SUMMER’S STOCKED

The performing arts season winds down in the spring, but there’s still much to be found on local stages. Here’s a preview of summer 2009.

SUMMER THEATRE

Kids come first in Northeast Ohio’s summer theater season, as
Dobama Theatre presents the Marilyn Bianchi Kids’ Playwriting
Festival for the 31st year. Each year the company gets 400 to 500
scripts from kids ages 6 to 18 and produces the best ones. This year’s
festival opens with a benefit performance Thursday, June 11, with
additional performances through June 14. Benefit tickets: $25; all
other performances are free. Performances are in the Westfield
Insurance Studio Theatre (1375 Euclid Ave., dobama.org, 216.932.3396).

The rest of the summer is mostly about goofy fun, with a few
complications. Porthouse Theatre‘s production of the
Stephen Sondheim, Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart musical farce,
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, opens June
11. Its season continues July 2 with Neil Simon staple
The Odd Couple, and the Irving Berlin musical
about the lady sharpshooter from Ohio, Annie Get Your
Gun, opening July 23. Porthouse is on the Blossom Music
Center grounds (1145 W. Steels Corners Rd., Cuyahoga Falls, dept.kent.edu/theatre/porthouse,
330.672.3884).

Actors’ Summit (86 Owen Brown St., Hudson, 330.342.0800,
actorssummit.org) inaugurates a
summer repertory festival this year. American Mirrors looks at U.S.
history and culture with four titles and a mix of comedy and drama.
First up is artistic director Neil Thackaberry’s
Unforgettable, a one-man show about Nat
King Cole, performed by Reggie Scott, opening June 19. Ric Goodwin
wrote and stars in his one-man show, Mark Twain: semi-literate
lecturer, liar, and loafer, opening June 20. Phil and Paul
Olson’s musical comedy Don’t Hug Me is next up,
opening July 4, followed by David W. Rintels’ bio-drama of the famous
attorney, Clarence Darrow, starring Thackaberry on July
11. Performances are at Actors Summit and the Hudson Library (96
Library St., Hudson).

Cleveland Shakespeare Festival offers another summer of free
outdoor performances, starting with Antony and
Cleopatra June 19 at Lincoln Park in Tremont. Performances
continue through August 1. Rotating in repertory will be The
Winter’s Tale, opening June 26 at Lincoln Park, with
performances through August 2. Go to cleveshakes.org for schedule and
locations.

Cain Park (14591 Superior Rd., Cleveland Hts., 216.371.3000,
cainpark.com) launches a
Playwrights Weekend June 19, presenting new works by three
Cleveland playwrights. Michael Oatman’s Drowning the
Flame, a tale of rival hip-hop artists, is on the Alma
stage June 19. Deborah Magid’s take on Oscar Wilde, Being
Earnest, is June 20. Steve Maistros’ dark comedy of a
workplace grief counselor, Bon Voyage, Nate, is up
June 21. Tickets: $8 for one play, $21 for all three. Cain Park’s big
musical production of the summer, Pippin, opens
July 30, with performances through August 23. Tickets: $15.

It would be hard for Beck Center for the Arts (17801 Detroit
Ave., Lakewood, 216.521.2540, beckcenter.org) to find a better follow-up
to its campy send-up of a campy horror film send-up Evil Dead:
The Musical (through June 14) than the musical tale of the
man-eating plant, also made from a movie of the same name,
Little Shop of Horrors. Former artistic
director William Roudebush directs the show, which opens June 26 and
runs through August 2. Tickets: $20-$31.

CLASSICAL MUSIC AND DANCE

Apollo’s Fire is first and foremost a baroque orchestra,
focusing on European composers of the 17th and 18th centuries. But the
line between court and countryside was not so sharp then, and music
director Jeannette Sorrell has consistently scored with summertime
programs touching on more rustic traditions and more recent times. This
summer, its Come to the River series of concerts presents early
American songs and dance music featuring four singer-actors, wood
flutes and hammered dulcimer in a program of New England barn dance,
Appalachian ballads and other music. The first performance is at St.
Noel’s Church (35200 Chardon Rd., Willoughby Hills). Performances
continue at venues throughout the region, through June 21. Go to
apollosfire.org or call
216.320.0012. Tickets: $10-$45.

Ohio Light Opera opens its summer repertory season June 12
with a production of Fiddler On The Roof —
reliable at the box office but not exactly innovative. The company’s
strength lies in the neglected corners of the Gilbert and Sullivan
repertoire and in unearthing lesser known works of 19th- and early
20th-century light opera — like the Gershwin brothers’ mix of
matrimony and partisan politicking, Of Thee I
Sing, opening June 13, and Victor Herbert’s Mlle.
Modiste, opening July 1. Performances are at the
Freedlander Theatre (329 E. University St., Wooster, 330.263.2345). For
a complete season listing, go to wooster.edu/ohiolightopera.
Tickets: $10-$45.

The first week of July is a big one for the Cleveland
Orchestra, with the annual free concert on Public Square (July 1)
followed quickly by the start of the season at Blossom Music Center
(1145 W. Steels Corners Rd., Cuyahoga Falls, 216.231.1111) with a
performance by the Blossom Festival Band (July 3-4) and finally, the
Cleveland Orchestra’s season-opening concert there, July 5. Concerts
continue with top soloists and conductors like violinist Nikolaj
Znaider (July 18), music director Franz Welser-Möst (July 19),
Jahja Ling conducting the orchestra with cellist Johannes Moser (August
2) and pianist Garrick Ohlsson (August 9), and pianist Jean-Yves
Thibaudet (August 29). The Blossom season wraps up Labor Day weekend
with George Daugherty conducting his trademark Bugs Bunny on Broadway
program (September 5 and 6).

The big musical event of the summer, though, is certainly the
orchestra’s performance with the Joffrey Ballet at Blossom
August 22 and 23. The performance marks the first time since 1988 that
ballet has had a place in the Blossom Festival season, and it’s the
first appearance by the Joffrey since 1979. The program with the
Joffrey features choreography by Gerald Arpino, Paul Taylor, Tomm Ruud
and Christopher Wheeldon. Tito Muñoz will conduct.

Various festivals offer glimpses of dance, but the most reliable
venue for Terpsichore is Cain Park, with Groundworks performing June 26-28 ($17-$23), Inlet Dance Theatre July 29
(free), Pointe of Departure July 31 ($16-$23), Verb
Ballets August 7 ($16-$23) and Dancing Wheels August 20
($16-$23).

mgill@clevescene.com

This article appears in May 20-26, 2009.