NEW GROUND THEATRE FESTIVAL FEATURES DRAMA, DIALOGUE, AND DINNER
Posted June 10, 2024 in Press Releases
(Cleveland, OH) Cleveland Play House (CPH) presents the annual New Ground Theatre Festival on Saturday, June 15th, and Saturday, June 22nd. New Ground Theatre Festival is an exciting opportunity for CPH staff and audience members to celebrate the artistry of playwriting, acting, and directing through workshops and readings of our new plays, two commissioned by The Roe Green Fund for New American Plays. This year’s lineup includes scripts that are thought-provoking, drama-filled, and relevant, with two of the plays featuring aspects of Cleveland’s past and present history.
This year’s festival includes a community meal between readings, curated by Del’s Catering. The community meal will take place in the Outcalt Theatre, and gives audience members, artists, directors, and playwrights a forum to converse and connect with one another. Due to popular demand, the community meal is now sold out. Tickets for the play readings are still available.
CPH Literary Director Craig Joseph says, "What most excites me about the Festival this year is the connections that will be formed through new work for the American theatre. Our commissioned plays will connect us to Cleveland's past and present in unexpected ways. CPH is connecting with artists from around the nation and with gifted folks who call this place home. Through our post-show talkbacks, audience members will connect with the playwrights to share responses and help guide the next phase of revisions, and theatre lovers will connect with one another over dinner in between the readings."
This year’s playwrights include Charles Smith (The Price of the Ticket), Uma Incrocci (To Keep And Bear), Phillip Christian Smith (Standardized Patient), and Kathryn Grody (The Unexpected 3rd).
The Price of the Ticket, written by Charles Smith and directed by Ron O.J. Parson, takes place in Cleveland, OH, before and after the American Civil War. The city has been infiltrated by slavecatchers, attempting to kidnap Black individuals escaping to freedom in Canada. The story follows local barber John Wheeler, who is called to speak up about the injustices plaguing his city despite potential pushback from peers, and explores the dilemma of when to speak up, and when silence has power. Smith details his inspiration for writing The Price of the Ticket, which has been commissioned by The Roe Green Fund for New American Plays: “Inspiration for The Price of the Ticket came from a guide at the Cozad-Bates House Interpretive Center. When discussing the lack of evidence of the Cozad family’s involvement in the Underground Railroad, the guide offhandedly remarked, ‘it’s likely that those actively involved kept their involvement under wraps.’ This ignited several questions for me and sent me on a journey of exploration. I wondered how this type of covert activity could have impacted one’s relationships with family and friends. And what did this type of covert circumvention of federal law look like in the public sphere? The Price of the Ticket is the result that exploration.”
Playwright Phillip Christian Smith shares a personal connection to his new play, Standardized Patient. Directed by Mike M. Donahue and commissioned by The Roe Green Fund for New American Plays, the story centers on Derrick, a documentary filmmaker. Derrick examines the reality of doctor-patient interactions by interviewing individuals that act as standardized patients. Through his interview process, Derrick discovers the importance of empathy in the medical field, and soon reckons with his own form of healing that goes beyond the physical. Christian Smith remarks, “My own diagnosis of Multiple Myeloma has given me twelve years of experience as a professional patient. My brother-in-law is an actor who works as a standardized patient and I’ve been peppering him with questions about his work for years. He’d long ago suggested I write a play about the subject, but I couldn’t find a way in. When I received the Roe Green Commission from CPH, I made a meaningful connection to this process that aims to create empathy and kindness in medical professionals.”
Audiences will also get a look at To Keep And Bear, written by Uma Incrocci and directed by CPH Artistic Director Michael Barakiva. In this relevant play, an idealistic young congresswoman is met with a proposal from a tech billionaire to create a town in America that has no guns. Closing the festival is The Unexpected 3rd, written and performed by Kathryn Grody, and directed by Timothy Near. The Unexpected 3rd dives into Grody’s third and “final act,” as an individual of 75 years, who navigates aging in an everchanging world that bears loss, environmental concerns, and political unrest.
Single tickets at $15 can be found atwww.clevelandplayhouse.com. Community meal spaces are sold out.
All readings will take place in the Outcalt Theatre at Playhouse Square.
Roe Green is the Honorary Producer of New Ground Theatre Festival.
