Cleveland’s Classic Theater unveils Ambitious 45 th Season Bolstered by Significant Audience Growth and Hard Won Fiscal Strength

February 24, 2006
Great Lakes Theater Festival’s 2006-07 season features a NEW September through April performance calendar and a “Buy One Get One Free” offer on new subscription purchases. 

Cleveland, OH – Charles Fee, Producing Artistic Director of Great Lakes Theater Festival (GLTF), announced plans for the classic theater company’s forty-fifth season with great confidence at an exclusive 2006-07 Season Sneak Peek event for subscribers, members and invited guests at S.T.A.R Restaurant within Playhouse Square Center. “The 2005 season was an amazing success for Great Lakes Theater Festival, artistically and financially,” said Fee to the crowd of two hundred GLTF guests that filled the restaurant to capacity. “Last year, our regular season attendance grew by an incredible 21% and response to our work in the theater was overwhelmingly positive. This resounding vote of confidence from Northeast Ohio is a testament to the hunger in our community for live theater and the classics. Over the past several seasons, we’ve built an extraordinary resident artistic company; begun to define our approach to the classics - a wild, accessible, full-blooded approach; reached out to our community and audience in consistently meaningful ways and affected a positive financial turnaround for this great theater company of Herculean proportions. The 2006-07 season is the beginning of an exciting new era for Great Lakes Theater Festival – one which will set the course for the future of this company. I am proud to say that the state of the Festival is strong – stronger than it has been in decades. If you thought the last forty-five years were fun, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s performance calendar will change in 2006-07. The new season structure will follow a school year calendar, running from September through April, and will feature a Fall Repertory, the Festival’s annual holiday classic A Christmas Carol and a new Spring Repertory. In the fall (September 15-October 21, 2006), GLTF will present Stephen Sondheim’s musical farce A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, directed by Festival resident director Victoria Bussert, in rotating repertory with William Shakespeare’s early comedy, Love’s Labour’s Lost, directed by Drew Barr. GLTF’s annual production of Charles Dickens’ holiday classic, A Christmas Carol (November 24-December 23, 2006), adapted and directed by Gerald Freedman and staged by GLTF Associate Artistic Director Andrew Maywill bisect the theater company’s forty-fifth year. GLTF will conclude its 2006-07 season with a new Spring Repertory (March 16-April 21, 2007) which will pair Noel Coward’s comedy Hay Fever, directed by Festival Producing Artistic Director Charles Fee, with William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, directed by GLTF’s Associate Artistic Director Andrew May who will make his GLTF main stage directing debut with the production. All season offerings will be presented in the Ohio Theatre at Playhouse Square Center. Each repertory will run for six weeks, while the Festival’s production of A Christmas Carol will run for four weeks. (Consult the enclosed season performance calendars for complete details.)

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s Fall Repertory is presented with generous support from National City and American Greetings. Season partners for the Festival’s forty-fifth year at the time of this release include SCK and S.T.A.R. Restaurant.

The reasons for the change in GLTF’s performance calendar are two-fold according to Festival head Charles Fee. “First and foremost, education is, and always has been, at the core of our mission. Our work is a critical resource to the region’s teachers and students.  By performing all five plays during the school year, we will maximize the ability of teachers to ensure that future generations will have the chance to experience the classics – live, the way that they were intended. Secondly, a Fall/Spring performance calendar provides opportunities to strengthen our business model.  Building on our relationship with Idaho Shakespeare Festival, we will now be able to share entire productions more efficiently, creating a richer artistic product while reducing production costs and providing greater employment opportunities for our artists.” 

