A CHRISTMAS STORY Returns in All-New Cleveland Play House Production, Now thru 12/22

Holiday cheer will abound at Cleveland Play House (CPH) with an all-new production of the beloved holiday classic, A Christmas Story running from tonight, Nov. 29th - Dec. 22nd in the Allen Theatre at PlayhouseSquare. In honor of the 30th anniversary of the unforgettable film, CPH enthusiastically breathes new life into this classic story about Ralphie and his ultimate Christmas wish. Having delighted audiences for 30 years on both the big and small screens, this incredible production is brought to vivid life on stage for Northeast Ohio audiences. Tickets are on sale now and may be purchased by calling (216) 241-6000 or online at www.clevelandplayhouse.com. CPH is pleased to have University Hospitals as the Presenting Sponsor of A Christmas Story, along with Benesch, Nordson and FirstMerit as Supporting Sponsors.

Artistic Director of CPH, Laura Kepley comments: "We are thrilled to bring back one of our most popular shows in this all-new sparkling production. We are delighted to be a part of a citywide celebration of the 30th anniversary of this beloved story." On a personal note, Kepley continues: "Growing up in the early 80's this story was definitely part of my childhood. No matter that my brothers and I are full grown adults now, we instantly transform into giggling kids at the mention of 'fragile.' CPH is happy to share this story because at this time of year we all deserve to be kids at heart."

A Christmas Story is the witty and heart-warming production written by Phil Grecian and based on the motion picture written by Jean Shepherd, Leigh Brown and Bob Clark. The story follows 9-year-old Ralphie Parker down the streets of Indiana, OH on his quest for the ultimate Christmas gift. Incorporating some of the most memorable elements from the movie, including the exploding furnace, the frozen lamp post and the infamous leg lamp, it is no wonder it has become one of the most popular shows in Cleveland Play House history. With an incredible cast of both local and national actors under the direction of John McCluggage, this holiday treat is sure to delight one and all.

Cast:

Michael Heintzman (The Old Man) is the writer/actor/producer on JERRY The Series at www.funnyordie.com/msh. Off-Broadway credits include Neddy, American Place Theatre; A Cup of Coffee, Soho Rep; Epic Proportions and Best Half Foot Forward, Manhattan Punch Line; and Separating the Men from the Bull, co-written by Heintzman and produced at New York's Yale Cabaret and Minneapolis' Jungle Theater. Regional theatres include Missouri Rep, Studio Arena, Arena Stage, Pasadena Playhouse, Syracuse Stage, Pioneer Theatre Company, New Playwrights' Theatre, and Capital Rep. Television and film includes ED, Third Watch, Law and Order, Murphy Brown, Quantum Leap, Remember WENN, Red Dwarf, The Early Days, Paper Man, Pretty Bird, and A Dog's Year. As a playwright, Heintzman is a four-time finalist for the Heideman Award at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Alongside Separating the Men from the Bull, his plays include The Story of God, Magic Moment and Under the Hood (the latter two were semi-finalists at the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference).

Maggie Lacey (Mother) returns to Cleveland Play House, where she appeared as a youth in Aurand Harris' Rags to Riches and Just So Stories. Broadway appearances include Our Town, Inherit the Wind and Dividing the Estate. Off-Broadway includes The Orphans' Home Cycle, Signature Theatre; The Milktrain Doesn't Stop Here Anymore, Roundabout; Spirit Control, Manhattan Theatre Club; Engaged and Andorra, Theatre for a New Audience; and Big Times, W.E.T., which she co-wrote. Regional credits include Hartford Stage, Long Wharf, Seattle Rep, and Arena Stage. Film and television includes The Word (Best Dramatic Feature, Manhattan Film Fest 2013); The Life Before Her Eyes (Vadim Perelman, director); Our Town (Showtime/PBS); The Following; The Good Wife; and The Big C. She earned her master's degree from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Maggie Lacey and CPH are participants in the Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowships, funded by the William and Eva Fox Foundation and administered by Theatre Communications Group. Lacey's Fellowship is for Extraordinary Potential.

