Hollywood movie producer and Artie sees an escape from the life he just can’t cope with any more. Unfortunately, like most dreams this one may also evaporate like fine mist leaving Artie still stuck in the chaos of his ordinary life.
Directed by Russ Borski, The House of Blue Leaves features Equity actors Robert Ellis as Artie and Juliette Regnier as his mentally ill wife, Bananas. “I am thrilled to direct this zany farce,” remarked Borski, “that explores the dark side of the American dream, the humiliation of our dreams, and examines our collective obsession with celebrity and how we pin our hopes on lives distant from our own.”
Broadway.com called The House of Blue Leaves a "crazy mix of comedy and tragedy, truth and absurdity" and The New York Daily News said it is “a brilliant play…wacky…and outrageous.”
Tickets for The House of Blue Leaves are $28 for adults, $25 for seniors (65 and older), $12 for students (with valid I.D.), and $10 for children (12 and under). An additional $3 service fee per ticket is applied at the time of purchase. Preview Night on Thursday, March 21 is $10 with general admission seating. Flex Passes and group discounts (13 or more) are available. Purchase tickets online at beckcenter.org or call Customer Services at 216.521.2540, ext. 10. Beck Center for the Arts is located at 17801 Detroit Avenue in Lakewood, just ten minutes west of downtown Cleveland. Free onsite parking is available.
Opening night patrons may also enjoy gallery exhibits, free musical entertainment by Lounge Kitty, complimentary appetizers, and happy hour drinks as Beck Center hosts “Marquee Friday” on March 22 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Daniels Lounge. Marquee Fridays, scheduled on opening nights throughout the theater season, are open to the public as part of Beck Center’s community engagement initiative.
Presented through special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc., this production of The House of Blue Leaves is sponsored by VIP Restoration and is generously funded by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture and the Ohio Arts Council.
Beck Center for the Arts is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization that offers professional theater productions, arts education programming in dance, music, theater, visual arts, early childhood, and creative arts therapies for special needs students, and free gallery exhibits featuring local, regional, and international artists.
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