Great Lakes Theater Festival’s unique rotating repertory format has played a key role in the theater company’s recent success with its audience. “Presenting a pair of classic plays in rotating repertory is a great challenge for artists and great fun for audiences,” offered Fee in a recent conversation. “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 a unique one in Northern Ohio. Producing plays in rep enables audience members to ‘get to know’ the actors in our company on a much deeper level while it simultaneously allows us the opportunity to showcase the company members’ considerable talents. In rep, audiences literally see the actors flex their artistic muscles across a range of capacities. For example, a leading actor in a comedy on one night might play a smaller, dramatic, supporting role the following evening. It is amazing to witness the transformation. Conversely, the actors in our company gain a more intimate understanding of their audience in the process. This give and take deepens our appreciation of one another and breeds a sense of personal familiarity between artist and audience – the kind of profoundly rewarding alchemy that can only occur in a live theatrical experience.”

GLTF’s 2006-07 artistic company features a dynamic combination of familiar faces and notable firsts. Veteran Festival artist Victoria Bussert will continue her twenty year affiliation with Great Lakes Theater Festival when she returns to direct the 2006-07 season opener, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum after a two season hiatus. Forum represents the first musical theater offering in a GLTF season since the company’s 2003 production of Anything Goes which was also helmed by Bussert. Local designer and Director of Drama of the Baldwin-Wallace College Theatre Department Jeff Herrmann, a new addition to the Festival family, will create the setting for the production and mark the first time that a Cleveland scenic designer has graced the Festival main stage since GLTF moved to the Ohio Theatre in 1982. Rounding out the Fall Repertory, Cleveland favorite Drew Barr will return to GLTF for the fifth consecutive season as a director to stage Love’s Labour’s Lost after acclaimed GLTF productions of The Taming of the Shrew (2004) and You Can’t Take It With You (2005). Barr has directed in each year of Fee’s tenure at GLTF.

The Festival’s new Spring Repertory will showcase the pairing of two familiar Festival faces who also serve the theater in a leadership capacity, when Producing Artistic Director Charles Fee directs Noel Coward’s comedy Hay Feverand Festival Associate Artistic Director Andrew May makes his GLTF directorial debut with The Tempest. “I couldn’t be more thrilled with the company that we’ve been able to assemble for our forty-fifth season,” remarked Fee of the Festival’s artistic corps in 2006-07. “It is a real honor be able to provide a home for such a fine collection of artists – a home that can support a director’s amazing vision, as in the case of Vicky, provide the opportunity for exciting artistic growth as we have the chance to offer this year to Andrew with The Tempest and celebrate the talents of fantastic Cleveland artists like designer Jeff Herrman. As far as the acting company goes, I will tell you that it takes an extraordinarily talented group of actors to be able to perform a great work of Shakespeare on one night and then switch gears completely to perform a Broadway musical or a 20s comedy the following evening. It’s going to be a real treat for our audience to witness this new musical facet of our resident company. I simply can’t wait to see the fruits of their artistic labor and share their amazing work with Northeast Ohio.”

At the business end of the spectrum, the Festival’s financial health is robust and remarkable according to GLTF Executive Director, Bob Taylor. “ Great Lakes had an accumulated deficit of $1.059 million at June 30, 2002 when Charlie took over.  Four season’s later, we are projecting an accumulated surplus at June 30, 2006 of $44,000. That is a positive swing of over one million dollars,” said Taylor during a recent interview about the financial position of Cleveland’s classic theater.  “This incredible turnaround is due to a number of factors. Under Charlie’s [Fee] leadership and direction, every facet of our organization has been, and continues to be, examined to determine how we can continue our work most efficiently and remain firmly focused on our mission and the quality and integrity of our programming. Supporting Charlie, the administrative staff that we have in place is skilled, motivated, and extremely collaborative. Furthermore, our Board of Trustees has been outstanding in their financial commitment, and their entrepreneurial spirit matches that of the staff.  In addition, we have had incredible support from local foundations and corporations.  They have applauded our ability to think creatively, take risks and make hard decisions about our organization, and we view them as trusted and essential partners in our success. Overall as an organization, we have operated under balanced budgets for four consecutive seasons, and have realized operating surpluses at each year-end, while maintaining all of our core programming and services.  With an eye toward the future, last June, we launched a $500,000 working capital campaign which was completed by our Board of Trustees in six months.  This means that for the first time Great Lakes is able to manage its cash flow needs from an asset position rather than from a bank line of credit. When viewed in context, this financial turnaround is even more rewarding for us given the economic climate of northeast Ohio and the rest of the country during this four-year period.  We have devoted much energy to restructuring this company, eliminating our deficit, and getting our finances in order. We are now positioned to focus that energy on a great future for Great Lakes, one that includes artistic and educational programming of the highest quality, and a firm commitment to the economic development of downtown Cleveland and the greater Northeast Ohio community.”

