Cleveland Play House to Stage BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY This Spring

Cleveland Play House's Outcalt Theatre will be transformed into the rent-controlled apartment of ex-cop Walter "Pops" Washington in the bold, fresh, and unfiltered work of renowned playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis. Packed with irreverent humor, lightning-quick dialogue, and tremendous heart, Between Riverside and Crazy is the Pulitzer Prize-winning dark comedy about family, pride, and redemption.

Consumed by the racially charged lawsuit he filed against the NYPD, the recent death of his wife, and an ever-growing pile of eviction notices, Pops finds himself caught between losing his honor and the home he shares with his parolee son and colorful surrogate family. Beautifully fusing the poetic with the profane, Guirgis brings to life this contemporary American work bursting with wit and heart. Running April 1-23, Between Riverside and Crazy will be directed by CPH Associate Artistic Director Robert Barry Fleming. A seasoned director, this will Mark Fleming's directorial debut at CPH.

Fleming states: "Stephen Adly Guirgis is a truth teller. In Between Riverside and Crazy, his truth is told with enormous compassion, humanity, humor, and heart. He elevates the common man (and woman's) plight and circumstances to something mythic, poetic, and important, and he embraces his flawed figures by illuminating both their heroic and shadow sides without accusation, guilt, or shame. I'm thrilled to direct this exploration of the human capacity to move from a state of resentment to acceptance and grace."

Between Riverside and Crazy Inside CPH Events - All FREE:

Behind-the-Scenes: Design for Living Monday, March 27 from 7:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. You enter the theatre and take your seat. But before an actor steps on stage, you are already in the play. If you've had that feeling at CPH, it was most likely the set that created a character of its own before a word was spoken. In the hands of Set Designer Wilson Chin this happens often, including his CPH creations of a posh apartment for Rich Girl, or an infamous motel room for The Mountaintop. Join Chin and Between Riverside and Crazy Director Robert Barry Fleming as they discuss collaboration and the progression of the set design from rendering to reality. Sitting in your seat before curtain will never be the same.

Tech Night: Between Riverside and Crazy Wednesday, March 29 from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. Hear from the director and designers, then sit in on a technical rehearsal ("tech") to see how set, lights, sound, costumes, and actors all come together as opening night nears!

TalkBacks Sunday, April 9 from 4:30 - 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 11 from 9:30-10:00 p.m. Sunday, April 16 from 4:30 - 5:00 p.m. Stay after the show to continue the conversation our plays start! TalkBacks are regularly scheduled for patrons as an opportunity to delve deeper into the experience with the artists.

Pre-Show Conversations begin 45 minutes prior to the start of each performance.

Between Riverside and Crazy will take place in the Outcalt Theatre from April 1-23. Tickets range in price from $25-$100 each. To order single tickets please call 216-241-6000 or visit clevelandplayhouse.com. Groups of 10+ save up to 40% off single ticket prices; call 216-400-7027.

ABOUT THE CAST:

DOMINIC COLÓN (Oswaldo) Theater Credits include: Universes' Slanguage (Mark Taper Forum); Till the Break of Dawn (Culture Project); Stephen Adly Guirgis' Dominica: The Fat, Ugly, Ho (dir. Adam Rapp); and Shoe Story (dir. by Thomas Kail). Recent film credits include: Southpaw (dir. Antoine Fuqua), Money Monster (dir. Jodie Foster), and the upcoming film The Dinner (dir. by Academy Award-winner Oren Moverman). Select TV credits include: Orange is the New Black, The Black List, Law and Order: SVU, Power (Recurring), and The Electric Company (series regular). Dominic also wrote and produced the HBO award-winning short film Crush, his next film Skin marks his directorial debut and will soon premiere on the film festival circuit. Follow on Instagram/Twitter @dominiccolon

