Great Lakes Theater (GLT) will launch the world premiere of SEVEN AGES, a free touring production scheduled to visit twenty-two neighborhood venues throughout northeast Ohio, to kick off the company's 2014 series of Surround outreach programming. The one-act play is comprised of seven tales written by seven northeast Ohio playwrights (Nina Domingue, Mike Geither, David Hansen, Christine Howey, Anne McEvoy, Michael Oatman and Toni K. Thayer) and features a touring company of four actors directed by Lisa Ortenzi. The tour commences on February 11th, continues through March 5th and is designed to support Great Lakes Theater's upcoming mainstage production of As You Like It at the Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare which opens in April. All performances of the touring production are free and open to the public, with the exception of performances at area schools, which are private.
Great Lakes Theater and the company's 2014 series of Surround programming, which includes SEVEN AGES, is supported in part by the residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. Generous season support is also provided by The Cleveland Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council. GLT's mainstage production of As You Like It is part of Shakespeare for a New Generation, a national program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
"What an amazing opportunity we have here at Great Lakes Theater to bring live, free professional theater into the community in the form of our educational outreach tours," said Lisa Ortenzi, Great Lakes Theater's Director of Educational Programming about the company's annual tour. "For 25 years, our touring productions have created meaningful dialogues with audiences at high schools, assisted living facilities, local community theaters and libraries across northeast Ohio. We look forward to engaging audiences in the theatrical process again this year. We are grateful to the many generous supporters who make this work possible and enable us to fulfill our mission while reaching out to the community."
SEVEN AGES explores the question "what makes a life?". Audiences discover answers as a motley quartet of characters from Shakespeare's As You Like It cross paths while seeking shelter in the wilds of an Elizabethan forest and share stories to keep the darkness at bay. Myth, memoir, fables, and fantasy, the tales that they tell to simply pass the time, evoke meaning, elicit joy and reveal surprising glimpses into the tellers' hearts - as together they take an unexpected "journey of a lifetime."
The four-actor touring company features Cleveland actors
David Hansen, Annie Perusek,
Emily Pucell, and Bobby Williams. The design trio of
Terry Martin (scenic design), Esther Haberlen (costume design) and Richard Ingraham (sound design) complete the play's production team. Lisa Ortenzi, Great Lakes Theater's Director of Educational Programming, directs the production.
SEVEN AGES is a sixty-minute program that includes an introduction and post-performance discussion. Times and dates are subject to change. Call individual venues for more information.
SEVEN AGES is part of a series of community outreach programs that surrounds Great Lakes Theater's mainstage production of
William Shakespeare's As You Like It (Hanna Theatre, PlayhouseSquare / April 4 - 19, 2014). Great Lakes Theater's spring Surround offers multiple educational programs designed to connect the issues in the plays that Cleveland's classic company produces to the issues in people's own lives. All Surround events are free and open to the public
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