HEAVEN'S MY DESTINATION Begins In The Drury Theater 4/24-5/17

The Cleveland Play House Artistic Director Michael Bloom announces the world premiere production of Thornton Wilder's novel Heaven's My Destination, adapted by award-winning playwright Lee Blessing. The play is the centerpiece of the fourth annual FusionFest, a multidisciplinary performing arts festival.

Thornton Wilder's Heaven's My Destination begins in the Drury Theatre at The Cleveland Play House on Friday, April 24 and runs through Sunday, May 17, 2009. Tickets are on sale now at The Cleveland Play House box office by calling 216.795.7000 ext 4 or online at www.clevelandplayhouse.com. Heaven's My Destination is presented in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and commissioned by The Play House expressly for FusionFest with support from The Roe Green Foundation.

"Heaven's My Destination signals The Play House's rededication to new work by America's most important playwrights. I am thrilled that our first major Play House commission in years is awarded to Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award nominee Lee Blessing," says Cleveland Play House Artistic Director Michael Bloom.

ABOUT THE PLAY and PLAYWRIGHT
With the help of an "Access to Artistic Excellence" grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a grant from the Green Foundation, The Play House commissioned Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-nominee Lee Blessing to adapt one of Thornton Wilder's greatest-but unsung-novels, Heaven's My Destination. It's a "Baptist Don Quixote," as Wilder himself described it, the comic tale of a young man named George Brush who travels the middle of the country selling textbooks and saving souls. Set in the Great Depression in banks, smoking cars, bawdy houses, and campgrounds, this tale of religion and tolerance could hardly be more relevant.

Lee Blessing is an American playwright who has written over 25 plays. He was born in Minneapolis, the son of a salesman, and was educated at Reed College and received his Masters in Poetry and Playwriting from The University of Iowa. Blessing's work was first produced at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in 1982 and many of his subsequent scripts would premiere and find success regionally. His most notable plays include A Walk in the Woods (1988), dealing with the friendship that develops between an American and a Russian diplomat; Eleemosynary (1988), about three generations of independent women; and Cobb (2000), which explored the many facets of baseball legend Ty Cobb. He currently heads the graduate playwriting program at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.

A BRUSH WITH HEAVEN: Thornton Wilder AND THE AMERICAN SPIRIT DURING THE DEPRESSION
A symposium will take place on April 26, 2009 at 4:30pm in the Drury Theatre at The Cleveland Play House. Free and open to the public, "A Brush With Heaven" gives audience members an insightful look at the play, The Life of Thornton Wilder, and the inspiration behind his novel. Cleveland Play House Artistic Director Michael Bloom will moderate a panel discussion with Tappan Wilder, nephew of Thornton Wilder; Lee Blessing, playwright; and Clayton Koppes, Professor of History, Oberlin College.

Tappan Wilder is Thornton Wilder's nephew and literary executor, and the manager of his literary and dramatic properties. He is also involved with the literary legacies of Thornton's three sisters and older brother. Mr. Wilder is a graduate of Yale College and holds an M.A. in American History from the University of Wisconsin and a Master of Philosophy in American Studies from Yale.

CLAYTON KOPPES teaches courses in United States history from 1900 to the present. He specializes in political history, film history, and foreign policy. He is the author of two books, Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits, and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies (Free Press, 1987), coauthored with Gregory D. Black, and JPL: A History of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Yale University Press, 1982). He is at work on The Code: The Paradoxical History of Movie Censorship in America. The author of many scholarly articles, he has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities. A founding member of Oberlin's Environmental Studies Program, he is a past president of the American Society for Environmental History.

For biographical information on playwright Lee Blessing and moderator Michael Bloom, please refer to the play's Creative Team section later in this release.

HEAVEN'S MY DESTINATION Cast:
Katie Barrett (Actor E/ Ensemble) participated in the 2007-2008 Cleveland Play House FusionFest reading of Heaven's My Destination. She recently appeared as Leah in the new play Burning, Burning, Burning, Burning at the Public Theater in New York City for Labyrinth Theatre Company's Barn Series and originated all of the female roles in the world premiere of In This Corner at The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. Ms. Barrett has performed at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse (2006 Craig Noel Award for Theatrical Excellence for her role as Yvette in Mother Courage), Yale Repertory Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Arena Stage, The Kennedy Center, Baltimore's CenterStage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Studio Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Roundhouse Theatre, Folger Theatre, Naked Angels Lab and HERE Art Center. Film and television credits include "Law & Order," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," HBO's "The Corner," "Pride and Prejudice," Riders and The Ex.