Yvette Ganier (Church Lady) is an Obie Award winning actress for Breath Boom at Playwrights Horizons (Off-Broadway). She most recently appeared in Dan Hoyle's Off-Off Broadway play The Block, and in Keith Josef Adkins' Pitbulls at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre for which she received an Audelco Best Actress nomination. Yvette was also recently seen in the world premiere of Paula Vogel's Don Juan Comes Home from Iraq at the Wilma Theater. Other Credits include, Broadway: The Miracle Worker, King Hedley ll. London: Jitney (National Theatre - 2002 Olivier Award). Off-Broadway: Jitney (Second Stage and Union Square Theaters); For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf (Tribeca Performing Arts Center). Regional: Steppenwolf, Actors' Theatre of Louisville, The Arden, InterAct Theatre Company, Freedom Theatre, The Goodman (originated Black Mary in Gem of the Ocean by August Wilson), Mark Taper, The Intiman, Seattle Rep, Pittsburgh Public (originated Rena in Jitney by August Wilson), Baltimore Centerstage (US premiere of Elmina's Kitchen by Kwame Kwei-Armah.) Film/TV: includes Poughkeepsie, Evolution of a Criminal, Must be the Music, Lifetime's For One Night, and ABC's All My Children. Awards: OBIE, LA Ovations Award, Audelco, NAACP Image Award, The Bowden Award.

ZOË Sophia Garcia (Lulu) This is Zoë's debut performance with Cleveland Play House. Other credits include: Off-Broadway: Your Mother's Copy of the Kama Sutra (Playwrights Horizons); Off-Off Broadway: La Ruta (Working Theatre). Regional: Another Word for Beauty (The Goodman Theatre), Oh Gastronomy! and The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (Actors' Theatre of Louisville). Television credits include: The Blacklist, The Good Fight, Elementary, and Madam Secretary. She's a founding member of The Living Room Theatre Company and co-creator of #liberated which premiered at Ars Nova's Ant Fest in 2015 and subsequently was produced at IRT in 2016. She holds a BA in Theater and Performance Studies at the University of California Berkeley.

Larry Marshall (Pops) was recently nominated for a Helen Hayes and Jeff award as Monroe in Pullman Porter Blues. He has been featured in 15 Broadway productions, including Porgy and Bess for which he was nominated for a Tony and Drama Desk award, and awarded a Grammy for his portrayal of Sportin' Life, a role he's repeated at The Met, La Scalla, and other major opera houses in America and Europe. He has appeared as Danny in the National Tour of Xanadu. He was last seen on Broadway in The Color Purple as Ole Mister. In the summer of 2006 he appeared with Meryl Streep as The General and The Farmer in Mother Courage at the Delacourt in Central Park. His Movie credits include Simon Zealotes in Jesus Christ Super Star, Cab Calloway in The Cotton Club, Adam Clayton Powell Sr. in Showtime's Keep the Faith, and Jeremiah Joseph in the Showtime series Soul Food.

Ken Robinson (Junior) is honored to be back at CPH after appearing here in the 2010 production of Ain't Misbehavin'. His Broadway credits include the recent Tony-winning revival of The Color Purple; Memphis; and Baby, It's You! Ken was also featured in the Classical Theatre of Harlem's The First Noel at the Apollo Theater. Other regional credits include Choir Boy (Marin Theatre Company), The Colored Museum (Huntington Theatre), The Piano Lesson (Seattle Rep), My Fair Lady (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Big River (STAGES St. Louis), and Jelly's Last Jam (ALLIANCE THEATRE). Ken received his MFA in Acting from the Yale School of Drama, and his BA in Economics from Morehouse College.

Michael Russotto (Lieutenant Dave Caro) makes his Cleveland Play House debut with Between Riverside and Crazy. Most recently, he appeared as Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, and as Pastor Paul in The Christians, both at Theater J (Washington, DC). Michael is a member of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, where he has performed in such productions as The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, A Bright New Boise, and She Stoops to Comedy. Other regional credits include shows at Arena Stage, Folger Shakespeare Theatre, and The Kennedy Center. His work in Washington has earned him three Helen Hayes Award Nominations in the Outstanding Lead Actor category, and many more Outstanding Ensemble Nominations. Film and television work includes Playing Through, Death of a Nation, and The Battle of Bloody Lane. Michael can be heard on the L.A. Theatre Works recording of Seven Days in May (with Ed Asner). He has also narrated hundreds of recorded books.

