Our friends are awesome.

And one of the equally awesome things about Northeast Ohio is that publicly-funded programs, such as the Creative Workforce Fellowship, exist to support their work: making plays that stir the soul, building companies, championing change and contributing to the vibrant arts and culture offerings that make our region a great place to live.

Congratulations to the 40 Northeast Ohio artists selected for the 2016 Creative Workforce Fellowship – among whom, we are bursting with pride to note, are a number of friends and collaborators of CPT, past and present. In fact, 6 of the 6 Fellows in the Theatre category are artists that have played an important role in the life of the theatre. They are directors, performers and creators, joined by an additional 4 artists creating work in the disciplines of film and dance – take a look, see who you might recognize from CPT’s pages and stages over the years.

We are proud that organizations such as CAC and CPAC have taken a stand to support research and development by individual artists and, to our peeps who have worked with us over the years (and in the 1516 season to come!), we are proud to have been part of that journey.

Click here to read the cleveland.com article about the Creative Workforce Fellowships.

-Cleveland Public Theatre Staff

Cleveland Public Theatre Artists, Collaborators and Friends share their favorite CPT memories

“A favorite memory that comes to mind is directing The Alice Seed.  When I put my hat into the ring to be the director, Raymond asked me how what I would do with the play would be different from what someone else would do with it.  I told him that I wanted to present it in the style of aConjure Wives’ Tale.  Add puppets, all organic sound and music, found moments, fantasy imagery.  This was a very grown-up story about grief, loss, and sanity, and I wanted to treat it like a children’s play. Raymond never blinked, just said, “do it.” And we did.  And I daresay it turned out very well.  Puppets and all! I’ve been with CPT since 1988 – there were so very many moments to choose from!”

Click here to visit www.talespinnerchildrenstheatre.org.

Photo by Aisling Montague Mitchell.

Chris Webb

2016 Creative Workforce Fellow
Multi-Media Artist

“Cleveland Public Theatre has had a massively positive impact on my growth as an artist. As a former student of the STEP program, I learned about Avant Garde Theater approaches, diverse artistic communities and the power of the collaborative process. These lessons became tools that I’ve carried on to my schooling at the California Institute of the Arts, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and on into professional career. I am so thankful for my time with CPT and it excites me to know that new generations of artists are being cultivated through their training and practices.”

Holly Holsinger

2016 Creative Workforce Fellow

A Cleveland theatre artist for twenty-five years, currently serving as an associate professor at Cleveland State University, where she specializes in acting, voice, movement, and devised theatre. 

“Cleveland Public Theatre – the passionate and brilliant family with whom I’ve spent over twenty years wrestling in the mud with art. I can chronicle my life through the place: playing the soul mate to my future husband in The Dybbuk; Pinnochio Rising, my first collaboration with Raymond Bobgan (which led to multitudes including The Warbling Carousel, Transformations of Lucius and Frankenstein’s Wake [which we will resurrect in January]); my winter wedding reception in an unrenovated and unheated Gordon Square Theatre (candles burning in the hole of every cinder block); finding myself pregnant while playing Mrs. Antrobus (mother of the world), cracker stations in every backstage corner. I guided a dead soul toward the light in Blue Sky Transmission, and hallucinated in Fefu atop a tall bed in a CPT hallway (known ever after as Holly’s Hall). I exposed my fever dreams (with Chris Seibert) in Insomnia. And here I am again, getting my hands dirty in the rehearsal room with Raymond, full circle. CPT, my loom, threads wound through me, continues to challenge and feed my visions and my life.”

Photo by Terry Goodman.

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Jeremy Paul

2016 Creative Workforce Fellow

Director, devisor and performer, and Artistic Director of Theater Ninjas.

“Making a piece of theater is always an exhilarating, gut-wrenching labyrinthine marathon that takes good collaborators, patience and curiosity. But most of all, you need the space and the trust to explore new territory. I’ve been lucky enough to have gotten those opportunities time and time again at CPT, starting back in 2009 with Anna Bella Eema and continuing thru Fire on the Water earlier this year. Lots of people talk about taking risks, but on shows like NICK&JEREMYand pieces for At-Ten-Tion Span andEarth Plays, I’ve gotten the chance to really do it. Taking a chance on new artists and projects is something I try to bring to every project at Theater Ninjas, and it’s a part of the culture at CPT.”

Click here to visit www.theaterninjas.com.

Photo by Steve Wagner.

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Megan Pitcher

2016 Creative Workforce Fellow

Founder and Artistic Director of MegLouise

“My very first production at CPT was part of the DanceWorks series and in my first meeting with Raymond, I pitched a few options. I have never forgotten his response, “What excites you the most?” I told him and that’s what we did. CPT presented my very first experiments in audience directed dance systems in 2007, the work that is now gaining national and international support.”

Click here to visit www.meglouise.info.

Photo by William Frederking.

