Beck Center For The Arts Presents THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING 

Beck Center for the Arts is pleased to produce The Member of the Wedding, directed by regional talent Eric Schmiedl. This limited engagement runs October 4 through November 3, in the Studio Theater. This intimate performance space puts the audience in the middle of this regal family drama. Show times are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays. Buy early and save with promo code: FRANKIE to receive $5 off each adult/senior ticket purchased by Oct 3, 2019. Preview performance is the Thursday before opening night, October 3. Opening Night is Friday, Oct 4. Tickets range from $10 Smart Seats to $33 each. Group and student discounts are available. Tickets are on sale now.

Winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award: At the suggestion of her friend Tennessee Williams, Southern writer Carson McCullers adapted her novella The Member of the Wedding into a touching and poignant play that was an enormous success when it opened on Broadway in 1950, and has long since become a classic of the American theater.

With compassion, veracity, and wit, Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding depicts the intrinsically enmeshed lives of whites and blacks in the American South. Julie Harris became a star playing the awkward, twelve-year-old tomboy Frankie Adams, who falls deeply in love with her older brother and his fiance. Bernice Sadie Brown, who has experienced a lifetime of love and loss, is a surrogate mother for Frankie. Portrayed on stage and in the film versions by the great Ethel Waters, Bernice is an epic character, fiercely loyal, down-to-earth, and centered by deep faith.

Eric Schmiedl, director of The Member of the Wedding, says of this production, "There is a deep bond between Frankie and Berenice. Frankie is fascinated by and aware of Berenice's life experiences - the history of Berenice's four husbands, the loss of her eye, her adopted son Honey. These experiences are as much a part of Frankie's life as the loss of her own mother. This reflects the intimate relationship that these communities possess."

Eric Schmiedl is a native of Cleveland, Ohio and a graduate of Kent State University and the University of Hawai'i. Most recently at Beck Center he directed King Lear. His plays for children and adult audiences have been produced by theatres including Cleveland Play House, Denver Center Theatre Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Public Theatre, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, New Stages Theatre, the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, the Oregon Children's Theatre, Karamu House, Great Lakes Theater, and BackStage Theatre in Chicago. He is currently working on a new original play with his wife, Nigerian storyteller Adaora Nzelibe Schmiedl, to be developed through Playhouse Square's Innovative Launch program. Eric is the recipient of a 2012 Creative Workforce Fellowship as well as an Aurand Harris Fellowship, an Edgerton Award, and a Sloan Foundation Commission.

In the cast BERENICE SADIE BROWN is played by Lisa Louise Langford. Playing FRANCIS (FRANKIE) ADDAMS is Ellie Ritterbusch (most recently seen in Beck Center's Matilda the Musical). John Henry WEST is played by Chase Oberhaus. The cast also includes, playing T.T. WILLIAMS, Peter Lawson Jones (Harvard graduate, former Cuyahoga County Commission, oft found in productions at Karamu House) and HONEY CAMDEN BROWN is Corin B. Self, and ROYAL ADDAMS is Fred Gloor.

Beck Center is located at 17801 Detroit Avenue in Lakewood, just ten minutes west of downtown Cleveland. Free onsite parking is available. For more information visit beckcenter.org or call Beck Center Customer Service at 216.521.2540 x10.

Programming at Beck Center for the Arts is made possible through the generous support of the Ohio Arts Council. Beck Center gratefully acknowledges the generous funding provided by the citizens of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

Beck Center for the Arts is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization that offers professional theater productions on two stages, arts education programming in dance, music, theater, visual arts, early childhood, and creative arts therapies for individuals with disabilities, free gallery exhibits year-round, and outreach education programming.

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