Danielle Skraastad (Detective Audrey O'Connor) Broadway: All My Sons. NY: Prospect (Boundless), Baby Screams Miracle (Clubbed Thumb), The Mound Builders (Signature), Intelligent Homosexuals Guide...,(Public/Signature), The Wake (The Public Theater), Anon (The Atlantic), Lidless (Page 73), Midsummer... (Continuum Co.), The Eyes of Others (The New Ohio), The Ones that Flutter (SPF at Public), Kathleen Turner's Ear (Samuel French Festival), Big Times (W.E.T), Carrie (Theater Couture), Lascivious Something (Cherry Lane Mentor), Fugue (Cherry Lane), Cressida Among the Greeks, Red-HairEd Thomas (The New Ohio), The Pain and the Itch (Playwrights Horizons), Save The World (Roundtable). Regional: Old Globe, Two River Theater Festival, Humana Festival, The Kirk, Berkeley Rep, The Wilma, ACT/Seattle, The Market Theater, Portland Stage Co, StageWorks/Hudson, The Lantern, CapRep/Albany, Hartford, StageWorks/Hudson. TV/ Film: Unforgettable, Fringe, Mercy, Law and Order, SVU, All My Children, As the World Turns, Hard Sell, 27 Dresses, The Business of Story.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM:

Stephen Adly Guirgis (Playwright) is a longtime member of NYC's LAByrinth Theater Company. His plays have been produced on five continents and throughout the United States. They include: the extended, sold-out run of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Our Lady of 121st Street (named one of the ten best plays of 2003; Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Best Play Nominations), Jesus Hopped the A Train (Edinburgh Fringe First Award, Olivier Nomination as London's Best New Play, Barrymore Award, "Detroit Free Press" Best Play Award), and IN Arabia We'd All Be Kings (Ten Best of '99, "TimeOut New York," critics pick, "TimeOut London"). All four plays were originally produced by LAByrinth, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and are published through Dramatists Play Service and by Faber & Faber. Stephen was awarded a 2004 TCG fellowship, attended the 2004 Sundance Screenwriter's Lab, was named one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by "Filmaker Magazine," and appeared in "Entertainment Weekly's" 2005 Summer Must List. He has received new play commissions from Manhattan Theater Club and South Coast Rep, is a member of New Dramatists and the MCC Playwright's Coalition, and has contributed to "ESOPUS" magazine. Television writing credits include NYPD Blue, The Sopranos David Milch's CBS drama Big Apple, and Shane Salerno's NBC drama UC: Undercover. As an actor, he has appeared in Brett C. Leonard's Guinea Pig Solo, produced at The Public Theatre in New York, and played leading roles in Todd Solondz's Palindromes, and Brett C. Leonard's award-winning Jailbait, opposite Michael Pitt. Currently, he is developing a project with Mos Def and HBO; and is writing his first feature film for Scott Rudin Productions, to be directed by George C. Wolfe. He lives in New York City.

Robert Barry Fleming (Director) is the Associate Artistic Director at Cleveland Play House, and honored to be making his CPH directorial debut with Between Riverside and Crazy. Formerly the Director of Artistic Programming at Arena Stage, he has worked as a director, choreographer, and actor in many of the leading resident theaters across the country including: The Public, The Taper, The Guthrie, La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, Perseverance Theatre, South Coast Rep, and The Goodman, to name a few. His work has been represented on Broadway: Stand-Up Tragedy, Ragtime; in television and film including the Oscar-winner, L.A. Confidential; and he was an associate producer for the NYC revival of Tennessee Williams' The Two-Character Play starring Amanda Plummer and Brad Dourif. Robert currently teaches in the Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Play House MFA Acting Program and served as Associate Professor and Chair of the Theatre Arts and Performance Studies Department at the University of San Diego, also teaching in The Old Globe USD Graduate Acting MFA Program. An SDCF Charles Abbott Directing Fellow, San Diego Critics Circle Craig Noel Award winner, and two-time honoree of the Bay Area Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Direction of a Musical, Robert received a Helen Hayes Award nomination for his work on Karen Zacarias' Destiny of Desire at Arena Stage. Upcoming: Caroline, or Change (Tantrum Theater).

The Design Team for Between Riverside and Crazy includes: Wilson Chin (Scenic Designer), Toni-Leslie James (Costume Designer), Keith Parham (Lighting Designer), Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen (Sound Design), Thom Jones (Dialect Coach) and WIGS AND WHISKERS (Wig Master). The Stage Manager for this production is TOM HUMES.

Cleveland Play House, recipient of the 2015 Regional Theatre Tony Award® and founded in 1915, is America's first professional regional theatre. Throughout its rich history, CPH has remained dedicated to its mission to inspire, stimulate, and entertain diverse audiences in Northeast Ohio by producing plays and theatre education programs of the highest professional standards. CPH has produced more than 100 world and/or American premieres, and over its long history more than 12 million people have attended over 1,600 productions. Today, Cleveland Play House celebrates the beginning of its second century of service while performing in three state-of-the art venues at Playhouse Square in downtown Cleveland.

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