MUSEUM PLAY, BOYS IN THE BAND Featured in convergence-continuum's 2011 Season

convergence-continuum marks a milestone in its history.  Its 2011 Season will be its tenth.  The season includes a line-up of six shows, beginning with the opening of Valparaiso by Don DeLillo on March 18, and concluding with The Internationalist by Anne Washburn closing in December. 

Details of the full line-up follow.

Valparaiso by Don DeLillo  (Ohio premiere)

March 18-April 16                        

Directed by Clyde Simon

Generously funded by the residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture

Valparaiso revolves around an otherwise ordinary guy who suddenly becomes a national media sensation (think "Joe the Plumber," "The Homeless Guy with the Golden Voice," etc.)  and follows the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of  a troubled man who makes a series of mistakes when starting off on a business trip to Valparaiso, Indiana, gets on a plane to Valparaiso, Florida, and in trying to correct this error, ends up in Valparaiso, Chile.  Its characters tend to have needs and desires shaped by the forces of broadcast technology.  This is also a play that makes obsessive poetry out of the language of routine airline announcements and the flow of endless information. This is the way we talk to each other today. This is the way we tell each other things, in public, before listening millions, that we don't dare to say privately. Nothing is allowed to be unseen. Nothing remains unsaid. And everything melts repeatedly into something else, as if driven by the finger on the TV remote.

"A play that crawls into the most carefully protected corners of one's consciousness--gorgeous, frightening, stunningly poetic, wickedly funny, surprisingly voluptuous and erotic." - Chicago Sun-Times

The Museum Play by JorDan Harrison  (Ohio premiere)

May 13-June 4

Directed by Cory Molner

When the mastodons escape, Jame needs another exhibit for the Museum. Luckily, he has a friend with wonderful bones. The Curator is delighted with her new specimen, but she can't help wondering: Who, or what, is behind the mysterious exodus of flora and fauna? An elegiac and absurd look at the intersections of memory and desire, set to the tune of a music box.

 "An ironic-absurdist meditation on untenable sentiments and immortal longing...Harrison's work is vibrant and fresh." --Seattle Weekly

The Miracle at Naples by David Grimm  (Ohio premiere)

July 1-23

Directed by Geoffrey Hoffman

Don Bertolino Fortunato and his motley band of traveling commedia dell'arte players arrive in a Neapolitan town square. It's September 19, 1580, and the locals are awaiting the annual miracle: the liquefaction of blood the of the statue of the city's patron saint. But the miracle won't occur, and therefore neither can the feast of San Gennaro nor Don Bertonlino's troupe's performance. As the locals and the travelers anticipate the satisfaction of the miracle's occurrence, their passions ignite and various combinations of lustful lovers romp through the town piazza seeking pleasure and discovering the many forms of love in this outrageously smart and bawdy comedy.

"Sublime...a miracle in itself...a grand time-crude, rude, and deliciously lewd." - Variety

"Fantastic...raunchy potent comedy." - Boston Herald  

Five Flights by Adam Bock  (Ohio premiere)

August 19-September 10

Directed by Clyde Simon

Siblings Ed and Adele inherit an enormous aviary that their late father built for his deceased wife, whose soul, he believed, had transformed into the body of a wren. The grown children are faced with the dilemma of what to do with the crumbling structure -- sister-in-law Jane wants to build tidy new houses; friend Olivia wants to build The Church of the Fifth Day honoring birds and the Fifth Day of creation; Ed wants to let the building fall to the ground. Folded into this debate are issues of religious conviction, fear of commitment, the way Russian ballet resembles a hockey game, and the courtship of Ed by Tom, a gay professional hockey player.

"A rare discovery in a new play -- an intricately constructed comedy about love and grief that is incredibly funny, surprisingly touching and soaring with joyful humanity." - Back Stage

The Boys in the Band by Mart Crowley  (a modern American classic)

October 7-29

Directed by Tyson Douglas Rand

Now a modern American classic, this seminal work of the Off-Broadway movement premiered in 1968 and was a long-running hit onstage, later filmed with the original cast, and made a triumphant return to New York City in 2010 in an highly praised production by the Transport Group. In his upper eastside Manhattan apartment, Michael is throwing a birthday party for Harold, a self-avowed "32 year-old, pock-marked, Jew fairy", complete with surprise gift: "Cowboy" a street hustler. As the evening wears on, fueled by insecurities and alcohol, bitter, unresolved resentments among the guests come to light when a game of "Truth" goes terribly wrong.

The Internationalist by Anne Washburn  (Ohio premiere)

November 25-December 17

Directed by Clyde Simon

Lowell, an American on an overseas business trip, is met at the airport by a beautiful colleague. They spend the night together and he thinks he's in one of those great American movies where you go to a foreign land and there's romance and adventure and the experience changes you. The next day at the office he discovers that he's not in one of those movies, he's in one of those foreign films where nothing is as it seems, where there is no moral, and most importantly: no subtitles.

"Welcome to Anne Washburn, an original new voice! The Internationalist is a new kind of play for the 21st century. Fresh, provocative, riveting " - Back Stage

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