One of the things I love about this city is its desire to climb high. Dream big. Shine bright.

For over 30 years, Cleveland Public Theatre has lit up Cleveland’s west side with brilliant creativity and innovation. Every season they bring to the Gordon Square Arts District productions that embrace the risk and adventure of life, while also showcasing new, local talent.

They’ve aspired to – and succeeded in – celebrating the remarkable, the experimental, the weird in CLE.

Video from Cleveland Public Theatre’s Pandemonium: House of Dreams

At the end of September, CPT’s latest season starts with their Springboard Staged Reading Festival and continues through June with 19 more productions and events. Keep an eye out in October for your chance to win vouchers good for one of these performances.

However, before all of that, join Cleveland Public Theatre on September 7 for the one annual event that both celebrates and supports these groundbreaking works.

Equal parts fringe festival, out-of-this-world dance party, and Cleveland chefs showcase, Pandemonium is possibly the most unusual and incredible fundraiser I’ve attended in Cleveland.

Cleveland Public Theatre’s Pandemonium – September 7

At last year’s Pandemonium (you can read my recap here), we experienced over 10 performances in just one night – and that wasn’t even half of what went on.

Pandemonium 2013 is aptly themed Shine as it will put dozens of local theatre, dance, visual and performance artists in the spotlight including:

• Dance performances by GroundWorks, Verb Ballets, Inlet Dance Theatre, Wind and Sand Dance Company, Double-Edge Dance, Duece Dance;
• Live music by Bethesda, Neil Chastian & Byron Lee “DJ Funk Shway”, Global Connections, Last Call Cleveland, Opera Per Tutti, Juliette Regnier, Alison Garrigan and Bobby Williams;
• Original work by Raymond Bobgan, CPT’s The Dark Room, Caitlin Lewins, Melissa Crum, Christine Howey, Pandora Robertson, Cathleen O’Malley & Lauren Fraley, Theater Ninjas and more.

When dessert was serbed at Pandemonium 2012, the living centerpieces were a fantastic touch to the evening

Because adventure can leave you hungry, chefs from Luxe Kitchen and Lounge, Root Cafe, Tartine Bistro, Battery Park Wine Bar, Touch Food Truck, and XYZ Grill and Tavern will be on hand, along with food and drink from other neighborhood restaurants for a feast of divine proportions.

All of it takes place on the Cleveland Public Theatre campus in Gordon Square. I remember last year being amazed by just how much can fit throughout the theatre’s historic buildings.

Pop-up performances took place in side hallways and tucked away in corners. Seeking them out and stumbling upon the unexpected was the real fun of the evening.

Performances tucked away in the most unexpected places at CPT’s Pandemonium

Pandemonium starts at 7pm on Saturday, September 7 and goes late into the night. Tickets cost $135 ($75 is tax deductible) and include everything – valet parking, all of the performances, food and drinks.

Don’t miss it — purchase your tickets online at http://cptonline.org/theater-show.php?id=208 or by calling the box office at (216) 631 2727 ext 205.

Disclosure: I was invited to attend Pandemonium with a guest but am unable to due to a scheduling conflict. My choice to post about this event and my opinions of it are 100% my own.

On Saturday night, Scott and I went on an unexpected adventure when Cleveland Public Theatre hosted their annual benefit and awards party.

What followed was the most unusual and remarkable party I’ve been to since moving to Cleveland. Part Fringe festival / part dance-party-on-your-last-night-on-earth, simply – and literally – put it was Pandemonium.

And. It. Was. Awesome.

As we pulled the car up to CPT’s campus to park, the show was already starting on the front steps. With the year’s theme being House of Dreams, it was only fitting that as we walked into the theatre we were surrounded by an art installation of performers “sleeping” around the entrance.

At check-in we were given a program for the evening and a map of all of the stages. In total there were 24 stages located throughout CPT’s campus, many of which were tucked away in corners, under staircases and in some of the 3-building campus’ most unusual places.

Every adventurer needs fuel before setting out on a journey, though, so before the performances started, guests could enjoy food from many of my favorite Gordon Square Art District and neighboring restaurants like Happy Dog hot dogs and toppings.