KAILEY BELL (Actor D/Ensemble) Favorite past roles include Thelma in Trip to Bountiful and Amy in Little Women, Kansas City Repertory Theatre; Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Indiana Repertory Theatre; Linda Daniels and Annie Lawson in Final Curtain, International Mystery Writers' Festival; Anne Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Viola in Twelfth Night, GreenStick Theatre Company; Rita in Educating Rita and Popova in The Bear, Wheaton College Summer Shakespeare. Ms. Bell has extensive professional voiceover credits for short stories and other dramatic recordings, textbooks, and commercials. She graduated with a Master of Arts in Theater Performance from Northwestern University.

DIANE DORSEY (Actor F/Ensemble) This year was a language excursion for Ms. Dorsey beginning with an Oklahoma twang, August: Osage County, Steppenwolf Theatre Company; shifting to cockney with Cassilis Engagement, ShawChicago; lilting a brogue, Cripple of Inishmaan, Nebraska Repertory Theatre; and discovering the tonal colors of Mea Shearim, Jerusalem, in Women's Minyan, OnStage Israel Festival. Additional Chicago productions include Transference, Mercury Theatre; Helen, Next Theatre Company; Bleacher Bums, Royal George Theatre; and Pericles, The Shakespeare Project. Several favorite roles are the Devil's Mama in Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, Madison Rep; Kate in All My Sons, Geffen Playhouse; Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit, Peninsula Players; and the title role in Mata Hari, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Scotland. Selected film and television credits are Road to Perdition, "Ghost Whisperer," "Roseanne," and "Designing Women." Ms. Dorsey recently wrote and performed a solo show entitled Kaleidoscope, is an Affiliate Artist with both Chicago Dramatists and American Theatre Company, and a 26-year member of Actors' Equity Association.

Michael Halling (George Brush) recently appeared on Broadway as Gaspard in A Tale of Two Cities. Other Broadway credits include the 2006 Tony award winning production of The Pajama Game as Cyrus and standby for Harry Connick, Jr.; The Boy from Oz, standby for Hugh Jackman; In My Life as Nick; and The Scarlet Pimpernel. Other New York acting work includes The Streets of New York as Mark Livingstone, The Irish Repertory Theatre (off- Broadway); and Candide, standby for the part of Maximillian at the New York City Opera. National tours include Les Miserables as Enjolras and The Full Monty as Teddy Slaughter. Selected regional credits are as follows: The Full Monty as Jerry Lukowski (Kevin Kline Awards Nomination), Stages St. Louis; Company, Pittsburgh CLO; Carnival, Connecticut Repertory Theatre; Beauty and the Beast, Atlanta Theater of the Stars; The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis; Pioneer Theatre Company; North Shore Music Theatre; The Muny; Ogunquit Playhouse.

Christian Kohn (Actor B/Ensemble) participated in the 2007-2008 Cleveland Play House FusionFest reading of Heaven's My Destination and performed the title role in that season's Play House production of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure. He was recently seen in Florida Studio Theatre's production of Opus. Mr. Kohn appeared on Broadway in Hollywood Arms, with Hal Prince and Carol Burnett; An Ideal Husband; Trailerville; and Last Chance for a Slow Dance. Regional credits include Death of a Salesman, Alabama Shakespeare Festival; Of Mice and Men, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park; Bug, Syracuse Stage; A Christmas Carol, Virginia Stage Company; Death of a Salesman, Geva Theatre; Phaedra, Fisher Center for the Performing Arts; Bus Stop, The Turn of the Screw, and The Lion in Winter, Fulton Opera House; Hollywood Arms, The Gift Horse, and Among the Thugs, Goodman Theatre; David Copperfield and Sideman, Steppenwolf Theatre Company; The Invention of Love, Piano, Twelfth Night, and Mary Stuart, Court Theatre.