Based on the extraordinary success of last season’s introductory discount subscription campaign, GLTF will extend its Buy One Get One Free offer on new subscription purchases through the 2006-07 season. The Buy One Get One Free offer is designed to make subscribing to the Festival easier and more affordable.As part of the offer, the Festival will match every NEW subscription package purchased with one FREE subscription package of equal value. “The response of our audience to last year’s Buy One Get One Free subscription offer was overwhelmingly positive and played a considerable role in the 32% increase in subscription package purchases that we experienced in 2005,” said Fee, regarding the reason for the extension of the Buy One Get One Free offer. “Subscribers are vital to the health of theater companies. It is critical that audiences buy into the idea of a body of work, a series of plays. The Buy One Get One Free subscription offer that we are extending this season is both an invitation to current GLTF subscribers to introduce their friends to the excellent work of this company and a direct appeal to audiences that love our work but have been hesitant to commit. What have you got to lose?” GLTF’s Buy One Get One Free subscription offer is valid on all NEW Classic, Best Value and Family and Senior Matinee subscription package purchases only. The offer is not valid on Youth or Fest Pass subscription package purchases.

“This is a dynamic and ever-changing world in which we live,” said Fee in closing a recent conversation. “Especially in Cleveland, it is absolutely essential that we think dynamically – that we think boldly and change with the world in order to remain vital and relevant to our community.At Great Lakes Theater Festival, I think we have proven that we are not afraid of change. We are not afraid to rethink how we can most effectively serve our community. Our adventurous audience has itself shown a willingness to look at our work in a different light and, in the process, has been exhilarated by the ride.Many people talk about Cleveland as a city that fears change. That has not been our experience. There is a lot to celebrate about this great city, its people, its legacy…its arts and cultural institutions. As a healthy and forward-thinking arts organization dedicated to bringing a community closer together around universal classic issues, we are proud to set the bar for Northeast Ohio in regards to the amazing things that are possible when you think creatively and work collaboratively toward your mission. We are living proof of the success that is possible. Classic theater is alive and thriving again in Cleveland. Who’d have made that bet four short seasons ago?”

Opening Night performances of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Hay Fever and The Tempest 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. The Sunday, September 17 th curtain time for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum has been adjusted to 1:30 p.m. to accommodate a GLTF Fall Repertory production sponsor event. All five productions in the Festival’s forty-fifth 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. (Consult the enclosed season performance calendars for complete details.)

An adult subscription to Great Lakes Theater Festival starts as low as $78. Regular priced single tickets range from $22.00-$56.00. Student/Youth (ages 25 years or younger) tickets for any seat in the Ohio Theatre are $13.00 ($18.00 for A Christmas Carol) and are available for all performances. (Additional handling fees may apply and may vary depending on point of purchase.) Subscriptions are available now by calling (216) 664-6064. Single tickets go on sale July 17, 2006, and will be available by calling (216) 241-6000, by ordering online and by visiting the Playhouse Square Center Box office or any Tickets.com outlet located within all Tops Friendly Markets. Groups of ten or more receive discounts as do educators. (Consult the enclosed information sheet for complete ticketing and contact details.)

The first resident company of Playhouse Square Center, Great Lakes Theater Festival will celebrate twenty five years in the Theatre District this season. Since 1962, the Festival has brought the pleasure, power and relevance of classic theater to the widest possible audience in Northern Ohio.