Double Heart: Cuyahoga Valley Art Center

We play large spaces, we play very intimate spaces. Cuyahoga Valley Art Center holds perhaps 40, as does the Nordonia Branch of the Akron Public Library, where we will appear next Thursday.

Thanks to Elizabeth Fry for these photos. Tomorrow we travel to Cleveland Heights-University Heights Main Library, performance at 2:00 PM. Please join us.

Double Heart: Firestone High School

Cuyahoga Valley Art Center

From Lakewood Library, to Cuyahoga Valley Art Center to Firestone High School -- three very different performances spaces with three very different crowds, in size, in age, but not in appreciation. Things continue to go very well for the tour. A gentleman last night said it was the most stimulating live performance he'd ever seen.

And then there was the person from an earlier venue who thought the entire first scene is about masturbation. I feel it is my responsibility to inform everyone at this time that I would never send a play into a high school or retirement community that makes reference to masturbation.

The entire first scene is about piss.

One person near the beginning of the run stated he didn't care for the politics of the play. I was stymied. What politics? I would never make a political statement in any of my plays, in fact I think theater an entirely inappropriate place to discuss anything of substance at all.

We go to the theater to make jokes about piss.


In general the praise has been high, and warm. Today at Firestone High -- normally our final date on the tour, but not so this year, and I regret that -- was another great audience. They have a strong theater arts program there, and every year I can expect not only attentive and well-read students, but that they also have a lot of interesting questions about the design, the process of writing, and how to pursue a future in the arts.

Styles: Cuyahoga Valley Art Center

Okay, this is a first. The folks at Cuyahoga Valley Art Center were so inspired by our choice of outreach tour, that for the month of February they have featured an installation of original works inspired by mystery, and mysterious tales.

Sparkling Cyanide
Lynda Lyons

Mrs. Katie's Ghost
Hilary Skeeter

Psycho
Gardner Boone

One section of the gallery was for works inspired by Agatha Christie in particular.

Agatha Christie's Murder Mystery Box
Karen McCrady

4 & 20 Blackbirds
Susan Mencini

Miss Marple Investigates
Lucy Redick
CVAC is not a large place, in fact this small gallery and art studio is perhaps the smallest space the tour visits ... except, maybe Workshop Players, but that is an actual theater. Here we have an open space, a hardwood floor, fluorescent lights, and a lot of mismatched chairs.

Backstage is where the magic happens.
Last year was our first visit to CVAC, and we attracted perhaps 40 dedicated members of the Center, and a few odd, interested parties. This year there were 70, including I believe just one teenager.

Can you spot the teenager?
The performance went off very well, and was very well received. At this venue, as with others, we had attracted a large number of Christie fans, and people who were quite familiar with Poirot.

"One of my very best hats once ...

One gentleman told us he came to see the show because he saw Decameron last year, and would have come to see a Great Lakes Theater touring show again, no matter what the title! It was a fun night all around -- special thanks to Marcus for helping us load out! Ditto, Lynda, Dorothy and everyone at CVAC. See you next year!