COURTNEY ANNE NELSON (Little Roberts Girl/Elizabeth/Rhoda May Gruber) last appeared at The Cleveland Play House in the 2007-2008 FusionFest reading of Heaven's My Destination. She was also part of 2006-2007 FusionFest as Hannah Greenwold in Solomon's Blade. Recent credits include Jane Eyre as Young Jane, Kent State University; A Christmas Carol as Skate Girl and Tiny Tim (for two seasons), Great Lakes Theater Festival; Children of Eden as Young Abel, Weathervane Playhouse; Music Man as Gracie Shinn, Porthouse Theatre; Honk as Beaky, Mercury Summer Stock; and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in the Children's Choir, Fairmount Performing Arts Camp (FPAC). Courtney studies theater at the Beck Center for the Arts, and attends FPAC in the summer. Other interests include piano and dance. Later this summer, Courtney can be seen in Annie Get Your Gun playing the role of Tessie at Porthouse Theatre. Courtney is 10 years old and in the fifth grade.

JUSTIN TATUM (Actor A/Ensemble) was recently seen at The Cleveland Play House as Pete in the Theater for Children Series' production of Bunnicula. He also played Frid in A Little Night Music for Opera Cleveland. Mr. Tatum worked for two years at Monomoy Theatre, a professional summer stock in Chatham, Massachusetts and since has worked for several Northeast Ohio area theaters. Favorite roles include the following: Peter Evans in Bug; Thomas in Defender of the Faith; Dylan in Griller for Bang and the Clatter Theatre Company; Travis/Tyler in Goldstar, OH for Cleveland Public Theatre; and Jon in Tape for Dobama Theatre. Film credits include The Path of the Wind and Pure Shooter.

John Woodson (Actor C/Ensemble) was part of the Heaven's My Destination reading of Cleveland Play House FusionFest 2007-2008 and appeared in The Play House 2006-2007 mainstage production of Of Mice and Men. He has performed in over a hundred productions including Medea on Broadway; King Lear, the Great Lakes Theatre Festival and Roundabout Theatre; King Lear, New York Shakespeare Festival and Public Theater; Henry V, New York Shakespeare Festival; Destiny of Me, Lucille Lortel Theatre; and the world premiere of The Love Suicide of Schofield Barracks, Signature Theatre Company. Regionally, John has worked for many outstanding theaters including Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Dallas Theatre Center, Alley Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Philadelphia Theatre Company, and Long Wharf Theatre. Mr. Woodson was Artistic and Executive Director of The Warehouse Theatre in Greenville, South Carolina from 2002-2006. He is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts.

HEAVEN'S MY DESTINATION Creative Team:
Lee Blessing (Playwright) Lee Blessing's play A Walk in the Woods won the American Theater Critics Award and was nominated for the Tony, Pulitzer and Olivier Awards. It ran on Broadway, in London's West End, in Moscow, and was seen on PBS's American Playhouse. Mr. Blessing's off Broadway credits include A Body of Water (2006 Steinberg/American Theater Critics Award); Going To St. Ives (Outer Critics Circle Award, Best Play); Thief River (Drama Desk Nomination, Best Play); Cobb (Drama Desk Nomination, Best Ensemble); Chesapeake, Down the Road, and Eleemosynary. Signature Theatre Company's 1993-94 season introduced off Broadway to Blessing's Fortinbras, Lake Street Extension, Two Rooms, and the world premiere of Patient A. Recent world and regional premieres include Great Falls in the Actors Theatre of Louisville's 2008 Humana Festival (finalist for the 2009 Steinberg/American Theater Critics Award), Lonesome Hollow and Flag Day at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival, and The Scottish Play at La Jolla Playhouse. Blessing's work has been produced widely, both here and abroad, in such venues as the Guthrie Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Arena Stage, Yale Repertory Theatre, Alliance Theatre, and A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle, among many others. Mr. Blessing wrote "Cooperstown" for TNT, which earned him the Humanitas Award. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as the Guggenheim, Bush, McKnight and Jerome Foundations. He heads the graduate playwriting program at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University and is married to playwright/television writer Melanie Marnich.