Laura Perrotta (Miss Shields) previously appeared at Cleveland Play House in The Grapes of Wrath, The Front Page, Under the Flesh and Jocasta. Off-Broadway credits include the musical Whispers on the Wind and Much Ado About Nothing directed by Gerald Gutierrez. Regional theatre credits include The Kennedy Center, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and Riverside Shakespeare. She was the Angel in Angels in America and L'il Bit in How I Learned to Drive at Dobama Theatre; Arkadina in The Seagull, Amanda Prynne in Private Lives, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Mrs. Cheveley in An Ideal Husband and Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew at Great Lakes Theater; and Diane in The Little Dog Laughed, for which she received the Cleveland Critics' Circle Award for Best Actress 2013, at Beck Center for the Arts, where she will return this spring to perform in Night Mother.

Jeff Talbott (Ralph) has appeared on Broadway in Sly Fox and Fortune's Fool and off-Broadway in Such Good Friends and Home of the Brave. Recent regional roles include Felix, The Odd Couple; Jack, Race; Schultz, circle mirror transformation; David Frost, Frost/Nixon; and Father Flynn, Doubt at theatres including Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Pioneer Theatre Company, Paper Mill Playhouse, Goodspeed Opera House, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Yale Rep, Geva, Indiana Rep, Missouri Rep, Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Syracuse Stage, among many others. He has been seen in movie theatres (Julie & Julia) and on television in Orange is the New Black, Unforgettable, Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos, all the Law & Orders, One Life to Live and As the World Turns. As a writer, his play The Submission won the Laurents/Hatcher Award and Outer Critics Circle's John Gassner Award, was produced off-Broadway by MCC Theater, and has since been performed across the country. Talbott is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

The children's cast is comprised of John Cugel (Scut Farkas), Cole Emerine (Flick/Understudy Ralphie), Lee Greene (Schwartz), Cameron Danielle Nelson (Helen/Understudy Esther Jane), Skipper Rankin, (Randy), Jack Ryan (Understudy),made his Cleveland Play House debut last year as a performing understudy for Charlie and E.J. in A Carol for Cleveland. Other favorite performances include playing the title role in Near West Theatre's production of the musical Oliver!, Edgar in their production of Ragtime and Michael in Beachwood Community Theatre's production of Peter Pan. He is a student in the sixth grade at Old Brooklyn Community Middle School. When not acting and singing, he enjoys ice skating, swimming, fashion design, playing the clarinet, and watching musical theatre. He is an especially huge fan of the musical Hairspray. less is honored to perform in A Christmas Story for Cleveland Play House this season. Past favorite credits include five seasons of A Christmas Carol (Tiny Tim, Sarah Crachit), Great Lakes Theater; Plain and Fancy (Miller Daughter) Kent State University; The Sound of Music, (Briggita), Damn Yankees (ensemble) and Annie Get Your Gun (Little Jake), Porthouse Theatre; Annie (Annie), Caryl Crane Youth Theatre; The Nerd (Thor), Weathervane Community Playhouse; and Fiddler of the Roof (Bielke) Beck Center for the Arts. Nelson has also appeared in several short films: Lucky Duck, Flight to India and Voyage to Russia, Bully on Elm Street, and Death and Taxes. When offstage, she studies ballet, tap, jazz and lyrical dance, and she takes piano and clarinet lessons. She is also very active in school, participating in choir, chess club, drama club, k-kids, newspaper club, and CYO volleyball, and she is an alter server at church. lessCarisa Tanner (Esther Jane), spent the last five years performing with Twinsburg Community Theatre in productions of Annie (stage orphan); The Wizard of Oz (Lula-bye League);and Peter Pan, the Musical (Children of the World ensemble). She recently competed in The Event, an international talent competition held in Orlando, Florida. She also had an impromptu appearance in The Wizard of Oz at The Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto, Canada. Currently she is a student in Mrs. Henretty's fifth grade class at Dodge Intermediate School. When not performing onstage, Tanner enjoys spending time with family and friends, singing, swimming, Rainbow looming, water parks, and jumping on hotel room beds. lMatthew Taylor (Ralphie). is in the sixth grade at Jackson Memorial Middle School in Massillon. After attending the Academy of Cinema and Television's Satellite Program in Cleveland in 2008-09, he landed his first theatre role of Randy in A Christmas Story here at Cleveland Play House in 2009. He also performed in Children of Eden and Honk Jr. at Fairmont Performing Arts Conservatory (FPAC) in 2010. Canton Players Guild credits include Turkey Boy in A Christmas Carol (2011), and he was in their original production Wishes ... Just a Dream Away (2012). Taylor's Great Lakes Theater roles include Tiny Tim (2010) and Turkey Boy (2012) in A Christmas Carol. He played Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird (2012) and Shmuel in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2013) with Magical Theatre Company. He is currently in their traveling production of Bunnicula, portraying Toby. Outside of theatre, he loves everything about computers and spending time with friends. le

