GLTF Announces Exciting Shows Of 2009-2010 Season

Charles Fee, Producing Artistic Director of Great Lakes Theater Festival (GLTF), announced plans for the company's ambitious forty-eighth season to Festival Members earlier this week. Scheduled to run from September through May, GLTF's 2009-10 season will feature a Fall Repertory, the Festival's annual holiday classic and a Spring Repertory.

In the fall (September 24-November 1, 2009), the Festival will present Rupert Holmes' Tony Award-winning solve-it-yourself musical, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Drood) in rotating repertory with Shakespeare's enchanting comedy, Twelfth Night. GLTF's annual production of Charles Dickens' holiday classic, A Christmas Carol (December 4-December 23, 2009), originally adapted and directed by Gerald Freedman, will mark the midpoint of the Festival's 48th season. GLTF will round out its 2009-10 season with a Spring Repertory (April 8-May 16, 2010) by pairing Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming's outrageous Off-Broadway hit Bat Boy: The Musical with Shakespeare's magical masterpiece, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The Festival's four regular season offerings in 2009-10 will take place in GLTF's revolutionary, audience-friendly new home at PlayhouseSquare's Hanna Theatre while A Christmas Carol will remain in its traditional Ohio Theatre setting.

The Festival's 48th season is presented with generous support from The Cleveland Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council. In addition, Great Lakes Theater Festival is generously funded by the citizens of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

"After experiencing, first-hand with our audience, the extraordinary artistic and social potential of the re-imagined Hanna Theatre during our 2008 fall rep, we're thrilled to have been able to select a season of plays in 2009-10 that fully utilizes the signature attributes our new home," said GLTF Producing Artistic Director Charles Fee. "The energy, vitality and intimacy that the Hanna Theatre affords its audiences is a perfect marriage for the spirited season line-up of productions in our 48th year."

Great Lakes Theater Festival's unique 550-seat home at the Hanna Theatre features a flexible thrust stage and offers its audiences an exciting and uniquely intimate theater experience. The Hanna's "Great Room" inspired design concept creates a single unified environment that integrates the artist and audience experience into one realm and dissolves the formal separation between the social experience of the lobby and the artistic experience of the stage. The new Hanna offers patrons a variety of seating options including traditional theater seats, club chairs, banquettes, private boxes and lounge/bar seating. This variety of options enables each visitor to self-define their experience at the theater.

GLTF's 2009-10 season of plays is a perfect fit for the company's new home at the Hanna Theatre. "Our season and our performance space work together to provide a theatrical experience unlike any other in the region," explained Charles Fee. "With our exuberant season-opener The Mystery of Edwin Drood, we're able to highlight the exceptional storytelling ability of our artists - aided immensely by the Hanna's intimate setting. With Drood we'll even invite our audiences to participate first-hand in the event by empowering them to choose the musical's ending. Our productions of Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night Dream in the Hanna offer patrons the extraordinary opportunity to experience Shakespeare's classics as they were originally intended - on a thrust stage that breaks the limitation of the proscenium and brings all of the energy of the performance out into the house. And with Bat Boy: The Musical, a rock-infused romp, we'll joyfully engage the audiences, both young and young-at-heart - who came out in droves for our 2008 fall rep productions - in a venue that is technologically unparalleled in the region. We designed this theater on the promise of cultivating the next generation of theater-goers, and we intend on keeping that promise."

Great Lakes Theater Festival's unique rotating repertory format has played a key role in the theater company's success with audiences over the past several seasons. "Presenting plays in rotating repertory is a great challenge for artists and great fun for audiences," said Charles Fee. "The opportunity to see a single resident company of actors perform two plays on the same stage, alternating shows every few nights, from musicals to Shakespeare, makes the Great Lakes Theater Festival experience unique in northern Ohio."

In 2009-10, Great Lakes Theater Festival will unveil a new regular season pricing structure designed to increase accessibility for audiences. As part of the program, 25% of the seats at every GLTF Hanna Theatre performance are priced at $25 or under. Furthermore, tickets for every regular season performance always begin at $15. "It is absolutely vital to the mission and long-term health of our organization that we create affordable opportunities for every person in our region to experience live theater," said Charles Fee. "Last season, we created a pricing structure with that in mind. This season, we have not only continued that mandate, but expanded it. In 2009-10, we have increased the number of seats at $25 or less making the Great Lakes Theater Festival experience one of the most affordable entertainment options in our region."

In 2009-10, Opening Night performances of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Twelfth Night, Bat Boy: The Musical and A Midsummer Night's Dream have been scheduled for Saturday evenings, while A Christmas Carol's Opening Night is slated for a Friday night. Great Lakes Theater Festival's upcoming performance calendar also includes a Friday evening Press Preview Performance for each of the company's Hanna Theatre offerings. Curtain times for all evening performances will remain at 7:30 p.m., with a 1:30 p.m. curtain time for Saturday matinees and a 3:00 p.m. curtain time for Sunday matinees. All five productions in the Festival's 48th season will continue to offer sign interpreted and audio described performances as well as the popular Director's Night and Playnotes pre-show discussion series. (Click here to consult the 2009-10 season performance calendars.)

Subscriptions to Great Lakes Theater Festival's 2009-10 season are on sale now. An adult subscription to Great Lakes Theater Festival starts as low as $102. Student subscriptions begin at $36. For more information about becoming a Festival subscriber, patrons should contact the Great Lakes Theater Festival subscription office at (216) 664-6064 or visit www.greatlakestheater.org.

Single tickets will be available beginning in August. Regular priced adult single tickets will range from $15 - $69. Regular priced student/youth tickets for the Hanna Theatre are $11 ($26 for A Christmas Carol in the Ohio Theatre) and will be available for all performances. Additional handling fees may apply and may vary depending on point of purchase. Further details and pricing specifics for single performance tickets will be announced in August. Single tickets will be available by calling (216) 241-6000, by ordering online at www.greatlakestheater.org and by visiting the PlayhouseSquare Ticket Office. Groups of ten or more receive discounts, as do educators.

Great Lakes Theater Festival has brought the pleasure, power and relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience in northern Ohio since 1962. The first resident company of PlayhouseSquare, GLTF will celebrate its 27th year in downtown Cleveland this season. Festival programming reaches 85,000 adults and students annually.

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