The Berlioz Project @ CPT’s Big Box
By Elsa Johnson & Victor Lucas
We vaguely remember the first time we heard Hector Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique in Music Appreciation. Were we aware then what a poor, sick, bi-polar puppy Berlioz was? How his Symphonie’s improbable scenario of a stalker and his unrequited love, drug abuse and musical mayhem could not have been more autobiographical?
Whether or not you go to see Berlioz Project: a multidisciplinary multimedia multi-venue Rock Opera at Cleveland Public Theatre’s Big Box this week (Click here), we recommend that you amuse and edify yourself by clicking on this link to the PBS description of Symphonie fantastique complete with ever-so-sordid biographical details. (Click here). Talk about promising premises!
Writer and director Deborah Magid would seem to know her way around the craft of playwrighting and musical theater. She’s a member of Cleveland Play House Playwright’s Unit and Dobama Playwright’s Gym, among others. She has impressive credentials as a performer and director of musical theater from 21st century art song to Broadway musicals.
To see collaborator Lilyana Valentinova Petrova’s website click on http://LilyanaPetrova.com. Verb Ballets is also collaborating. Click here to see how Berlioz Project fits in with their current season.
Berlioz Project is at Cleveland Public Theatre’s Big Box at James Levin Theatre at 7PM on Thu 2/2, Fri 2/3 and Sat 2/4/2012. Tickets $15 General and $13 Students and Seniors. To purchase from CPT online click here. Or phone 216-631-2727 ext 501 or in person at the CPT box office which is located here.
From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas. Elsa and Vic are both longtime Clevelanders. Elsa is a landscape designer. She studied ballet as an avocation for 2 decades. Vic has been a dancer and dance teacher for most of his working life, performing in a number of dance companies in NYC and Cleveland. They write about dance as a way to learn more and keep in touch with the dance community. E-mail them at vicnelsaATearthlink.net.