Cleveland Public Theatre's Play Development Series TEST FLIGHT to Return in March

Cleveland Public Theatre (CPT) has announced the return of its quintessential play development series, Test Flight, back with four up-and-coming Northeast Ohio playwrights. This year's event ushered in a new approach to the program based on feedback from playwrights in the community. To create more creative space for our playwrights who previously did double-time as producers, we allowed playwrights to have producers to handle their casting, marketing, etc. for those who wanted producers.  There was a stipend for both.  Playwrights also received personal workshops with CPT artistic staff including Executive Artistic Director Raymond Bobgan and Associate Producer Paige Conway.

“Each team this year is bringing something unique to the table and we've put extra time into building those relationships to create an environment of support and communal education. The projects this year are all telling stories from perspectives that challenge our expectations ―as artists, as audiences, as people. I'm increasingly excited by the potential in these pieces and the people creating them. “ ―Paige Conway, associate producer

Playwrights/Producers also receive a stipend and percentage of the box office, and some promotional support. All individual show designs were provided by each playwright/producing team. 
 

WEEK 1: March 7-9

Eyes of the Bridge

Written & produced by Jeanne Madison*, 2021/2022 Nord Family Foundation Playwright Fellow.

Directed by Michael Oatman

What happens when Black love collides with White lust at the turn of the 20th century in the old south? Forty years later, when Luda Mae gets a mysterious summons, she sees a chance for the reckoning. Will she act? Or will the Jim Crow status quo prevail?

Playwright Bio

Jeanne Madison is the 2021/2022 Nord Family Foundation Playwright Fellow at Cleveland Public Theater (CPT), is a member of the Dramatist Guild. Her plays have been performed at CPT, and the Ensemble Theatre, where she is a member of Stagewrights. Jeanne is a recipient of the Cleveland Scene Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Comedy for Sassy Mamas at Karamu House. Favorite roles include the PBS broadcast of Greenwood, An American Dream Destroyed, The Velocity of Autumn at Karamu House; Picnic at Oberlin Theater, Left In Ink at Cleveland Public Theatre, and the award-winning Cleveland Shakespeare Festival.  

Her on-camera work includes numerous TV commercials and films, including White Noise produced by Netflix. Jeanne's education includes a BA and MBA from Case Western Reserve University and Master Classes at Cleveland Play House. She will teach a Master Class at Oberlin College in Spring '23. 

Director Bio

Michael Oatman is the former Playwright-In-Residence at Karamu, the oldest producing African American theater in the country.  He is only the second person to hold this honor in the storied history of Karamu the first being Langston Hughes.  He currently serves as a playwriting mentor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He is also a playwriting/script analysis instructor at Kent State University.  In 2011, he won the CPAC Workforce Fellowship and the Cleveland Art Prize in 2010 for Best Emerging Artist, and the 2010 Lantern Award for Best Play.  In 2011, three of his full-length plays were produced: Breaking the Chains, You Got Nerve, and Sometimes Hope Is Enough.  In 2010, seven of his plays were produced in various venues:  Black Nativity (Adaption), War Paint, Eclipse: The War Between Pac and B.I.G., Course of Action, My Africa, A Solitary Voice, Not a Uterus in Sight, Hitler and Gandhi.  He earned an English Degree from Cleveland State University in 2004 and completed his MFA in theater, from the Northeastern Ohio Master of Fine Arts Consortium (Cleveland State University, Akron University, Youngstown University, and Kent State University) in 2008. 

WEEK 2: March 14-16  

Temptation of Adam

Written and Co-produced by Samantha Cocco

Director and Co-producer Mike Frye

Playwright Bio

Samantha Cocco is a new playwright; Temptation of Adam is her first produced piece, having also been performed as a 15-minute production at CPT's 2023 Pandemonium. She has been acting in Cleveland since 2017 and appeared in a 2022 Test Flight production, Bedroom Culture by Hannah Rae Leach. She is on stage most often at convergence-continuum and Karamu House. She is currently engaged with the national tour of To My White Friends Who Know Me by Deborah Plummer and will appear next on stage locally in May with Ensemble Theatre's world premiere of The Prospect of Equality by Rachel Zake. Follow her at samanthacocco.com and @coccotheactor. Thank you, CPT Dark Room, for helping develop my voice as a writer. Thank you, Mom, for loving me through the end of the world, time and again. Thank you, audience, for witnessing this wonderful ‘first' of mine and for supporting local theatre.  

Director Bio

Mike Frye has been performing in NE Ohio for the past ten years, recently in After the Blast and The Grown-up at convergence-continuum, As You Like It with the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, and Shakespeare in Hollywood at The Ohio Shakespeare Festival. He is an avid children's performer with Spark Theatre 4 Youth and a comedian performing with Hot Goss: the Improvised Musical and other shows at Imposters Theater. He co-wrote the shows Web of Deceit and I Stumbled Through a Magic Portal which have both been produced at Borderlight Fringe festival. This is his directorial debut. Thank you for your interest in new works by new artists. Your support is what makes the development of the artistic world possible. 

