Cleveland State University’s Dramatic Arts department will present its own production of Love’s Fire, a modern tribute to the Bard, as the first offering of the 2008-09 Dramatic Arts Program season.

Performances are the first two weeks of the fall semester, August 28-31 and September 4-7, Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.

Love’s Fire is a collection of short plays written by seven of the biggest voices in contemporary American theatre, based on their take on Shakespeare’s sonnets. Writers such as Tony Kushner, Ntozake Shange, Marsha Norman, John Guare and Eric Bogosian originally created the pieces for the Acting Company at the Public Theatre in New York..

Love’s Fire represents the spectrum of modern American drama, embracing a full range of stylistic and cultural diversity. John Guare’s The General of Hot Desire, in which a group of students create a towering play within the play examining the history of human civilization, follows Hydraulics Phat Like Mean, Ntozake Shange’s dance-poem of desire and control.

140, Marsha Norman’s subtly shifting meditation on love and betrayal, falls between Eric Bogosian’s red-hot sex comedy, Bitter Sauce, and Tony Kushner’s neurotically obsessive Terminating, or Lass Meine Schmerzen Nicht Verloren Sein, or Ambivalence.

Acted, designed, and (mostly) directed by CSU students, and originally performed at CSU as the Apprentice Company showcase to close the CSU Summer Stages season, Love’s Fire has been held over for the first two weeks of classes to spotlight the depth and breadth of work coming from the Factory Theatre and to welcome CSU’s new and returning students back to campus.

All performances take place at the CSU Factory Theatre, located on East 24th Street between Chester and Payne Avenues. Tickets are $5 for CSU students, faculty and staff, and $10 for general admission. For reservations, please call the box office at 216.687.2109.

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