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Pandora Robertson

2016 Creative Workforce Fellow

Director and database developer and 11/12 Joan Yellen Horvitz Director Fellow at CPT.

“I am thrilled to be start my [Creative Workforce] Fellowship year with the world premiere of Incendiaries in an Ohio City Theatre Project / CPT co-production and I look forward to contributing to CPT’s inspiring

Road to Hope. I hope to learn how to better advocate for change and promote social justice and plan to take some workshops with an organization that is dedicated to helping build skills in this area.”

Click here to visit www.ohiocitytheatreproject.com.

Photo by Eric Mull.

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Renee Schilling

2016 Creative Workforce Fellow

Playwright and director and 11/12 Joan Yellen Horvitz Director Fellow at CPT.

“This moment (see photo below). Surrounded by a group of artists that remind me of just how lucky I am to live and work in Cleveland. The designers, technicians and actors in Cleveland are so gracious and, well, talented. It is really humbling when they trust you enough to try out your words. When I think about it, I feel that about every cast I’ve had the chance to work with at CPT (and elsewhere). So lucky and so grateful.”

Photo by Sebastian Orr.

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Doug is a D-Bag, conceived and directed by Renee Schilling. Photo by Eric Schilling.

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Ray Caspio

2016 Creative Workforce Fellow

Actor, illustrator, performer and teaching artist.

“It’s wonderful that the community shows such tremendous support for the artists that are creating their own work – work that is reflecting the lives and experiences of greater Cleveland residents. Most of my interactive work has been done with [Theater] Ninjas,developed there. What I’m most interested in now is how to create an authentic experience when working with text that is not mine, but still going for that level of intimacy and authentic connection… more than just looking at someone, but actually more like playing tennis. Listening and responding. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t – and that’s part of the fun. In a way, The SantaLand Diaries has been a culmination of what I’ve been working on the past few years. Relating and working with the audience through text that is not mine, for 70 min, on my own – and really making that experience my own. I want to head more toward the comedy route right now, so this has been a great opportunity to kick that off. “

Click here to visit www.raycaspio.com.

Photo by Sebastian Orr.

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Rebecca J. Leuszler

2016 Creative Workforce Fellow

Co-founded The Movement Project, a non-profit dance company and teaches at Baldwin Wallace University as an adjunct dance professor.

“One of my favorite moments at Cleveland Public Theatre was choreographing, collaborating and producing “All together now” for DanceWorks 2015. This was The Movement Project’s debut performance in DanceWorks at CPT. The process of creating a full length evening work was an exciting challenge that pushed the limitations of being a choreographer and performer. I was able to really explore concepts of weight and risk that challenged me in a new, fresh, and innovative way.”

Click here to visit www.themovementproject.org.

Photo by Jonny Riese.

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Simone Barros,

2016 Creative Workforce Fellow

Filmaker

“Eight years ago I found myself in Cleveland at the most difficult time in my life. I’d grown jaded and stale with my creative work and life as a whole. Raymond [not only allowed us space but] invited my fiance to create photography for a play produced at CPT – Aperture, and I was simply stunned.

I rushed back to CPT for any and everything produced there and saw a workshop production of Chris Seibert’s Cut to Pieces. Suddenly it seemed absolutely vital to my very life that I steep myself in whatever boiled and bubbled, festered and bloomed at CPT.

Fortunately for me, Raymond and Faye Hargate taught a 10-week devised directing workshop. For the first time since college, after nearly a decade of working in television, I made work that looked like me, sounded like me and smelt of the all the fragrances and stenches of my life. It is no exaggeration when I say the documentary that I embark on as a CPAC Fellow, would not exist without my traversing into the wonderland of CPT. I learned and know I will continue to learn from being a member of such a dedicated and fearless enclave of artists.”

Photo courtesy of the artist.

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About the Fellowship…

Community Partnership for Arts and Culture Awards $600,000 to 40 Cuyahoga County Artists through Creative Workforce Fellowship Program.

Forty Cuyahoga County artists working in the disciplines of craft, dance, design, literature, media arts, music, theatre and visual arts will each receive $15,000 in 2016 through the Creative Workforce Fellowship. A total of $600,000 in Fellowships were awarded by the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC), the local arts service and research organization that operates the program. The organization’s board of trustees approved the awards, which are made possible by the residents of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, the County’s public funder for arts and culture.

More than 400 artists submitted applications for Fellowships, which were reviewed anonymously in two groups, based upon discipline. The two panels were comprised of professional artists from across the United States based on recommendations from CPAC & CAC’s national peers. The top 40 applications in each review group were discussed in open panel meetings in November. The top 20 scoring applications in each group-a total of 40 artists-were recommended for Fellowships.

Grants are designed to further each artist’s work and to connect them more broadly and deeply with the community. Each artist will hold a public activity in 2016 to engage directly with residents and showcase their work.

For a complete list of winners of this year’s awards and more information about the fellowship, please visit www.CultureForward.org/fellowship.

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