Creative Team:

Jean Shepherd: (Author/Screenwriter) was a radio, television and film personality; a writer; and an actor. For almost three decades, he told stories - culled from his youth in Indiana, his adventures in the Army Signal Corps, and tales of the obscure and infamous - to eager radio audiences. He was on the air in Cincinnati from 1950 to 1954 and on WOR in New York from 1956 to 1977. He also hosted live broadcasts from The Limelight nightclub in Greenwich Village. Shepherd performed at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, appeared on Broadway in Leonard Sillman's New Faces and in Voice of the Turtle, and played a dance instructor in the film The Light Fantastic. He also did baseball sportscasts for the Toledo Mudhens and Armed Forces Radio. He created humorous narratives for PBS television collectively called Jean Shepherd's America, later continued on PBS' New Jersey Network as Shepherd's Pie. This led to a series of teleplays for PBS/WGBH's American Playhouse: "The Phantom of the Open Hearth," "The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters," "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss" and "The Star-Crossed Romance of Josephine Cosnowski." He is best known for co-writing and narrating the film A Christmas Story (1983). Shepherd wrote for several magazines, including Playboy and Omni, and contributed to The Village Voice. Books include The America of George Ade; In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash; Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters; The Ferrari in the Bedroom; and A Fistful of Fig Newtons. Shepherd died on October 16, 1999.

Philip Grecian: (Adapter) began his career as a ventriloquist and magician at the age of 4. By age 15, he had written a comedy that was produced by a local theatre. At 16 he was founding director for a city-funded community theatre. Two years later, he was asked to be a part of Colorado's Creede Repertory Theatre, where he spent a season acting and writing. He continues to maintain a connection with CRT, where his plays have been produced and where he has returned as a guest performer. After touring the Midwest as Androcles in Androcles and the Lion, he became artistic/managing director and resident playwright of the community theatre he founded. He resigned in 1976 to create a professional theatre where he served as producer and artistic director. After establishing a strong financial base for the new theatre, he left to work as a writer/director in film, video and audio production. In 1994, Grecian became founding director/playwright for a theatre that mounts an annual production of his adaptation of Charles Sheldon's novel In His Steps. His adaptation of A Christmas Carol has become an annual tradition around the U.S., and his radio dramatization of Dracula!, based on his stage play and syndicated for a time on numerous radio stations, has come full circle and is now a staged radio production, complete with onstage sound effects crew. Other plays include the widely popular The Velveteen Rabbit. His plays The Dragon of Nitt and Lion and the Lyre were translated and performed in Russia.

John McCluggage: (Director) has directed, taught and performed throughout the country over the past 30 years. In addition to four previous productions of A Christmas Story, others include Enchanted April, Cyrano de Bergerac, A Flea in Her Ear, The Phantom of the Opera, Fiddler on the Roof, Old Wicked Songs, A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It and The Pajama Game. Theatres include San Jose Repertory Theatre (associate artistic director), The Barnstormers Theatre, Studio Arena Theatre, Webster University Conservatory of Theatre Arts, Cabrillo Stage, Children's Musical Theatre of San Jose, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, the Clurman and Beckett Theatres in New York, and Seacoast Repertory Theatre (artistic director). most recently appeared as Michael in Peter Pan: A Musical Adventure with Mercury Summer Stock. This is his second performance with Cleveland Play House. He played Eddie Podolak, Jr., in CPH's world premiere production of A Carol for Cleveland last December. Cugel has also performed in several Heights Youth Theatre and StageCrafters productions including Princess and the Pea, The Wiz, Pippin and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. When not performing onstage, he enjoys playing baseball, traveling and spending time with his friends and family. Cugel is a sixth grade student at Gesu School in University Heights. He also attends St. Vitus Slovenian Language School.