The 2024 New Ground Theatre Festival is generously supported by DLR Group.
The Price of the Ticket
Written by Charles Smith
Directed by Ron O.J. Parson
Saturday, June 15 at 3:30 p.m.
On the cusp of the Civil War, slavecatchers are infiltrating Cleveland, Ohio, trying to kidnap Black individuals escaping to freedom in Canada. Everyone wants local barber John Wheeler to protest these abductions, but he resists becoming an activist. Is he trying to placate his white clientele, or are there deeper reasons for his silence? And how will his reticence affect his romance with a young teacher who wants him to take a stand? With suspense and high stakes, The Price of the Ticket explores the dilemma of when to speak up and when silence has power.
To Keep And Bear
Written by Uma Incrocci
Directed by Michael Barakiva
Saturday, June 15 at 7:30 p.m.
An idealistic young congresswoman meets her nemesis, a tech billionaire, who blindsides her with a bizarre proposal: to create a town in America that has no guns. Her journey is both a personal story of how loss provokes a search for meaning, and a hilarious examination of the complicated issue of gun control in our country — complete with outlandish personalities, comic reversals, and a gaggle of singing children.
Standardized Patient
Written by Phillip Christian Smith
Directed by Mike M. Donahue
Saturday, June 22 at 3:30 p.m.
What leads someone to become a standardized patient, engaging in role play to help doctors develop a compassionate bedside manner? Listening to the humorous and heart-wrenching stories from the actors he’s interviewing, Derrick, a documentary filmmaker, quickly learns about the roots of empathy, how unsympathetic doctors can learn kindness, and what happens when the line between reality and fiction starts to blur. When his subjects start inquiring about his own medical history and trauma, Derrick is forced to reckon with a form of healing that goes beyond the mere physical.
The Unexpected 3rd
Written by Kathryn Grody
Directed by Timothy Near
Saturday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m.
Deep into her 3rd (and final) act of being a person, Kathryn Grody investigates an eclectic, devastating, and hilarious potpourri of shocking discoveries as she finds herself — at 75 — becoming not quite old, but elder. Another Boomer that didn’t think the aging process would apply to her, Grody enters elderhood with equal parts empowerment and bewilderment. Marching onward through crumbling democracy, a boiling planet, and an increasingly dead roster of friends and colleagues, she is buoyed by discovering parts of herself she didn’t know were in hiding, waiting for this period to bloom. Mother, artist, wife, grandmother, friend, and accidental social media influencer, Kathryn Grody is astonished with her life, your life, and the stunning, deeply-felt, heart-breaking impermanence of it all.
EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP:
MICHAEL BARAKIVA (Artistic Director) is an Armenian-Israeli American director and writer who has staged new plays, revivals, and classics in New York City and around the country. Michael was appointed Artistic Director of Cleveland Play House in December 2023, where he served as director of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as well as co-director of CPH’s world premiere production of Ken Ludwig’s Moriarty: A New Sherlock Holmes Adventure. Barakiva’s work has been seen at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Primary Stages, Syracuse Stage, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, and the Hangar Theatre, where he served as Artistic Director. He founded The Upstart Creatures, a theatre company that creates community through performance and food, as well as the Leadership Initiative Project, which equips historically excluded artists with the tools to succeed in leadership positions. Barakiva has received three Drama League directing fellowships, the Phil Killian Directing Fellowship (OSF), the David Merrick Prize in Drama, and was a Granada Artist-in-Residence at UC Davis. He led a week-long workshop on musical theatre at the International Puppet Theater in Sofia, Bulgaria, and was a presenter at the International University Theatre Festival at UNAM in Mexico City. He served as producer of Summer Camp 6 (Soho Rep) and as the Readings and Workshops Coordinator at New York Stage and Film, as well as a Primary Coach on Season 2 of MTV’s Made. As a writer, Barakiva is the recipient of a Red Bull Commission for his adaptation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, an EST/Sloan Project Commission, and a co-author of String Theory (Connotation Press). His young adult novels have been named to the Rainbow List, Equality Family Council Reading List, The Barnes and Noble’s Perfect Valentine’s Day YA Novels list, spending over a year as Goodreads #1 LGBTQ YA Novel. Education: Vassar College, The Juilliard School.
