"Othello" and "An Ideal Husband" Kick Off Great Lakes Theater Festival's 2010-11 Season

The productions will be performed in rotating repertory September 24 – October 31, 2010. The Fall Repertory features GLTF’s resident artistic company of actors performing two alternating plays on the same stage over six weeks. Risa Brainin will direct Othello and Sari Ketter will direct An Ideal Husband.
Great Lakes Theater Festival is generously funded by the citizens of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. In addition, the Festival’s 2010-11 season is presented with support from The Cleveland Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council. Media sponsors for the GLTF’s 49th season are Cleveland Scene, The Plain Dealer, WCLV 104.9 FM, WCPN 90.3 FM ideastream and WKSU 89.7 FM.
"I am thrilled to kick off Great Lakes Theater Festival’s 49th season as Cleveland’s classic theater company with a fall repertory that features Shakespeare’s Othello and Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband,” said GLTF Producing Artistic Director, Charles Fee. “This year marks our third season in the beautifully re-imagined Hanna Theatre and speaks to the breadth of experience we are dedicated to creating in PlayhouseSquare. For the occasion, I am proud to welcome back to our company two extraordinary directors, working for the first time in our new home, Risa Brainin and Sari Ketter. Both have long been associated with our companies in Cleveland and Boise and it is a joy to have them working on the Hanna’s Parker Hannifin Stage! I simply can’t wait to share the outstanding productions that they’ve created with our audience.”
GLTF’s 2010 Fall Repertory commences with the Shakespearean thriller, Othello. William Shakespeare’s supreme villain meets literature’s most tragic hero in one of the greatest dramas of all time. After being passed over for a military promotion and suspecting his wife’s infidelity with the man responsible for his slight, vengeance drives the duplicitous Iago to plant potent seeds of doubt in the mind of the Moor. Will Othello fall into Iago’s evil trap and forsake his wife, the innocent Desdemona? Culminating in Shakespeare’s most powerful scene, Othello weaves a tragic tapestry of jealousy, trust and betrayal. The production features David Alan Anderson, the newest member of the Festival’s acting company, in the title role.
Oscar Wilde’s witty comedy An Ideal Husband completes GLTF’s Fall Repertory pairing. Romantic, clever and marvelously convoluted, this comedy of manners insightfully examines the crossroads where money, power and ethics collide. Sir Robert Chiltern, a rising political star and a pillar of virtue, is an ideal husband for the charming Lady Chiltern. But when the enchanting and conniving Mrs. Cheveley returns from abroad threatening to reveal a dark secret from Sir Chiltern’s past, a brewing scandal impends to destroy both his career and marriage. Wilde’s wit takes center stage, rambunctiously holding a mirror up to nature while wreaking havoc on its occupants, in a deliciously decadent comedy that disarms and delights.
GLTF’s 2010 Fall Repertory reunites acclaimed Festival directors, Risa Brainin and Sari Ketter, with Northeast Ohio audiences. Brainin celebrates her 4th year at Great Lakes Theater Festival this season. Her work was last seen by Festival audiences in 2007 when she directed Measure for Measure. Other GLTF productions include As You Like It (2005) and Julius Caesar (2004). Sari Ketter directed Great Lakes Theater Festival’s 2005 production of The Merry Wives of Windsor.