As the crowd finished filtering in, the party really started with their opening performance. Created by CPT’s executive artistic director Raymond Bobgan, the performance was a scene about being overwhelmed by our daily struggles that led into a dance-chant dream sequence with hints of last season’s Akarui.

At the end, the harried office-worker was transformed into the House of Dreams’ radiant queen who introduced Bobgan, the evening’s Morphius, and invited us to give into CPT’s mission of taking risks and approaching the evening with an adventurous spirit.

I was happy I wore my more comfortable heels that evening because it made it easier to scour CPT’s campus. My favorite part of the evening was that although there was no way you’d see everything, the art installations, plays, interactive performances and music were so varied that it became an evening of Choose Your Own Adventure.

A few of the highlights I enjoyed included:

• Winsor McCay’s Slumberland, a short play by David Hansen of Cleveland Centennial adapted from the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland
• The Reverie Oracle, a 2-hour long-form improvisation piece by Raymond Bobgan
• Back from the Echoless Shore, an art installation created by mother/daughter team Faye and Joan Hargate which was a peaceful, comforting space to disconnect from the rest of the Pandemonium

Those who have seen my backyard will know I was also excited to see MorrisonDance’s Flamingo performance on the Lovecraft Lawn – they fully embraced the movements and grace of my favorite bird.

In the middle of all of this, we took a break for a few more bites from LUXE, BonBon, Touch Food Truck, Latitude 41N and XYZ like watermelon gazpacho, pork belly and a brussels sprout-bacon hash. The Root Cafe also had a delicious selection of vegan and vegetarian dishes.

After catching Last Call Cleveland’s final performance for the night and a few songs in the upstairs cabaret from Tara Hawley, we headed back to the mainstage for Pandemonium’s Awards presentation.

Created to recognize outstanding contributions to the arts and community, the 10th annual Pandemonium PAN Award honored local leaders and dedicated philanthropists Jakki and Fred Nance. In honor of their work, they were presented with a unique and beautiful award designed by artist Shawn Godwin. Each year, Godwin creates a piece inspired by architectural details from CPT’s theatre and the recipients’ bios.

If you thought the party was done, though, you were wrong. Aerialist Leslie Friend’s acrobatics and the living centerpieces of the dessert tables ignited the room for the second half of Pandemonium, a dance party that went late into the night.

In addition to fundraising for Cleveland Public Theatre, Pandemonium was the perfect way to capture the spirit of their 2012-2013 season, described in a word as “REMARKABLE.”

The season, which features 7 world and a number of regional premieres, will start on October 4 with two productions: the regional premiere of Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays and the world premiere The Kardiac Kid.

From Oct. 4 through 20, Standing on Ceremony will play in CPT’s mainstage Gordon Square Theatre. Conceived by Brian Shnipper, it features vignettes from some of the nation’s best playwrights – Jordan Harrison, Moisés Kaufman, Mo Gaffney, Neil LaBute, Wendy MacLeod, José Rivera, Paul Rudnick, and Doug Wright – about gay marriage rights and the heartfelt and sometime wacky moments surrounding the theme of “I do.”

At the same time, in CPT’s Storefront Studio, The Kardiac Kid will present a celebration of Cleveland, the Browns and the fall of 1980. In his one-man show, Cleveland’s own Eric Schmiedl plays a girl abandoned to her grandparents, a Roman Catholic priest (and his enemy, the parish dog), and a bookish skilled tradesman from the west side who thinks that he has discovered the secret for keeping the Browns winning. As football season gets underway, it’s a high-powered performance for Browns fans.

You can learn more and purchase tickets for the entire season at cptonline.org/cleveland-public-theater-performances-and-tickets.php.

CPT staff and the more than 300 artists and volunteers who came together to put on such an incredible and off-the-wall event deserve applause for a night that fully embraced the risks and rewards you find in the arts. And as I went to sleep that evening, exhausted from such a good time, I was happy to dream.

