Larry Shue's WENCESLAS SQUARE Announced At Cesear's Forum/Playhouse Square

There is both relevance and humor in Larry Shue's WENCESLAS SQUARE, the latest offering of Cesear's Forum, being presented in a limited five week September/October engagement, at Kennedy's Theatre, Playhouse Square, Cleveland, Ohio.

A semi-autobiographical "memory" play based on the conflicts in the late 60's, early 70's when the, then, Soviet Union invaded the, then, Czechoslovakia. An American theatre graduate student went to Prague to interview Czech theatre artists involved in "theatre as revolution" to write a book, only to discover on his return a few years later that political suppression had virtually shut down the theatre as a voice.

The play " fractionalizes time and characters alike as it swings through different settings, tones and themes." Relevant, haunting and very funny, WENCESLAS SQUARE mirrors naiveté in the face of ruthlessness.

Larry Shue (born in New Orleans in 1945) was an American playwright and actor, best known for his two often performed farces; THE NERD and THE FOREIGNER (written and first performedwhile he was playwright-in-residence at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater). He his BFA from Illinois Wesleyan University, graduating cum laude in 1968, followed by a stint in the army until 1972. He then began his career as a professional actor and playwright with the Harlequin Dinner Theatre in both Washington, D.C. and Atlanta. He worked in regional theater and on the New York stage, and appeared in television's One Life to Live. Film appearances include the shorts A Common Confusion; Another Town; and The Land of the Blind: or The Hungry Leaves; and the feature-length Sweet Liberty. He died tragically young in a plane crash at the age of 39 in 1985.

Cesear's Forum, a small theatre collective that produces intermittently, continues its mission of interpreting unusual or lesser known plays and sharing those perceptions regionally. The company has been both criticized and praised for the scope of its work within a minimalist imprimatur, works that offer "political, social, and cultural awareness."

WENCESLAS SQUARE was presented by the New York Shakespeare Festival (Joseph Papp, Producer) at the Public/Martinson Hall Theatre in New York City on March 2, 1988. It was directed by Jerry Zaks.

The Cleveland production will be staged by Artistic Director Greg Cesear, with a setting by Michael Larochelle, lighting by Andrew Kaletta and costumes by Betty Pitcher. The production is sponsored, in part, by Cuyahoga Arts and Culture and the Bonne Bell Family Foundation.

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