Ensemble Theatre's TheatreCLE Presents ALL THIS INTIMACY, VOODOO MACBETH, LIZARD PLAY and More in 2013-14

For Ensemble Theatre's 34th consecutive season "Love" is all the Mainstage season needs while The Playground Theatre births its theatrical "Second Season". Ensemble also introduces TheatreCLE Summer (on the main stage) andTheatreCLE on tour!

TheatreCLE: "The Second Season":

All this Intimacy by Rajiv Joseph. (The Playground)
Directed by Aaron Elersich
October 17th @7pm, 18th @10pm, 19th @6pm, 20th @7pm, 24th, 25th, 26th , 27th @ 7pm.

Ty Greene is a normal guy with three very big problems. In an unprecedented (for him) run of promiscuity, Ty has managed to impregnate three women in the span of one week: His ex-girlfriend, his 40-something married next-door neighbor, and his 18 year-old student. In this edgy comedy by playwright Rajiv Joseph, Ty's problems illuminate every triumph and failure of his life, and as the women in his world converge and figure out what's happened, Ty realizes that his life is adrift, and that he only has a limited time to try to piece it back together. All This Intimacy, which according to The New York Times has "a certain can't-look-away pull," is a comedy about friendship and lust and how the two don't mix.

Frankenstein adapted from the Mary Shelly Novel by Oakley Hall III (Special Main stage Run)
Directed by Ian Wolfgang Hinz
October 25th, 26th @ 9pm, 27th @ 2pm. Halloween - Oct. 31st @ 7pm. Nov. 1st, 2nd @7pm.

In the famous novel, Victor Frankenstein is a young scientist who, believing he has found the secret to creating life, builds and animates a monstrous creature. However, upon seeing it alive, Frankenstein is repulsed by his creation and abandons it. But Frankenstein's monster survives on its own and e:ducates himself, soon learning that due to his monstrous appearance, he will never integrate himself into human society. He vows to take his revenge on Doctor Frankenstein, both for abandoning him and for thrusting this miserable, monstrous life upon him in the first place. The play, while not a "horror" show, embraces the darkness and violence of the original tale, combining it with exalted language to create a grim but faithful adaptation.

Eugene Ionesco's The Chairs & Exit the King (The Playground)

The Chairs
Directed by Stephen Vasse-Hansell

Originally written in 1952 and subtitled by the author as "a tragic farce", The Chairs was produced on Broadway during the 1998 season in the Theatre de Complicite/Royal Court production and acclaimed an absurdist play of the first order by a master innovator of the genre. The premise: an elderly couple spend their time collecting and inventorying chairs only to be overcome by the very objects that give their lives meaning.

Exit the King
Director TBA

First produced in 1963 starring Alec Guinness and successfully revived to great acclaim on Broadway in 2009, this absurdist exploration of ego and mortality is set in the crumbling throne-room of the palace in an unnamed country where King Berenger the First has only the duration of the play to live. Once, it seemed he ruled over an immense empire and commanded great armies, now his kingdom has shrunk to the confines of his garden wall. Refusing to accept his end, he is attended by his present and former Queens who must help him face the final inevitable truth of life: death.

The Chairs and Exit the King-Running concurrently:
January 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 17th, 18th,19th @ 7pm

TheatreCLE Summer (on the Mainstage):

Voodoo Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Director TBA - the 1936 Federal Theatre Project Script Rebooted - June 2014

MacBeth dramatizes the corrosive psychological and political effects produced when evil is chosen as a way to fulfill the ambition for power. The central idea behind Orson Welles's 1936 production was to perform the text straight, but to use costumes and sets that alluded to Haiti in the 19th century, specifically during the reign of the slave-turned-emperor Henri Christophe.

The Three Penny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill
Directed by Ian Wolfgang Hinz - August 2014

Set in a marginally-anachronistic London, the play focuses on Macheath, an amoral, antiheroic criminal. Macheath (or Mack the Knife) marries Polly Peachum. This displeases her father, who controls the beggars of London, and he endeavours to have Macheath hanged. His attempts are hindered by the fact that the Chief of Police, Tiger Brown, is Macheath's old army comrade. Still, Peachum exerts his influence and eventually gets Macheath arrested and sentenced to hang. Macheath escapes this fate via a deus ex machina moments before the execution when, in an unrestrained parody of a happy ending, a messenger from the Queen arrives to pardon Macheath and grant him the title of Baron. The Threepenny Opera is a work of epic theatre. It challenges conventional notions of property as well as those of theatre. The Threepenny Opera is also an early example of the modern musical comedy genre. Its score is deeply influenced by jazz. The orchestration involves a small ensemble with a good deal of doubling-up on instruments.

TheatreCLE on tour:

The Unofficial Almost True Campfire Tales Of Put-In-Bay by Tyler Whidden
Directed by Ian Wolfgang Hinz Starring: Katie Nabors, James Rankin and Mitch Rose August 31st and September 7th @4pm Put-In-Bay, Ohio

Lizard Play created and performed by Carol Laursen and Anne McEvoy Directed by Celeste Cosentino
Dates and locations TBA.

Join us for our first full season in the intimate 50 seat Playground Theatre located adjacent to the main stage.

Last season The Playground hosted "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" by David Mamet, The Colombi New Plays Festival 10-minutes and readings series, a LakeErie Inc. puppet performance, as well as the equity showcase "The Value of Names" by Jeffrey Sweet produced by Skip Corris and Paul Slimak.

For Subscription and Ticket Information, call the Special Events Box Office at 216.202.0938. You can also email: tickets@ensemble-theatre.org, or follow TheatreCLE @ Ensemble season at: www.theatrecle.org. Subscriptions for the "TheatreCLE @ Ensemble" -the Second Season are $50. Individual Tickets are $15 each. You can purchase online on the website (box office tab). Subscriptions and Single Tickets for "TheatreCLE Summer on the Mainstage" will go on sale soon. Stay tuned.