Tremont's Convergence-continuum Closes OUROBOROS: The Reversable Play, 12/19

Tremont's resident theatre company, convergence-continuum, completes its 2009 season at the Liminis theatre with the reversible play OUROBOROS, Tom Jacobson's mysterious and intellectually challenging new puzzle, featuring two plays in one.

The play (actually two plays) is a love story involving the crisscrossing spiritual quests of two unrelated American couples, each traveling through time in the opposite direction as they visit five Italian cities. They seem to be trapped in a hellish collision of fate as they live out cross-referenced realities. This mixture of déjà vu and shocking Twilight Zone-like inevitability takes place in five scenes that can be performed in either order. One way (Ouroboros: The Nun's Tale) it's a comedy (in that it ends happily), the other way (Ouroboros: The Priest's Tale), a tragedy. "Seen together or alone, this is a thought-provoking pair of hits!" ---BackStage West. The show will run for six weekends, with the play being performed 8 times in each order: The Nun's Tale on Fridays (plus two Thursdays), The Priest's Tale, on Saturdays (plus two Thursdays). We'll encourage people to see the show twice by offering a discounted ticket price ($10) for their return visit.

OUROBOROS is directed by convergence's Artistic Director, Clyde Simon, and features actors Amy Bistok-Bunce, Geoffrey Hoffman, Sarah Kunchick, Christian Prentice and Joe Shultz. Designers include Colleen Albrecht (lights), Sade Wolfkitten (sound), Scott Gorbach (costumes). Stage Manager is Lucy Bredeson-Smith.
OUROBOROS opens Friday, Nov. 13 and runs at 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through Dec. 19, at the Liminis, 2438 Scranton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113. Tickets are $15 general admission, $12 for students and seniors (65+). For reservations and information call 216-687-0074 or visit www.convergence-continuum.org on the web.

The Nun's Tale plays on Fridays, and Thursday, Nov.19 and Dec. 10. The Priest's Tale plays on Saturdays and Thursday, Dec. 3 & 17. (No show Thanksgiving Day)

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The Playwright: Tom Jacobson

Tom Jacobson is a playwright who has had more than 50 productions in Los Angeles and around the country, including The Beloved Disciple, Cyberqueer, and Degenerate Art. His adaptations Sperm at Circle X and The Orange Grove at Playwrights Arena were Critic's Choice in the Los Angeles Times. He was a co-literary manager of The Theatre @ Boston Court, a founding member of Playwrights Ink, and a board member of Cornerstone Theater Company. He teaches playwriting and related courses for UCLA Extension. In the fall of 2005 he collaborated with The Road Theatre Company on a sold-out, extended run of Bunbury following their 1998 production of Tainted Blood (winner of seven VAlley Theatre League Awards) and their 2004 production of Ouroboros (Garland Award for playwriting, LA Weekly Awards for playwriting and Production of the Year). Bunbury was nominated for a GLAAD Award and two Ovation Awards and received a Ticketholder Award and a Garland Award for playwriting. In 2006 Bunbury was recorded by LA Theatre Works and was broadcast on KPCC and other radio stations nationwide. Subsequently Bunbury was produced by the Diversionary Theatre in San Diego, Department of Theatre and Dance at Pomona College, and Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theatre. His most recent production at The Road Theatre, The Friendly Hour, won an LA Weekly Award for Best Ensemble. In 2008 he became Artistic Director of Ensemble Studio Theatre.

The Play: OUROBOROS
Ouroboros is presented by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing, Inc., which published the play just this year (2009). It was first produced by The Road Theater Company in North Hollywood, opening on August 20, 2004. Following is an excerpt from a CurtainsUp (Los Angeles) review of that production.

Ouroboros is a palindrome play," writes the playwright Tom Jacobson, delivering two words to look up in the first sentence of his Author's Notes. The title which refers to an ancient concept of a dragon swallowing its own tail not only mirrors the cyclical and circular structure of the play but is an apt metaphor for the two self-absorbed couples who make a feast of guilt and a career of regurgitating their feelings.

The definition of a palindrome as something which is the same backwards or forwards, is the structure Jacobson employs brilliantly to trace his characters' search for faith, love and death. The five scenes take place in Italy which the couples are touring. It begins in Rome with Margaret and Tor who tell The Nun's Tale, a comedy. The scenes that begin in Milan with Catherine and Philip tell The Priest's Tale, a tragedy.
Houston's Main Street Theater produced Ouroboros in 2006. The convergence-continuum production will be the play's first since its recent publication.

The Company: convergence-continuum
convergence-continuum was founded in 2001 by Clyde Simon (Artistic Director) and Brian Breth. After completion of the renovations of the Liminis, the company's artistic home in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, into an intimate, versatile, storefront performance space, the company then transformed it into an 18th century French asylum for its first production, a four-weekend run of QUILLS by Doug Wright, in August 2002. For the company's second production (Oct. 2002), the Liminis was converted into a junkyard outside the city of Azusa for a four-weekend run of Sam Shepard's THE UNSEEN HAND. Since then, the company has continued to produce alternative/experimental theatre work, and to completely transform the Liminis for each show, immersing audiences in the world of the play in up-close productions. (Maximum seating is 40-50 depending on the set-up for each show.)

OUROBOROS, the company's 32nd production, is the fifth/sixth show of the 2009 season, following Paula Vogel's THE MINEOLA TWINS, Melanie Marnich's QUAKE, Charles Mee's BIG LOVE and JorDan Harrison's FINN IN THE UNDERWORLD. The company's season runs from Spring through Fall, with a hiatus over the Winter.
Nearly all of the cast and crew for OUROBOROS have been involved in previous convergence-continuum productions in many and various capacities. The company seeks to create a core ensemble that continues to work together over the long term in exploring and developing its artistic voice and performance and production practices to create up-close, environmentally staged productions that challenge the status quo and extend the boundaries of theatre.