7/8-30
Domesticity is ripe for humor whenever needy family members show up for an unannounced visit.
While words such as uproarious and a hilarious romp describe hot playwright Chad Beguelin’s Harbor, which revolves around the above narrative, the fact that local company convergence-continuum is producing the comedy’s Midwest premiere July 8-30 at Tremont’s Liminis Theater tells you this is anything but a clichéd affair.
The story details what happens when the honeymoon is over for happy newlyweds Kevin and Ted. Kevin’s pregnant slacker sister and her precocious teenage daughter show up at the couple’s Sag Harbor home. That’s when the fun starts.
Beguelin, a four-time Tony Award-nominee for his work on the Broadway musicals The Wedding Singer and Aladdin, debuted Harbor in 2012 with a New York performance coming a year later. Since then, productions have been staged in San Francisco, Omaha, Dallas and Buffalo.
CoolCleveland talked to convergence-continuum artistic director and Harbor sound designer Clyde Simon about this fun production.
First of all, how long has Harbor been on convergence-continuum’s radar?
Actually, we discovered it last year. I thought it was really funny and very timely as far as current events concerning marriage equality happening last year. At the center of the play is a same-sex couple, Kevin and Ted, who are married for 10 years. It’s really about family, which makes it pretty timeless. And then it does feel very modern, like the sense of television show Modern Family, which is about family relationships. So it’s kind of timeless, but the way we form families nowadays makes it kind of modern.
What is it about Harbor that made sense for convergence-continuum?
It’s a very new play. It premiered in 2013 and hasn’t been done very much yet. It’s really smart, but it doesn’t tell you what to think. These people just live it and it’s up to you to put the pieces together and see what you feel about all of this. It’s got the gay aspect but it’s not a gay play. It’s kind of what we do. We’re really big on inclusiveness and diversity here. We look for plays that kind of beckon to that niche. We do thought-provoking stuff. And also in the summer we like to do comedies. It just seems the right time to have everybody feel in a better mood, especially in Cleveland when the weather is good.
convergence-continuum is celebrating its 15th anniversary. How has the company evolved?
We’ve expanded over time doing a lot more original plays. That’s something that at the beginning was an idea but we weren’t able to fulfill until the last couple of years. Also, part of our mission is we are aiming for a much wider age range of audience members. If you go to a lot of theaters, it’s a sea of white hair. We’ve got white hair in our audience but also have a lot of younger people because we keep producing fresh material and our prices are cheap. We’re trying to get into the next generation of theatergoers for live theater.
Continuing that thought, what’s the role of convergence-continuum in the Northeast Ohio theater scene?
We’re trying to present plays that people don’t know yet and others wouldn’t do either because of the subject matter or the way to present it. And it’s new, sometimes experimental and sometimes pretty off-the-wall stuff. That’s how we fit in. People come to our productions saying, “I don’t know what this play is but I like the stuff they do.” That’s kind of our niche. For example, this is may be the fourth or fifth production of Harbor anywhere in the United States. This is a cool emerging playwright. And often our productions don’t fit the kind of standard of how plays are put together — language-wise, plot-wise. There’s always the idea of some sort of pushing the envelope.
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