RACHEL L. FINK (Managing Director) is thrilled to be returning home to Northeast Ohio after 25 years. Her childhood was filled with fundamental and rich Cleveland arts experiences — and it was at Heights High (Go Tigers!) that Fink’s passion for arts access, social justice, and inclusive, equitable practices was ignited. She carried those values with her as she enrolled at Case Western Reserve University, where an astute professor introduced her to the field of arts administration, and she hasn’t turned back since. The experience at CWRU led to an internship at Cleveland Play House, followed by earning an MFA in theater management at the Yale School of Drama (now the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale). After graduate school, Fink ventured west to Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, California, where she founded and grew the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre into a nationally-recognized learning hub which centered theatre as an essential education and engagement tool for all ages, providing direct service and support to more than 300 theatres and 2,000 artists across the San Francisco Bay Area. Most recently, Fink served as the executive director of the Tony Award-winning Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois. Producing highlights include Plantation! by Kevin Douglas and directed by David Schwimmer; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, written and directed by David Catlin; Her Honor Jane Byrne, written and directed by J. Nicole Brooks (holiday radio broadcast in partnership with local NPR affiliate, WBEZ); Steadfast Tin Soldier, written and directed by Mary Zimmerman; and Lookingglass Alice, written and directed by David Catlin. Fink has held professional distinctions including co-leading the Professional Association of Chicago Theatres; and serving as a Fellow at the Civic Leadership Academy at the University of Chicago/Harris School of Public Policy; as the US delegate for the British Council’s Cultural Leadership International Programme; as a member of the American Express/Aspen Institute Fellowship for Emerging Nonprofit Leaders inaugural class; and as a 2016 artEquity facilitator cohort member.
HONORARY PRODUCER:
Roe Green is an arts patron, community activist, and Chief Executive Officer at the Roe Green Foundation. With a bachelor’s degree in Theatre and Communications from The University of Colorado and a master’s degree in Theatre from Kent State University, her experience in stage and business management includes Cain Park, Cleveland Opera, and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Today she is the President Emeritus of CAVORT, INC., the Conference About Volunteers of Regional Theaters. She also proudly serves as a member of the Case Western Reserve University board, the Kent State University School of Theatre and Dance advisory board, an emeritus member of the foundation board of Kent State University, a member of the board of Porthouse Theatre, a member of the board of Maltz Jupiter Theatre in Jupiter, FL, and a member of the board of Cleveland Play House (CPH). She is responsible for the Roe Green Visiting Director Series for the school of Theatre and Dance at Kent State and the University of Colorado. Ms. Green has received numerous awards for her support of the arts and new play development including the State of Ohio Governer’s Award for Arts Patron (2009), the Dramatist Guild’s Patron of the Arts Award (2013), the Muse Award from the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County (2014), the Theatre Forward Chairman’s Award (2017), and the Martha Joseph Prize, a special Cleveland Arts Prize (2020). In 2019, Cleveland Play House launched the Roe Green Fund for New American Plays. In 2013, she received the CPH Centennial Star Award that recognizes select individuals who have made special and important contributions to CPH’s rich legacy of artistic and educational programming. She is the first recipient of the CPH Super Nova Award (2015) in recognition of her leadership and generosity, which has been instrumental in elevating CPH’s presentation of new works through New Ground Theatre Festival.
ABOUT CLEVELAND PLAY HOUSE:
CLEVELAND PLAY HOUSE, founded in 1915 and recipient of the 2015 Regional Theatre Tony Award, is America's first professional regional theatre. Throughout its rich history, CPH has remained dedicated to its mission to inspire, stimulate, and entertain diverse audiences across Northeast Ohio by producing plays and theatre education programs of the highest professional standards. CPH has produced more than 100 world and/or American premieres, and over its long history more than 12 million people have attended over 1,600 productions. Today, Cleveland Play House celebrates the beginning of its second century of service while performing in three state-of-the art venues at Playhouse Square in downtown Cleveland. Cleveland Play House is made possible in part by state tax dollars allocated by the Ohio Legislature to the Ohio Arts Council (OAC). The OAC is a state agency that funds and supports quality arts experiences to strengthen Ohio communities culturally, educationally, and economically. Cleveland Play House is supported in part by the residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. To learn more, visit:www.clevelandplayhouse.com.
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