Cleveland Municipal School District Students Present Guy and Dolls

May 14, 2007 - PRLog -- CLEVELAND, OH – The Cleveland Municipal School District (http://www.cmsdnet.net) in partnership with Great Lakes Theater Festival (http://www.greatlakestheater.org) and Playhouse Square Center will collaborate to present the eighth annual All-City Musical, Guys and Dolls crowning the District’s 2006-07 series of All-City Arts Programming.  

The production features the talents of over fifty CMSD students from across the District and will take place on the stage of the Ohio Theatre at Playhouse Square Center, June 1-3, 2007.  Tony Sias, Director of Performing Arts for the Cleveland Municipal School District, directs the production.  Guys and Dolls is based on the story and characters of Damon Runyon and the book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser.

The eighth annual All-City Musical is presented with generous support from The Human Fund (http://www.the-human-fund.org) which contributed $150,000 to the school district for a second consecutive year to fund its All-City Arts programming.  “It is truly exciting to fund things that introduce students to their creative possibilities. We look forward to expanding those possibilities as we work to create a new model in career development that hopefully other cities will emulate,” said Human Fund co-founder and co-chairman, Heather Guess regarding the aim of the funds.

Dr. Eugene T.W. Sanders, CEO of the Cleveland Municipal School District stated, “We are extremely pleased to have The Human Fund’s continued support of our All-City Arts Programs and annual spring musical. We greatly appreciate the substance of this donation, and understand that the real value of these funds is immeasurable when considering how they facilitate growth and performance opportunities for our students. We are grateful that The Human Fund is partnering with us to further enable standards-based arts education for our students as we strive to become a premier school district in the United States of America.”  

The All-City Musical is a rewarding experience for the students involved as well as for the professional artists that collaborate to produce the production, according to Tony Sias, director of the production for the fifth  
consecutive year.  “The All-City Musical is an extraordinary program that provides students with a structured arts-based experience that refines individual talents, stimulates critical thinking, focuses creativity, strengthens social skills and affords students an informed perspective on the world that they might not have had if they were not involved in the program,” said Sias in a recent interview about the upcoming production.  “These young people are amazing.  As a member of the production team, I find it immensely rewarding to witness and play a significant role in the growth and development that these students experience over our intensive eight-week All-City Musical rehearsal process.  They work diligently, remain focused and emerge from the program with the ability to demonstrate the skill and the discipline that it takes to be an artist in the theater.  It is deeply satisfying to be able to share this leg of their journey with them.”

Guys and Dolls tells the story of a group of small time gamblers and the ladies in their lives.  Nathan Detroit bets his pal Sky Masterson that he can’t make the next lady he sees fall in love with him, and when the next “doll” happens to be the prim and proper neighborhood missionary Sarah Brown, the stage is set for an evening of high spirited entertainment, set to the toe tapping beat of Frank Loesser’s superlative score.

The production team for the eighth annual All-City Musical is a distinguished group of artists from across Northeast Ohio.  A new addition to the All-City artistic company this year, Dr William Woods, chair of the Music and Dance departments at Cleveland School of the Arts, will serve as Musical Director for the production.  An All-City veteran, Michael Medcalf, founder and Artistic Director of Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theater, will return to the production team for the sixth consecutive season to create Guys and Dolls’ choreography.  Terry Martin will design the colorful, multi-location set while Alison Garrigan and Esther Haberlen will co-design the richly textured costumes for the production.  Lorain County Community College Production Manager/Technical Director/Designer, Jeremy Benjamin will design lights and longtime GLTF resident designer Stan Kozak will create the production’s soundscape.

Opening Night for the eighth annual All-City Musical Guys and Dolls is scheduled for Friday, June 1st at 7:30 p.m.  The production will continue with a Saturday evening showing on June 2nd at 7:30 p.m. and matinee performance on Sunday, June 3rd at 3 p.m.

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