CSU Summer Stages is excited to announce five benefit performances of the Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning drama The Shadow Box. Hospice of the Western Reserve, the Hospice of Cleveland Clinic, the Hospice of the Visiting Nurses Association, and Malachi House will each receive half of all ticket proceeds on the night of their benefit performance.

• Friday July 17 and Sunday, July 26: Hospice of the Cleveland Clinic
  Hospice of the Cleveland Clinic offers compassionate care for the patient with a life-limiting illness.
• Saturday, July 25: Hospice of the VNA
  The mission of the VNA is to provide compassionate, innovative, and effective community-based home health care that promotes the health, independence, and dignity of those they serve in Northeast and Central Ohio.
• Thursday, July 30: Hospice of the Western Reserve
  Hospice of the Western Reserve provides palliative end-of-life care, caregiver support, and bereavement services throughout Northern Ohio. In celebration of the individual worth of each life, the hospice strives to relieve suffering, enhance comfort, promote quality of life, foster choice in end-of-life care, and support effective grieving.
• Friday, August 7: Malachi House
  Created out of a Christian sense of ministry, Malachi House is a non-profit organization that serves terminally ill persons, without cost or regard to gender, race, religion or national origin.

Three very different families, each facing an imminent death -- From this simple premise comes a story of love, courage, and loss. Set in an experimental hospice facility, The Shadow Box gives us a glimpse into the lives of Joe, whose son does not know the awful truth; Brian, whose eccentric ex-wife has returned, much to the chagrin of his lover Mark; and Agnes, who is barely hanging on to her life and her sanity, while her daughter Felicity carries a dark secret.

Featuring a combination of student actors, both new and returning members of the CSU Summer Stages family, and the best professionals that Cleveland has to offer, this drama is helmed by the director of last year's hit Dark of the Moon, New York legend Everett Quinton.

Tickets are available by phone at 216.687.2109 or by visiting the Factory Theatre Box Office on East 24th Street.

For 2009, Summer Stages will also present its flagship musical, Return to the Forbidden Planet, by Bob Carlton and directed by Dr. Michael L. Mauldin. This 50’s/60’s jukebox musical teams the science fiction movie Forbidden Planet with Shakespeare’s The Tempest to make a ridiculous spoof for the whole family.

Finishing off the season is the hilarious Chekhov in Yalta by Jeffrey Haddow and John Driver. This farcical-historical comedy, directed by Cleveland Play House Education Director Cathy Hartenstein, centers on famed playwright Anton Chekhov, convalescing in the resort town of Yalta. Seeking Chekhov's newest script, Moscow Art Theatre director Konstantin Stanislavksi decides to take matters into his own hands: if he can't bring Chekhov to Moscow, he brings the Moscow Art Theatre to Chekhov.

Ticket prices are $15 for general, $10 for seniors, and $10 for groups of 10 or more. The Smarty Pants Pass is $30 to see all three shows. Curtain time is 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday.

For tickets or more information on Summer Stages, please call the Box Office at 216.687.2109, go to www.csuohio.edu/theater, or visit the Box Office in the Factory Theatre, located on East 24th Street between Chester and Payne avenues. Parking is free. The Box Office is open Monday–Friday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

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Return to the Forbidden Planet

By Bob Carlton
Directed by Dr. Michael L. Mauldin, Director of CSU Dramatic Arts
Choreography by Associate Professor Lynn Deering
July 11, 12 (2 p.m.), 16, 24
August 1, 2 (2 p.m.), 6

Blast off on a routine flight and crash into the planet D’Illyria, where a sci-fi version of The Tempest, set to rock ‘n roll golden oldies, unfolds with glee!

The Shadowbox

By Michael Cristofer
Directed by Everett Quinton
July 9, 17, 25, 26 (2 p.m.), 30
August 7

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for Best Play, this drama portrays the emotions of hope and heartbreak. A trio of terminally ill patients are interviewed about the process of dying as they come to grips with the finality of their condition.

Chekhov in Yalta

By John Driver and Jeffrey Haddow
Directed by Cathy Hartenstein, Education Director for the Cleveland Play House
July 10, 18, 19 (2 p.m.), 23, 31
August 8, 9 (2 p.m.)

This comedy is a turn-of-the-century comedic romp in which the glittering stars of the Moscow Art Theatre descend upon Chekhov at his country house, hoping to score a hit with his latest masterpiece. Brimming with amorous triangles, battles of ego, madcap misunderstandings and all things Chekhovian!

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