Test Flight Part 1 – Week 2: Experts in a Dying Field
Written and directed by Jonathon Morgan
Produced by Mindy Childress Herman
February 13, 2025 - February 15, 2025
7pm, Thu/Fri/Sat, James Levin Theatre
EVERY TICKET is "Choose What You Pay" and will be offered online, over the phone, and at the Box Office. (Advanced online e-ticket purchases are recommended to avoid long lines at the box office window the day of the show.)
Experts in a Dying Field is a play about being fungi, and being fun guys. It’s interactive, a little weird, and ends with a sing-along of Queen’s 1978 classic, "Fat Bottomed Girls." This will be a productive use of your time.
It’s like your favorite Liz Phair song on repeat, or a Tom Waits poem, or the recaps Dennis Manoloff does for Cleveland Magazine after Browns games. It’s like a Nan Goldin photo, being lost in thought, staring out the window while you’re riding the Red Line, or the best sweater you ever found at Unique Thrift before it closed. Remember when you fell in love drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes all night at My Friends? We do too. It’s like that. But mostly it’s a play about making friends and balloons. Lots and lots of balloons.
The James Levin Theatre is ADA-compliant featuring a patron elevator and an all-gender, wheelchair-accessible restroom.
Ensemble Members:
FEATURING: Samantha Cocco, Mike Frye, Sarah Kunchik, David Lenahan, Zach Palumbo, Perry Reed, Amanda Rowe-Van Allen, Millie Rose Sherin
The Creative Production Team Includes:
Dramaturg: Michael Glavan
Music: Edan Raen
ENHANCE YOUR EXPERIENCE
Free Bev Friday – Every Friday night at CPT is Free Bev Friday. Free beer, wine, ready-to-drink cocktails and soft drinks are served after the performance for about an hour. Join the staff and artists of CPT, talk about the show, and have a drink on us. And remember, hot beverages like coffee and tea are always complimentary at CPT performances. (Please note: While liquor used in mixed drinks will not be complimentary, the mixer will be discounted from your total.)
ABOUT THE playwright & director
Jonathon Morgan is one of the producers of Micro Theater CLE, a pop-up festival of short performances in small spaces, and rates neighborhood dogs in a regular column for his community newspaper, The Tremonster. He went to a fancy English acting school, then spent some time making rock musicals with drinking games in dilapidated warehouses in Liverpool, New York, and Austin, before coming home to Cleveland a couple years ago. The last time Jonathon lived in the area, he produced an absurdist, socialist adaptation of the Caucasian Chalk Circle at an art gallery that’s now a Cajun restaurant and almost died on Dead Man’s Curve on the way to see Yo La Tengo at the Beachland Ballroom. Jonathon would like a dog and is interested in starting a band. Hit him up if you wanna, like, jam.
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Mindy Childress Herman is a director, producer and administrator who specializes in collaborating with artists to develop new work. Over the past 25 years she has worked at almost every theatre in town. She is a co-producer at Micro Theater CLE, free pop-up festivals of short performances in small spaces throughout Cleveland. She has been the Director of The Dark Room at CPT since 2007. She directed and produced several critically acclaimed, site-specific tours (including Spoon River Anthology, Glengarry Glen Ross and Lone Star) for Charenton Theatre Company, where she served as Producing Director. She directed and produced The Mystery of Easter Island, and directed Munchen, Minnesota for Footsteps Media, an award-winning podcast production company.
ABOUT TEST FLIGHT
TEST FLIGHT (Part 1)
A New Play Development Program
February 6 – February 22, 2025
Test Flight is a multi-week series that showcases new work on its way to full production. This popular event provides local and national artists with the keys to the theatre and opportunity to co-produce original works-in-progress. The series encourages risk-taking and entrepreneurial spirit towards creating.
Note that Test Flight (Part 2) will feature four new shows that will run May 22 through June 7. Click here for information on those shows.
Recent successes include Showin’ Up Black by Jeanne Madison (Feb. 2025), Our Lady of Common Sorrows (Fall 2023), Alter by Tania Benites (Feb. 2024). Each of these were developed in Test Flight.
