Tickets available by phone at 216.687.2109 or at csu.ticketleap.com

Downtown Cleveland’s only professional summer theater company, Cleveland State University’s Summer Stages, announces the kickoff of its fourth season. Like last year’s award-winning season, Summer Stages returns with three shows in rotating repertory during a five-week run from July 8 through Aug. 8.

As the resident theater company of CSU, much of the cast is composed of CSU Dramatic Arts students, local professional actors and CSU alumni, said Dr. Michael Mauldin, director of CSU’s Dramatic Arts.

“As a result of the overwhelming response to auditions, we are proud to announce that we are the largest summer employer of local union actors in the region,” he said. Summer stages will perform the following shows:

Curtains: Summer Stages will present its flagship musical, Curtains, by Rupert Holmes and lyrics by Fred Ebb and music by John Kander; directed by Mauldin with choreography by Martin Cespedes. Fresh off its Broadway run featuring David Hyde Pierce, Curtains, the last musical by the legendary songwriting team of Kander and Ebb, is a classic murder mystery whodunit in a musical theatre milieu.

The Elephant Man: The 1979 Tony Award-winning drama The Elephant Man will also be preformed. Written by Bernard Pomerance and directed by Shadow Box director Everett Quinton, Elephant Man tells the story of the heartbreakingly naïve and gentle Joseph “John” Merrick. Quinton, a famously known New York legend, is a founding member of Summer Stages and has been involved in every production.

Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad: Finishing the season is the hilarious mouthful Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad by Arthur Kopit – author of the hit musical and film Nine. This comedy, directed by Beck Center Artistic Director Scott Spence, and featuring a drag-tastic turn by Everett Quinton, is “a pseudoclassical tragifarce in a bastard French tradition,” according to Kopit. One may not be sure what that means, but it does have piranhas, Venus flytraps and poor dad in a casket in the next room.

Tickets are $15 for general admission, $10 for seniors and $10 for groups of 10 or more. The Smarty Pants Pass is $30 to see all three shows. Curtain times are 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sundays.

For tickets or more information on Summer Stages, call the box office at 216.687.2109 or visit csu.ticketleap.com. The Factory Theatre is located on East 24th Street between Chester and Payne avenues. Parking is free in Lot S1.

Curtains

Book by Rupert Holmes
Music by John Kander
Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Original book and concept by Peter Stone
Directed by Dr. Michael L. Mauldin, Director of the CSU Department of Theatre
Choreographed by Martin Cespedes

July 10, 11 (2 p.m.), 15, 23, 31, Aug. 1 (2 pm), 7, 8 (2 pm)

“Knock ‘em dead!” A less-than-stellar leading lady has been killed at curtain call (serves her right for murdering all her songs!) and it’s up to homicide detective and musical theatre aficionado, Frank Cioffi, to unravel the case before he takes his final bow.

The Elephant Man

By Bernard Pomerance
Directed by Everett Quinton

July 8, 16, 24, 25 (2 pm), 29, Aug. 5

Winner of the Tony Award for Best Play, this powerful drama about the beauty and truth hiding beneath an ugly exterior tells the story of the misshapen sideshow performer John Merrick when a well-meaning doctor brings him into the fold of Victorian society.

Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad

By Arthur Kopit
Directed by Scott Spence, Artistic Director of the Beck Center for the Arts

July 9, 17, 18 (2 pm), 22, 30, Aug. 6

A Drama Desk Award winner in 1962, Oh Dad is a farce of epic proportions, wherein mommy dearest, Madame Rosepettle, will stop at nothing to keep her philatelist son hiding under her skirt until well past puberty. Meanwhile, dad’s still dead, and hanging in the closet.

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