Thu 10/24 – Sat 11/9
Obie Award-winning Erin Courtney’s Black Cat Lost is a unique play that incorporates elements of audience participation. It’s the latest production from Northeast Ohio’s Theater Ninjas, and their first endeavor since their four month partnership with the Cleveland Museum of Art this Spring.
Performances will travel to three of the most popular art venues in Northeast Ohio: Collinwood’s Waterloo Arts, Gordon Square’s 78th Street Studios and Summit Artspace in Akron. The multi-venue tour is a first for the Ninjas, whose mission involves utilizing alternative performance venues throughout the region. Performing Black Cat Lost on both the East and West Sides of Cleveland as well as Akron will allow audiences to experience the work in three different environments.
Black Cat Lost is both intimate and inviting. This is accomplished with a combination of a small cast and incorporating moments encouraging/requiring audience participation. Each unique performance will be shaped by the audience’s own thoughts, memories and voices, as well as the individual characteristics of each venue. This multimedia production also utilizes Zen poetry, silent film imagery, fiction and memoirs that evoke both individual and collective themes.
“I love this play because of its fascinating shape. It weaves together so many different ideas, art forms and raw expression with rhythm and energy,” says Artistic Director Jeremy Paul. “It’s constantly moving, evolving without losing its simplicity or its sincerity.”
This constant shift between characters and stories allows the work to transition between the personal and the universal, the individual and the collective. Black Cat Lost creates a kaleidoscopic view of life, death and transcendence.
Each evening will feature a ten-minute opening performance called The Refrain — a theatre piece originally created in 2011 by Director Jeremy Paul and starring Tania Benites, and Black Cat’s Ray Caspio and Sarah Moore. The Refrain is a highly rhythmical sequence of movement and voices — a pseudo “opening band” for Black Cat Lost.
Select performances of Black Cat will be followed by a brief performance of cabaret songs by Associate Artistic Director Ray Caspio and composer Sean Ellis inspired by Weimar Berlin. These intimate performances are an early glimpse at Tingle-Tangle, an upcoming production currently being developed by the Theater Ninjas. Tingle-Tangle examines queer identity, hate speech, oppression and love.
Founded in 2006, Theater Ninjas was created with the goal of developing innovative, nontraditional theatrical experiences. The group utilizes an ensemble-driven process with various techniques including physical improvisation, chance, interactivity, song and the human body to tell their stories. Black Cat Lost is their latest effort to reduce the barriers between the avant-garde by providing new artists and new audiences with an opportunity to engage each other.
Performances of Black Cat Lost are: Waterloo Arts Thu 10/24 – Mon 10/28; 78th Street Studio Thu 10/31 – Mon 11/4; and Summit Artspace Thu 11/7 – Sat 11/9. All performances begin at 8pm except a “Late Night Show” Sat 11/2 at 11pm. General admission is $20, all Thursday performances are $15 and Mondays are $10. Discounted tickets are available for guests under 25/over 75 for $15.
Black Cat Lost is written by Erin Courtney and directed by Jeremy Paul – starring Ray Caspio, Lauren Joy Fraley and Sarah Moore.
http://BlackCatLost.BrownPaperTickets.com
Josh Usmani is a 27 year old local artist, curator and writer. Since 2008, his work has been featured in over 50 local and regional exhibitions.