There were too many fantastic moments from House of Dreams to fit in a blog post, so if you want to see more of the craziness, here’s my full slideshow:

[slideshow]

Disclosure: With my love for local performing arts, I was more than happy to share a preview of Pandemonium as well as a recap of my experience at the event. In exchange, a guest and I were invited to attend.

Celebrate the start of the 2012-2013 theatre season with Cleveland Public Theatre on Sept. 8

Cleveland theatre fans, rejoice! The summer break is over and many of our local theatres are ready to premiere their new seasons. A few quick bits of note:

• Great Lakes Theater jumpstarts their 51st year with the Shakespearean epic Winter’s Tale and a 60s-inspired, music-infused adaptation of Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid.

• Football and theatre enthusiasts alike will love Cleveland Playhouse‘s Lombardi.

• Single tickets for PlayhouseSquare’s Broadway series are finally on sale (check out my rundown on the season’s shows).

• The thought-provoking, but comedic Milk Milk Lemonade is currently playing through Sept. 8 at the often-off-the-wall, boundary-pushing convergence continuum.

• Beck Center for the Arts mounts the first locally produced run of Xanadu.

• And community auditions for Near West Theatre‘s November production of Children of Eden just wrapped (they’re still seeking volunteers for backstage crew and front-of-house work — call 216-961-9750 if interested).

If you want to keep up-to-date on what’s onstage, Cleveland.com’s theatre page and BroadwayWorld Cleveland are my favorite sites to bookmark.

CPT’s Pandemonium features dozens of local theatre, dance, visual and performance artists

Cleveland Public Theatre, in particular, knows this time of year is one to celebrate. So before they roll out their 2012-2013 shows in October, they’re throwing their 10th annual Pandemonium bash on September 8.

At Pandemonium: House of Dreams, CPT invites you to “choose your own adventure” with an extravaganza that features dozens of local theatre, dance, visual and performance artists and fabulous food and drink.

At Pandemonium, performances will pop up (or drop in) in the most-unexpected places

Check-in starts at 7pm, where guests will receive a performance schedule for the night. From there the evening is up to you as innovative performances will be popping up in surprise spots throughout CPT’s campus:

• Dance performances will feature Verb ballets, Inlet Dance Theatre, Wind and Sand Dance Company, Double-Edge Dance, Kevin Marr, Antaeus Dance and MorrisonDance.

• Live music by We the People, Queue Up, Last Call Cleveland, and Bobby Williams.

• Stand-up comedy by Ramon Rivas’ Accidental Comedy Feast.

• Original work by CPT’s The Dark Room, Eric Schmiedl, Holly Holsinger, Greg Vovos, Opera Per Tutti, Theater Ninjas and dozens more.

• Wandering performances by Talespinners Children’s Theatre, Ray McNeice, Robin VanLear, and Mark Zust.

• Cabaret Acts featuring Paul Hoffman and Alison Garrigan.

• Original performances by Raymond Bobgan.

• And installations by Jeon Francis and mother/daughter team Faye & Joan Hargate.

Meanwhile, chefs from BonBon Bake Shop, Latitude 41 N, Luxe Kitchen and Lounge, Root Café, Touch Food Truck and XYZ Grill and Tavern will be cooking up an outdoor feast. Treats from Sweet Moses and tastings from AMP 150, Players, Light Bistro, Fat Cats, Vento La Trattoria and Tartine will also be available.

The evening culminates with music and dancing til midnight.

Pandemonium supports CPT’s mission of developing new, adventurous works and education programs that speak to contemporary issues and empower positive change in the community

Tickets can be purchased in advance for $135 ($75 of which is tax-deductible) and valet parking, unlimited food, drinks and entertainment are included – so indulge yourself as much as you’d like with no regrets (at least til the next morning )!

Purchase Pandemonium tickets online or call 216.631.2727 x 212.

Still need convincing? Catch a glimpse of last year’s Pandemonium experience then go get your tickets:

Pandemonium 2011 from Ted Sikora on Vimeo.

Photo Credits and Disclosure: Photos credited to Steve Wagner. Graphic provided by Cleveland Public Theatre.  A guest and I were invited to attend Pandemonium in exchange for sharing about it on my blog.