Thornton Wilder (Author) was an accomplished novelist and playwright whose works explore the connection between the commonplace and the cosmic dimensions of human experience. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928 for The Bridge of San Luis Rey, the second of his seven novels, and received the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943). His hit play The Matchmaker (1939/1954) was adapted as the musical Hello, Dolly. He also enjoyed enormous success as a teacher, lecturer, actor, librettist, translator, and adaptor (Wilder worked easily in four languages). His screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) remains a classic psychological thriller to this day. He served briefly with the Army in WW I, and with Army Air Force Intelligence in North Africa and Italy during WW II, completing his service as a Lieutenant Colonel. Wilder's many honors include the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Committee's Medal for Literature. His fourth novel Heaven's My Destination (1935) was a best seller in the United States and in Great Britain and has been translated into ten languages.

MICHAEL BLOOM (Director) is the eighth artistic director of The Cleveland Play House since the theater's inception in 1915. Recently at The Play House he directed The Glass Menagerie, Rabbit Hole, Lincolnesque, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Well. He has directed at many of the country's major theaters, including American Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Rep, The Old Globe, South Coast Rep, Seattle Rep, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, Alley Theatre, Alliance Theatre Company, The Cleveland Play House, Long Wharf Theatre, and the Sundance Playwrights' Institute. His productions have also been seen throughout Japan and in Tokyo at the Aoyama Theatre and Theatre Cocoon. For his Manhattan Theatre Club production of Sight Unseen he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for direction. Other productions include the American premiere of A Young Lady from Rwanda, Gross Indecency (the Elliott Norton Award for Directing in 1998), the world premiere of Dinner with Friends at Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Los Angeles premieres of The Cryptogram and The Old Neighborhood at the Geffen Playhouse, Major Barbara and The Philadelphia Story at Kansas City Repertory Theatre, and the world premiere of Tennessee Williams' Spring Storm. He has directed premieres by Don DeLillo, David Hare, Arthur Kopit, Neil LaBute, David Lodge, Donald Margulies, David Mamet, and Wallace Shawn. In Cambridge he spent a season as associate director at American Repertory Theatre, and in New York, Mr. Bloom served as a literary manager at Manhattan Theatre Club. He has taught at New York University, Harvard University, University of California Los Angeles, University of Texas, and Scripps College. His articles on theater have appeared in American Theatre Magazine and The New York Times. His book Thinking Like a Director was published by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux in 2001.

The design team for Heaven's My Destination includes Russell Parkman (Scenic Designer), David Kay Mickelsen (Costume Design), Justin Townsend (Lighting Designer), James C. Swonger (Sound Design), Josh Schmidt (Composer) and Jerrold Scott (Dialect Coach). The Cleveland Play House's Production Staff is responsible for the sets, costumes, lighting, props, furniture, scenic painting, sound, special effects and/or wigs used in this production.

SPECIAL EVENTS
· First Friday Tasting Series - Friday, April 24, 2009 - Mingle with other theatre fans and enjoy drink tastings and complimentary hors d'oeuvres starting at 6:30pm in our lobbies. Specially priced preview tickets include this pre-show reception and admittance to the play.
· Symposium: A Brush with Heaven: Thornton Wilder and The American Spirit During the Depression - Sunday, April 26, 2009 @ 4:30pm, Drury Theatre. Admission is free.
· Pre-show discussions - Join us 45 minutes before every performance for a lively discussion with a member of the cast or creative team.
· Playbacks - Wednesday, May 6 and Sunday, May 10, 2009 - Join actors from the cast for these post-play discussions moderated by a member of the artistic staff.
· Student Matinees occur at 10:30am on Friday, May 1 and Tuesday, May 12, 2009. Tickets are $10 each, and teacher tickets are complimentary. For details, call (216) 795-7000, ext. 149 or e-mail StudentOutreach@clevelandplayhouse.com.

TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets for Heaven's My Destination range from $42 to $64, with discounts available for groups of ten or more, for senior citizens aged 60 and over, and for military reservists and their families. Tickets are $10 for all students under the age of 25. A limited number of $10 rush tickets go on sale 90 minutes before curtain and remain on sale until 30 minutes before curtain, based on availability. The Cleveland Play House is located at 85th and Euclid Ave. next door to the Cleveland Clinic near University Circle.

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