CLEVELAND, OH –
Charles Fee, Producing Artistic Director of Great Lakes Theater Festival (GLTF),
announced plans for the classic theater company’s forty-seventh season
today. The Festival’s four regular
season offerings in 2008-09 will take place in GLTF’s new home at
Great Lakes
Theater Festival’s new 550-seat home at the
Great Lakes
Theater Festival’s 2008-09 season will run from September through May and will
feature a Fall Repertory, the Festival’s annual holiday classic A Christmas Carol and a Spring
Repertory. In the fall (September
24-November 8, 2008), GLTF will
present William Shakespeare’s towering tragedy Macbeth, directed by GLTF Producing Artistic
Director Charles Fee, in rotating
repertory with Stephen Sondheim’s enchanting
musical, Into the Woods, directed by Victoria Bussert. GLTF’s annual production of Charles
Dickens’ holiday classic, A Christmas Carol (November 28-December
23, 2008), adapted and directed
by Gerald Freedman, will mark the midpoint of the Festival’s forty-seventh
year. GLTF will continue its
2008-09 season with a Spring
Repertory (March 25-May 3, 2009)
pairing William Shakespeare’s fantastic farce The
Comedy of Errors with Anton Chekhov’s soaring classic, The
Seagull. The directors of
The Comedy of Errors, The Seagull and
A Christmas Carol will be announced
at a later date.
The season
sponsor of Great Lakes Theater Festival’s inaugural year at the
The Festival
will expand its Fall and Spring Repertory performance calendars in 2008-09
to satisfy
increased audience demand for public performances and to accommodate GLTF’s
significant student matinee audience.
The company’s Fall Repertory will expand its run from five weeks in 2007
to seven weeks in 2008. Similarly,
the Festival’s Spring Repertory run will expand from five weeks in 2008 to six
weeks in 2009. The performance
calendar for A Christmas Carol will
remain consistent with past seasons.
Great Lakes
Theater Festival’s unique rotating repertory format has played a key role in the
theater company’s success with audiences over the past several seasons. The Festival
returned to a rotating repertory format in 2003 with alternating productions of
Hamlet and Tartuffe. “Presenting a pair of classic plays in
rotating repertory is a great challenge for artists and great fun for
audiences,” said Charles Fee. “The
opportunity to see a single resident company of actors perform two plays on the
same stage, alternating shows every few nights, makes the Great Lakes Theater
Festival experience unique in northern
Great Lakes
Theater Festival’s annual production of A
Christmas Carol will celebrate its twentieth anniversary in
2008. Originally adapted and directed by
former GLTF Artistic Director Gerald Freedman in 1989, A Christmas Carol has entertained over
450,000 adults and students over the course of its history. The production will remain in its
traditional home at the Ohio Theatre,
Great Lakes
Theater Festival’s expanded 2008-09 performance calendar includes two new
features: 1) a pair
of additional Preview performances and 2) a new Friday evening Press/Media Opening performance for each of the company’s
regular season offerings. The
remainder of the 2008-09 season
schedule remains consistent with historic Festival offerings. Opening Night performances of Macbeth, Into the Woods, The Comedy of
Errors and The Seagull have been
scheduled for Saturday evenings, while
A Christmas Carol’s Opening Night is slated for a Friday
night. Curtain times for all
evening performances will remain at 7:30 p.m., with a 1:30 p.m. curtain time for
Saturday matinees and a 3:00 p.m. curtain time for Sunday matinees. All five productions in the Festival’s
forty-seventh season will continue to offer sign interpreted and audio described
performances as well as the popular Director’s Night and Playnotes pre-show discussion series.
Subscriptions
to Great Lakes Theater Festival’s 2008-09 season will go on sale to the general
public beginning April 1, 2008 and subscription renewals for 2007-08 season
subscribers will begin on February 11, 2008. An adult
subscription to Great Lakes Theater Festival starts as low as $93. Student subscriptions begin at $36. For more information about becoming a
Festival subscriber, patrons
should contact the Great Lakes Theater Festival subscription office at
(216) 664-6064
or visit www.greatlakestheater.org.
Single tickets
will be available beginning in July.
Regular priced
adult single tickets will range from $15 - $69. Regular priced student/youth tickets for
the
The first
resident company of
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For
More Information
Todd Krispinsky
Marketing and Public Relations
Director
(216)
241-5490 x317
tkrispinsky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.greatlakestheater.org