Playwright, actor, politician Eric Coble
Keeping the CH-UH Schools Front and Center

It isn’t always easy to know what you want to be when you grow up. It’s even harder to know what you’re going to be when you get there. Eric Coble decided rather early on to be an actor, and that’s the career path he pursued for the first twenty-few years of his life. As part of his grad school training at Ohio University, Eric came to Cleveland in the fall of 1992 for an internship in acting at the Cleveland Play House. He did a lot of acting there, as well as at Great Lakes Theater Festival during the next two years, but somehow, what with the acting and teaching activities there, he ‘accidentally slid’ into playwriting. And there he was. “You can have the best of intentions, but still end up as a playwright” he says with a big grin.

Born in Scotland, Eric was mostly raised on Indian Reservations in the western United States—New Mexico—to be exact. It was another ingredient of the stew that becomes a playwright’s mind. His undergrad experience was at Fort Lewis College in Colorado, where he studied math and English and history. While at OU, Eric met Carol Laursen, who came to Cleveland with him. They married in 1994. She became a lab tech at University Hospitals, and from there it was a simple decision to stay on here for a while. The ‘while’ has turned into thirteen years, because they realized it was a “‘great place to raise children.”

“I came to Cleveland all those years ago with no intention of staying here. Now,” he reflects, “I have no intention of leaving.” The two Coble children, Trevor, who is 12 and in the 7th grade, and Miranda, now 10 and in fifth grade have each done some writing and some acting—in the Marilyn Bianchi Kid’s Playwriting Festival at Dobama Theatre. “They’re not averse to theater,” says the proud Pop with a smile. “Now we do know it’s a great place to raise children, and I’m committed to keeping it that way.”

So, following in the great footsteps of British general John Burgoyne along with fellow Brits Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Harold Pinter; the Indian C. N. Annadurai, Spaniard José Echegaray y Eizaguirre, Irishman Frank J. Hugh O'Donnell, Americans Robert Reich and Clare Boothe Luce, plus the Czech Pavel Dostál and Vaclav Havel, the playwright is now turning to politics. Havel is perhaps the most famous of them all, having become president of his country after the Soviet Union was dismantled.

Here, however, Coble has more in common with another American artist-politician, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Having been born in another country, neither of them may run for President. “Oh!” says Coble, wide-eyed. “I hadn’t realized that.” His ever-present grin resurfaces as he adds, “I still think I’d rather emulate Havel.” There is one difference, however: Coble has no (current) plans to run for anything other than his immediate goal—to become a member of the School Board of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Schools.

Coble no longer acts in theatre, although there is the occasional comedy show for radio, which he also writes. Sometimes there are commercials, as well. He likes acting, but prefers staged readings which require less rehearsal time. Writing is the great priority, but he’s versatile enough to write by longhand if the computer is not readily accessible—a skill he honed while being a stay-at-home Dad. Carol has taught ‘acting for people who are afraid of acting’ at John Carroll University, while maintaining her part-time work at UH, as a cytogenetics technician. She also teaches yoga here and there. Together they’ve created a rich and satisfying lifestyle that would probably not be possible anywhere else. The cost of living here is reasonable, while far outweighed by the benefits.

So why does he want to throw himself into the political world?

He pauses for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “The CH-UH schools are doing very well. All the test scores are going up, year by year. But the current board over the last two years has done things that threaten to undo some of the progress made. That can’t happen. It threatens the levy we need for the schools; it threatens the ties to the community. People are leaving the Heights, and we need to be reinvigorated. The reality is that we have made great progress, but it needs to keep going. Public support is very edgy at the moment.”

“Knowing what I know now, I don’t think Coventry Elementary School needed to be closed. It divided the community, and we can’t let that happen to any of our other communities. Fairfax, Roxboro, Boulevard—they’re all vital and essential to the total well-being of the greater community.”

Speaking of Coventry school, Coble says, “The building and the land have to be kept public, and it should be something constructive. Empty husks don’t do anything for any community. It needs to be kept alive and open, even if not as a school. The community-built playground needs to stay there. We have to support it; we can’t let it go.”

What could it be?

The words tumble out. "Maybe it could be a new home for all the smaller non-profits, Heights Arts, Reaching Heights, Future Heights, before- and after-school care for children. It could be incredible."

There are two seats on the School Board open, and Coble has teamed with Nancy Peppler, who has been employed in the non-profit sector for a good many years. She’s also a CH-UH parent, and together they hope to bring new ideas to the greater community in support of the superintendent and the schools, to help them grow.

Coble’s goal is not far-fetched. He wants to ‘brand’ the CH-UH schools as ‘progressive, artistic, environmentally smart and diverse’, just as is the population he wants to represent. “We need ‘greener’ schools,” he says, “and there is State money available to make this happen. We might need new schools. Or maybe it’s possible to re-invest in the older buildings to make them suitable for the 21st century.”

He continues, “To the best of my knowledge, there is not currently an artist of any kind on any school board in the area. I think it could be very useful to both the board and the community to have such a member. After all, artists are by nature collaborative—they’ve spent their entire professional (or adult) lives being part of a team. We get there by using what we have. Coming from a theater background, we’re used to starting from nothing, and creating something wonderful in the process. Cleveland Heights is well-established and is doing well. We want to add to the existing strengths.”

“Artists are used to working with people who bring different things to the table. Politics can and should be the same way. Anyway, it’s the only approach I have.”

One innovation is their website 'http://www.coblepeppler.com – a new concept for such a campaign. Although it’s up and running now, beginning in October, it will utilize media and technology in new ways to showcase the candidates in a ‘cutting edge’ fashion. Arts and the environment will be combined in ways not previously done in order to showcase this new generation of political campaigns.

Just one of Coble’s early plays dealt with politics: Sound-Biting was produced at Dobama in 1996. One of his most recent creations The Dead Guy opens at Akron’s Bang and the Clatter Theatre Company on September 21, for a one-month run. “It’s reality TV gone bad,” says the playwright, still laughing. “Er, maybe even badder.”

He stops for a moment, then chuckles as he adds, “There are no playwriting skeletons in my closet, but at least I’ll have a lot of fodder for a new play. But I can absolutely promise one thing—I won’t write about the School Board while I’m a member of it!”

From Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriterATadelphia.net
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