Ensemble Theatre Ready to Open 38th Season - "We The People"

Ensemble Theatre is gearing up for their upcoming 38th season with five mainstage productions of plays focusing on the power of the individual within their respective communities. Artistic Director Celeste Cosentino is directing the season opener, Well, as well as both parts of the epic and contemporary classic drama, Angels in America.

Well, written by Lisa Kron who recently wrote the book & lyrics for the 2015 Tony Award-winning musical, Fun Home, is about a woman trying to reconcile her relationship with her mother who spent most of her life ailing from illness, all while fixing her own community.

Opening September 29, the play asks searing questions like, “Why are some people sick and others well,” and, “What is the price of staying home,” while paralleling Kron’s fight to get well with her mother’s struggles desegregating their neighborhood.

Cosentino sees the play speaking to today’s political climate both in terms of racial tensions and healthcare.

“There’s been a national focus on healthcare,” she said, “and with the current climate in our country, the humor and heart in is more timely now than ever.”

After Well, Ian Wolfgang Hinz will again direct a classic Eugene O’Neill play when he helms The Hairy Ape only a few years after winning the Cleveland Critics Circle Award for Best Director for his work on O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh.

Hinz feels the themes of O’Neill’s play about a brutish man finding his place in a society ruled by the rich, transcend time and are still relevant today. “O’Neill is asking the questions many of us in our polarized society are asking,” Hinz said. “Mainly, ‘where do we belong?’”

“Directing both parts of Angels in America, with the same cast and in the same season in this political climate is profoundly important,” Cosentino said of her turn directing Tony Kushner’s seminal American play about the advent of the AIDs epidemic. “A true American classic that is needed now more than ever, and by a small professional theatre in a way that is unique in all of Cleveland.”

Hinz will also be directing Jelly Belly, an early play by playwright Charles Smith. Ensemble has produced several of Smith’s plays in recent years including A Free Man of Color, Knock Me a Kiss, and The Gospel According to James.

In addition to these mainstage productions, Ensemble will also hold their 7th Annual Colombi New Plays Festival during the month of March, and offer smaller productions in their second space, The PlayGround, including The Little Prince.

For tickets and more information you can visit EnsembleTheatreCLE.org, call 216.321.2930, or email info@ensemble-theatre.org.

Ensemble Theatre's "We The People"

Well by Lisa Kron, directed by Celeste Cosentino: September 29 – October 22

The Hairy Ape by Eugene O’Neill, directed by Ian Wolfgang Hinz: November 17 – December 10

The Little Prince by Rick Cummins & John Scoullar from the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, directed by Brittni Shambaugh Addison: December 1 – December 17 in the PlayGround Theater

Angels in America, Part One: Millenium Approaches by Tony Kushner, directed by Celeste Cosentino: January 5 – January 28

Jelly Belly by Charles Smith, directed by Ian Wolfgang Hinz: February 9 – February 25

2018 Colombi New Plays Festival: March 2018

Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika by Tony Kushner, directed by Celeste Cosentino: April 27 – May 20