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| Good kitty. |
The remnants of this late season has included bouts of strong summer storms, bringing down trees and flooding cities. So is the harbinger of catastrophic climate change. And yet, we get out. To enjoy what the urban outdoors has to offer, because we know the days are drawing far too short and sometimes it snows in September.
Last weekend, I took a three hour stroll through the streets of Cleveland with two hundred of my closest friends, attending Micro Theater CLE: Tremont Reloaded. And what I witnessed was a cavalcade of performances:
A short play about a fork in the road set in a dead end street, a multimedia performance about childhood trauma executed in an attic, a laconic chain-smoking improviser, lazing on a chaise lounge in someone’s driveway, and so much more!
And as usual, I provided the cat poop in the sandbox.
To be sure, I received so many positive marks about my brief solilokitty ("Stray") which was a surprise to those who were prepared to enjoy a series of silly stories told by dopey dogs. Then this feline arrived (performed with cat-like reflexes by the always adorable Katelyn Cornelius) to unwind an inscrutable saga about their transition from feral stray to pampered rescue cat.
Folks were moved, it stuck with them, which is only natural. Cats have depth. Dogs are dumb.
Molded From the Clay
For three seasons now, Cleveland playwright and impresario Stuart Hoffman has produced a series of creepy plays in September (Advent for spooky season) at Wizbang! in Cleveland Heights. If you have never been, Wizbang is homebase for circus performers Pinch & Squeal (Jason and Danielle Tilk) offering offbeat entertainments and clever concoctions in intimate digs festooned with fabulous frippery.
This year, Hoffman opened his roster of supernatural stories to include those by other playwrights with Out of the Kiln: When Your Past Haunts You, and so on Friday evening our senses were cooled by unnatural infestations, comic tales of torture, playful poltergeists, and a literal throwing of hands.
The night concluded with a rendition of “The Hearse Song” delightfully choreographed by Millie Sherin which was unsettlingly sexy.
Back to the Shop
If last week’s trek through Tremont was summer’s curtain call, participating in Pandemonium last night was opening night for fall.
Cleveland Public Theatre’s annual gala is an enormous party, this year celebrating the extensive renovation of the (former) Russian Orthodox Church space which is now fully accessible.
We were on the other side of the campus, the folks from Micro Theater CLE provided a stage to present a cycle of 10 minute plays. The stage was located outside the scene shop; at the first Pandemonium, over twenty years ago, I had produced a series of Neo-Futurist plays inside the scene shop for audiences seated inside the freight elevator, arriving every fifteen minutes.
I done lots of Pandemonium.
My offering this evening was Lombardo (also directed by Millie Sherin!) in which a character-free young man from LIFE interviews Guy Lombardo about his switch from radio to TV for his New Year’s Eve broadcast. A short play meant to take the piss out of bad biographic plays, I made a point not to include any data I couldn’t find on Wikipedia.
Last weekend, I took a three hour stroll through the streets of Cleveland with two hundred of my closest friends, attending Micro Theater CLE: Tremont Reloaded. And what I witnessed was a cavalcade of performances:
A short play about a fork in the road set in a dead end street, a multimedia performance about childhood trauma executed in an attic, a laconic chain-smoking improviser, lazing on a chaise lounge in someone’s driveway, and so much more!
And as usual, I provided the cat poop in the sandbox.
To be sure, I received so many positive marks about my brief solilokitty ("Stray") which was a surprise to those who were prepared to enjoy a series of silly stories told by dopey dogs. Then this feline arrived (performed with cat-like reflexes by the always adorable Katelyn Cornelius) to unwind an inscrutable saga about their transition from feral stray to pampered rescue cat.
Folks were moved, it stuck with them, which is only natural. Cats have depth. Dogs are dumb.
For three seasons now, Cleveland playwright and impresario Stuart Hoffman has produced a series of creepy plays in September (Advent for spooky season) at Wizbang! in Cleveland Heights. If you have never been, Wizbang is homebase for circus performers Pinch & Squeal (Jason and Danielle Tilk) offering offbeat entertainments and clever concoctions in intimate digs festooned with fabulous frippery.
This year, Hoffman opened his roster of supernatural stories to include those by other playwrights with Out of the Kiln: When Your Past Haunts You, and so on Friday evening our senses were cooled by unnatural infestations, comic tales of torture, playful poltergeists, and a literal throwing of hands.
The night concluded with a rendition of “The Hearse Song” delightfully choreographed by Millie Sherin which was unsettlingly sexy.
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| Mike Frye, Mindy Herman, Keith Kornajcik |
If last week’s trek through Tremont was summer’s curtain call, participating in Pandemonium last night was opening night for fall.
Cleveland Public Theatre’s annual gala is an enormous party, this year celebrating the extensive renovation of the (former) Russian Orthodox Church space which is now fully accessible.
We were on the other side of the campus, the folks from Micro Theater CLE provided a stage to present a cycle of 10 minute plays. The stage was located outside the scene shop; at the first Pandemonium, over twenty years ago, I had produced a series of Neo-Futurist plays inside the scene shop for audiences seated inside the freight elevator, arriving every fifteen minutes.
I done lots of Pandemonium.
My offering this evening was Lombardo (also directed by Millie Sherin!) in which a character-free young man from LIFE interviews Guy Lombardo about his switch from radio to TV for his New Year’s Eve broadcast. A short play meant to take the piss out of bad biographic plays, I made a point not to include any data I couldn’t find on Wikipedia.
The scene was stolen by Mindy Herman as Lombardo’s wasted wife Lillibell. One of my colleagues observed, “I always love your woman characters,” which is funny because Lillibell is a parody of all those poorly drawn female characters.
Speeches were made, performances were witnessed, the massive, tented dance floor opened just as the clouds did, and I was in bed by eleven.
Welcome, autumn!