WEEK 3: March 21-23

How to Live in a House on Fire

Written, Directed and Produced by Kari Barclay

It's 2020 in Berkeley, California, and wildfires are raging. As a gay couple prepares to evacuate, they decide what from their 50-year relationship to take and what to leave behind. What parts of queer history matter, and what might they teach us about love in a time of climate grief?

Playwright & Director Bio

Kari Barclay (they/them) is a writer, director, and researcher who serves as Assistant Professor of Theater at Oberlin College. They are glad to be back at Cleveland Public Theatre after directing Tania Benites's Alter in February 2023. They have staged productions regionally and in New York with Ars Nova, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, MirrorBox Theater, and Stanford University. Their original play Can I Hold You?  was one of the first full-length pieces about asexual identity performed in the U.S. and enjoyed a sold-out run in San Francisco and workshop in New York. Their play Stonewallin' was winner of the So.Queer Playwriting Festival and premiered in Richmond, VA in winter 2022. As a scholar and educator, Kari writes about consent-based and trauma-informed approaches to performance, known as intimacy choreography. Their book Directing Desire was published through Palgrave Macmillan in October 2023. kari-barclay.com.

WEEK 4: March 28-30

Tales of a Fat Man

Written & Co-produced by Tyree Franklin

Directed by Roy Tyrone James Ii

Assistant Producer Kadijah Wingo

As you can guess, the play follows the journey of a larger man's past, present, and future of navigating this world in the body he's had since childhood. It's a sort of coming-of-age retelling of the good, bad, & ugly tendencies of society. There's also a new age Greek style chorus that accompanies and sometimes antagonizes the 'Fat Man' on his journey to Self-love.  

Playwright Bio

Tyree J. Franklin (He/Him) is a Cleveland based stage manager and Artist with his BFA in Stage Management from Wright State University. His recent stage management credits include BKLYN at Near West Theatre, The Bubbly Black Girl who Sheds her Chameleon Skin (Karamu House) The Liar, Everybody, and Passage (Cleveland Playhouse), Langston Hughes' Black Nativity (Karamu House). Tyree is a new playwright. His play Tales of a fat man was recently produced at Cleveland Public Theatre's 2023 Pandemonium. He would like to thank his family and friends for their continued love and support! 

Director Bio

Roy T. James Ii is an Ohio native and studied theatre at the Cleveland School of the Arts where he performed in shows such as The Colored Museum, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Hamlet. He went on to earn a bachelor's degree from The Ohio State University. He began working as a Karamu House teaching artist in 2019 and performed as the narrator for Karamu's 2022 production of Langston Hughes' Black Nativity. He is currently a third-year medical student at the Northeast Ohio Medical University and is excited to be making his directorial debut.

Co-Producer Bio

Kadijah Wingo is a multidisciplinary artist with an ever-evolving passion to build community in art. She studied acting at Ohio University's SoFA. She was recently seen in: can I touch it? at Cleveland Public Theatre, Convergence-continuums' Inserection: Holding History as Mutha, Imposters Theatre's It's A Match improv team, & The Seagull at Cleveland Play House. When Kadijah isn't acting, she's bringing laughter to her city with Snowflake Comedy Club & Theee Circus Productions. A writer at heart and actor by trade, always in loving pursuit of new opportunities to grow.

TICKET & SHOW INFORMATION

Test Flight 2024 runs March 7 – March 30, 2027, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7pm in CPT's James Levin Theatre, located at 6415 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44102, in the heart of the Gordon Square Arts District. 

Note that audience members must wear masks if attending our Covid-conscious performances which will be every Thursday of Test Flight. Click here for COVID-19 Safety Protocols.

EVERY TICKET is “Choose What You Pay” starting at $1 and can be purchased at the button below or through the CPT Box Office at 216.631.2727 ext. 501.

CPT is proud to be a leader in providing platforms for new work and emerging artists. CPT has led the community in producing new plays by local and nationally recognized playwrights. Several productions that were developed through Test Flight have gone on to receive full productions such as ALTER by Tania Benites which premiered this season, Our Lady of Common Sorrows by Jaiie Dayo Aliya which debuted last October, and Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation by India Nicole Burton which ran in February 2022 and had a National New Play Network Rolling World premiere in Chicago and Indiana. The musical Everything is Okay (and other Helpful Lies) by Melissa Crum and Caitlin Lewins had a full production at Cleveland Public Theatre and went on to receive a reading at the prestigious New York Musical Festival (2019).

The theater also has three other play development programs for writers that include The Dark Room (a monthly “open-mic”), Entry Point and Catapult.

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