Resident Artists
Resident Artists Program
We believe that it is through a commitment to nurturing and long-range development of artists that our work can grow. By providing opportunities and resources, members of the CPT Resident Artists Program can create with the knowledge that their work will not only receive moral support and artistic guidance, but practical support in the form of production opportunities and technical and financial resources. The following artists chosen for residency have proven their artistry in our theatres over many years. Their talents grow with each project, and their strength as creators is inspirational.
RESIDENT THEATRE COMPANIES
TITLEWave theatre
TITLEWave was founded by Greg Vovos because of a strong belief in the need to see more original plays produced in the Cleveland area. Because of the curiosity he finds in Cleveland audiences and theatre artists, he believes that Cleveland, a city steeped in tradition, will embrace new works. Fortunate to have an extensive background in new plays as well as relationships with many talented playwrights, Vovos decided to focus his attention solely on the creation of new work. While traditional and classical drama allow us to understand the universal qualities that have carried from generation to generation, nothing can give us better insight into the world we live in today than work that is created by artists of our lifetime. TITLEWave productions at CPT have included Charge, Wait!, Two-Headed, Stone Cold Dead Serious and AtTENtion Span: A Festival of 10-Minute Plays.
RESIDENT DANCE COMPANIES
SAFMOD (SubAtomic Frequency Modulation OverDose)
SAFMOD was founded in Ann Arbor, MI in 1991 by percussionist/composer Neil Chastain and dancer/choreographer Young Park. Visual Art Director Alexandra Underhill joined SAFMOD in 1993 when the group moved its base to Cleveland. The multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural performance ensemble strives to push the boundaries of dance, music, and visual artistry.
Their multi-media approach has included the use of projected digital animation, aerosol art installations, dancers on stilts, spoken word poetry, audience involvement, trapeze work, and futuristic costumes often made from recycled materials, all integrating a contemporary urban sensibility.
GroundWorks Dancetheater
GroundWorks Dancetheater is a professional organization, founded in 1998, dedicated to the development and presentation of new choreography that encourages collaboration with other art disciplines. The work will embrace economy and flexibility in all areas as catalysts for stretching the parameters of how and where dance is shown. GroundWorks will develop programs that encourage understanding of dance and how it is created. It will work to build new audiences for dance, seek opportunities to cost-effectively share resources and create with other artistic organizations. Through the realization of its goals, GroundWorks Dancetheater will advance the vision of its artistic director and founder David Shimotakahara. The organization will also continue to advance the work begun by New Steps. Mr. Shimotakahara co-founded this independent project in 1989 to find ways to help professional dancers who had made a serious commitment to the process of choreography. Under his direction, from 1989 to 1997, New Steps spurred the creative development of dozens of emerging choreographers and promoted the importance of a supportive and diverse dance community in Northeast Ohio.
RESIDENT ARTISTS
Trad A Burns - Resident Lighting and Set Designer
With a career that has spanned theatre, dance, amusement parks, as well as architectural and retail lighting, Mr. Burns has designed more than 300 productions during the last decade, his varied work has been seen around the world. Burns' extensive credits include designs for Cincinnati Ballet, New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey, New York Theatre Workshop (NYC), La Mama ETC (NYC), HERE (NYC), Classic Stage Company (NYC), The Public Theatre (NYC), Indiana Repertory Theatre, MorrisonDance, VERB Ballets, Cedar Point, ValleyFair, Knott's Berry Farm, Kings Island, Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disneyland Japan, Disney Sea, Disney Cruise Lines, Carnival Cruise Lines, Universal Studios Florida & Japan, Woodstock Ice Productions, and The Family of Charles M. Schulz. Burns has designed numerous productions at CPT, including Nickel and Dimed, Dojoji, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Discordia, Blue Sky Transmission, Summer and Smoke, One Flea Spare, Gross Indecency, Venus, The Secretaries, A Bright Room Called Day, Mrs. Bob Cratchett's Wild Christmas Binge, Fefu and her Friends (lighting) and most recently, Sleep Deprivation Chamber (lighting).
Alison Garrigan - Resident Costume Designer
Ms. Garrigan is an actress and costume designer who first performed at CPT almost 20 years ago when she played Janet in The Rocky Horror Show. Other CPT credits include Susan in The Secretaries, Zillah in A Bright Room Called Day (both of which won her the Scene Magazine Best Actress of the Year award), Morgan le Fey in Discordia and Yitzak in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Roles elsewhere include Miss Crow in A Man of No Importance, Delilah Strict in Zombie Prom, Elaine in The Dying Gaul and Maxine in T.I.D.Y. at Beck Center; Siren/Tattoo Artist in Highway Ulysses at Dobama; Maud/Lin in Cloud Nine, Gertrude in Hamlet, and the eponymous Lysistrata for Bad Epitaph Theater Company. As a designer, her work has been seen at CPT in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Nickel and Dimed and Hedwig and the Angry Inch and most recently, Rocky Horror Show, in which she also had a lead role. Elsewhere, her work has been seen at Beck Center (Hamlet, Porgy and Bess, The Full Monty, Urinetown, Aida, The Seagull), Dobama (W;t and Trestle at Pope Lick Creek), Bad Epitaph Theater (Othello, Hamlet, Lysistrata, Sin), and at Great Lakes Theater Festival for their All City Musicals, three years running. She is also the producer of her own line of Fetish Gear - Mothernight Ware.
Halim El-Dabh - Resident Composer
CPT is proud to welcome Halim El-Dabh into its Resident Artist Program. Born in Egypt in 1921, Halim El-Dabh's career spans nearly sixty years. He has composed well over one hundred works in all genres, including opera, ballet, symphonic, choral, chamber and electronic, and has played with such artists and composers as Leopold Stokowsky, Martha Graham, Rudolf Nureyev, Margot Fonteyne, Isamu Noguchi and Igor Stravinsky. Professor El-Dabh has served on the faculty of Kent State University since 1969, and holds the title University Professor, the highest distinction awarded to faculty members, and one shared by only seven other KSU professors. El-Dabh created the original score for the 2002-03 season's world premiere of Blue Sky Transmissions: A Tibetan Book Of The Dead.
