Matt Greenfield's Oddy Fest

Cleveland area playwright/director Matt Greenfield thinks going to the theater should be as easy as following a TV series. You should think, "Hey, it's an Odd Wednesday night, time to see a show." So tonight he's opening the first installment of his Oddy Fest -- a one-man show titled Vestibule -- at the Centrum Theatre in Cleveland Heights. "It's called Oddy Fest for several reasons," says Greenfield. "The aesthetic is odd, it runs on every Odd Wednesday, and "Oddy" is my nickname for Odysseus, the wanderer. I'm a bit of a theatrical Odysseus myself."

A graduate of CWRU's theatre program and John Carroll's graduate school of education, Greenfield just returned to NEO after 3 years of teaching school in Florida, where he ran the Boca Rats Theatre Troupe. "John Orlock, my playwriting teacher at Case Western, gave it that name," says Greenfield. "He told me that rather than having my scripts sit in a drawer, the best way to get them out there was to find a few actors and produce them myself. So I honed my directing skills with things like radical 3-person Shakespeare adaptations of Troillus and Cressida, and mounted my own work."

After 3 years of teaching in Boca, where his students were his theatrical guinea pigs -- including performing an outdoor series of 3 of his plays -- Greenfield decided to come home where there were more theatrical opportunities and adventurous audiences. "It was surprising to me when I got back, how many people I knew were still in the scene," he says. "Cleveland theater is like a tight-knit family, and there's always a lot going on here."

Greenfield looks forward to hooking up with other artists in future sessions. Playwright Steve Maistros took his production photos, and he hopes to do some of Maistro's work soon. "Steve's work is dry and funny and odd," says Greenfield, "a good match for Oddy Fest". But for his first show, Greenfield is keeping it simple. Vestibule is a play for one actor, himself.

"This time I'm doing it all -- acting, directing, publicity, dragging the sets around in my car. The theme of the show is waiting: one guy waiting for a blind date. But it's a metaphor for a lot of things,including my experience in theater, waiting for something to happen. It seemed like a good way to start." He intends that Oddy Fest will always have some live music before each show. "I want folks to get their ten bucks' worth," says Greenfield. Sometimes the musician will be his pal Justin Walters, but tonight, in keeping with his one-man theme, it'll be him. "That's it: solo songs for a solo guy."

Vestibule is delivered tonight, Wednesday September 3 @ 8PM at The Centrum, Coventry & Euclid Hts. Blvd, Cleveland Heights. It moves to Cleveland Public Theatre's Church Space by mid-month. Learn more by visiting http://oddyfestival.wordpress.com.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Linda Eisenstein lindaATcoolcleveland.com
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