The creative team also consists of David Kay Mickelsen (Costume Designer) and Robert Mark Morgan (Scenic Designer). designed The Whipping Man, The Glass Menagerie, Emma, and Bill W. and Dr. Bob for Cleveland Play House. Other credits include Les Miserables and West Side Story, The Muny; exhibit designer for Avatar the Exhibition, Seattle's Experience Music Project; Fallen Angels, Asolo Repertory Theatre; Joshua's Boots, Opera Theatre of St. Louis and Amarillo Opera; The Rainmaker, A Moon for the Misbegotten (2007 Prague Design Quadrennial), and The Dazzle, A.C.T. San Francisco; The Giver, The Diary of Anne Frank, Jesus Hates Me and House of the Spirits, Denver Center Theatre Company; Saint Joan, Jekyll & Hyde, Ordinary Nation, Rabbit Hole, Fall of Heaven, and 4000 Miles, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis; The Subject Tonight is Love, ALLIANCE THEATRE Company; and numerous Utah Shakespeare Festival productions. He also designed Just Stopped by to See the Man and The Whipping Man at The Old Globe. Morgan is a senior lecturer in Drama at Washington University in St. Louis. Please see www.morgansetdesign.com. less The stage manager for this production is Jennifer Collins. returns for his 22nd production at Cleveland Play House, having recently designed costumes for Bell, Book and Candle and In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play. He has designed more than 300 productions at regional theatres across the country including Guthrie Theater; Denver Center Theatre Company (56 productions); Arizona Theatre Company (48productions); Geffen Playhouse; Berkeley Repertory Theatre; Northlight Theatre; Ford's Theatre; Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park; Portland Center Stage; Geva Theatre Center; The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis; Pioneer Theatre Company; Williamstown Theatre Festival; The Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis; Seattle, Tennessee, Missouri, San Diego, and New Mexico Repertory Theatres; Sundance Theatre Festival; Ensemble Studio Theatre; Oregon, Utah, Colorado, and Illinois Shakespeare Festivals; Pennsylvania Center Stage; Theatre of the Open Eye; Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre; Greer Garson Theatre Center; Flagstaff Festival of the Arts; Hampton Playhouse; and Timber Lake Playhouse. Originally from Canby, Oregon, Mickelsen now resides in Long Beach, California. He is a member of United Scenic Artists 829. See www.davidkaymickelsen.com.

Special Events:

Season Extra: Festival of Trees
November 25, 2013 - December 30, 2013
Free and open to the public! • Allen Theatre lobby
The Festival of Trees returns with its debut in our new downtown home! Family activities, behind-the-scenes access, and a lot of holiday cheer make this event a great way to kick off the holiday season.

Festival of Trees will commence with Light Up the Night on Nov. 25th from 5:30 - 8:00 p.m. in the Allen Theatre lobby. This community tree-lighting celebration is FREE to the general public and all are invited to join in for family-friendly activities, behind the scenes access, and a special performance by The Singing Angels.

Festival of Trees Schedule:

Open for public viewing from Nov. 25th - Dec. 30th.

Weekdays: 5 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Saturdays: 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.

Sundays: 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Special hours on:

Dec. 23rd: Noon - 9 p.m.

Dec. 24th: Noon - 5 p.m.

Dec. 26th - 30th: Noon - 9:00 p.m.

The display will be closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Tech Tuesday: A Christmas Story
November 25, 2013 @ 7:00pm - 8:30pm
A special Monday edition of Tech Tuesday... Hear from the director, then sit in on a technical rehearsal ("tech") to see how set, lights, sound, costumes and actors all come together as opening night nears! RSVP required. Please email insideCPH@clevelandplayhouse.com.

TalkBack: A Christmas Story
December 08, 2013 @ 4:30pm - 5:00pm

TalkBack: A Christmas Story
December 15, 2013 @ 4:30pm - 5:00pm

A Christmas Story will take place Nov. 29 - Dec. 22, 2013 in the Allen Theatre at PlayhouseSquare. Tickets range in price from $45-$72 each. Students under the age of 24 with a valid ID will be offered a special $25 ticket price. Tickets are also just $25 for anyone under age 35, sponsored by Scene Magazine. To order single tickets please call 216-241-6000 or visit www.clevelandplayhouse.com. Groups of 10+ save up to 40% off single ticket prices; call 216-400-7027.

Founded in 1915, Cleveland Play House is America's first professional regional theatre. Throughout its rich history, Cleveland Play House has remained dedicated to its mission to inspire, stimulate and entertain diverse audiences in Northeast Ohio by producing plays and theatre education programs of the highest professional standards. It has produced more than 100 world and/or American premieres, and over its long history more than 12 million people have attended over 1,300 CPH productions. Cleveland Play House looks toward its centennial while performing in three state-of-the art venues at PlayhouseSquare in downtown Cleveland.