This year Michael Bloom, Cleveland Play House Artistic Director, has outdone every regional theater in the United States with a bold new initiative. He's created FusionFest, an explosive multi-disciplinary festival of new theatre, opera, dance, music, and cabaret, which opened yesterday at the Play House’s multi-space complex.
"I wanted to create a safe haven for new work," says Bloom, who has been impressed at how daring Clevelanders are willing to be when they go to the Cleveland International Film Festival. "There’s something about a festival environment that makes audiences more open to discovery, adventure, risk-taking. We’re setting up an ambitious schedule so people can see more than one thing. For example, you can see a NextStage play reading, then move on to the Club and see a cabaret act like Church House Rocks or Lounge Kitty."
Large institutional theaters like the Cleveland Play House nearly always have a push-pull relationship to new work. New play development is something the theater does for the good of the art rather than the health of its box office, and often its subscription audiences approach it with suspicion. The ambitious energy of FusionFest should turn that on its head, by surrounding its world premiere play (Anthony Giardina's Custody of the Eyes) and its five new play readings with an outpouring of new work of many disciplines and collaborations by over a dozen local arts institutions. They're bringing in groups as diverse as Cleveland Opera, Cleveland Museum of Art, Verb Ballets, to the Cleveland School of the Arts and Shaker Heights High School.
The jam-packed schedule can be seen at: http://www.clevelandplayhouse.com. There are plays, play readings, ensemble works, musical theatre revues, cabaret acts, dance companies, and a new one-man opera, with a new show opening nearly every night for 3 weeks. FusionFest is a hugely ambitious undertaking. Anybody who has ever complained about the Cleveland Play House being "stodgy" needs to get their butts in gear and support how far out on a limb it is going with this endeavor.
Here are a few of my personal "don’t-miss" picks:
5/4 & 5/5 – Trace (MOCA) (6 pm). Ever see a dancer so good you wish they could be cloned? That’s the way I usually feel about the sizzling, expressive Michael Medcalf, Artistic Director of Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theatre. In Trace, you’ll get double the pleasure as you see Medcalf dance a duet with himself – his live body interacting with himself on videotape. The piece is being created for Medcalf by one of Cleveland’s top choreographers: David Shimotakahara, Artistic Director of the impeccable Ground Works Dance Theatre. If you’ve never been to the Museum of Contemporary Art, it’s also a perfect opportunity to explore their space. Tucked away in the 2nd floor of the Play House complex - in what used to be the old Sears department store – MOCA is one of the area’s most innovative galleries, featuring challenging installations & digital art.
5/8 – St. Lucy’s Eyes (7:30 pm). It isn’t often you get to see a stage legend, and the incomparable Ruby Dee is one. In this one-night-only benefit for Karamu and the Cleveland Play House, she stars as a wily old abortionist in a reading of St. Lucy’s Eyes. Written by former Clevelander Bridgette A. Wimberly (whose play Forest City was presented at the Play House several seasons ago), the play was created for Ms. Dee, who has garnered raves for her performance in both its Off-Broadway and Atlanta runs.
5/12–6/4 – Night Bloomers. Dobama’s third production of its season is an apocalyptic comedy by Cleveland playwright Sarah Morton, presented in the Play House’s small Studio One space. An intrepid old lady (Nan Wray) tries to journey to see the once-in-a-century bloom of an exotic plant in an all-too-recognizable "future" where fear, paranoia, & government control present darkly comic obstacles. Like all of Morton’s work, it’s quirky, subtle, & funny, and a perfect parable about keeping hope alive in our post-9/11 era.
5/12 & 5/13 - Astrid Hadad. I’ve been hankering to see this Mexican surrealist cabaret artist ever since her picture appeared in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s VIVA! brochure in a huge scarlet dress covered in eyes. The provocative adults-only performance is billed as a "magical-realist cabaret journey" and an "extravaganza of camp humor and song" by a singer whose style includes ranchero, bolero, rumba, rock, and jazz. Baby, I’m there.
from Cool Cleveland contributor Linda Eisenstein lindaATcoolcleveland.com
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