Brett Mitchell to lead world-premiere collaboration between The Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Play House
CLEVELAND, OH – Cleveland Play House (CPH) and The Cleveland Orchestra announce details of their latest collaboration, The Good Peaches, a play commissioned by CPH and written by Pulitzer Prize and Roe Green Award-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes. The play will make its world premiere April 14–16 on the Allen Theatre stage. The Good Peaches features three actors and a 55-piece orchestra, and will be directed by CPH Artistic Director Laura Kepley and conducted by the Orchestra’s Associate Conductor Brett Mitchell. This presentation marks the third collaboration between CPH and the Orchestra, and will feature music excerpted from Benjamin Britten’s Sea Interludes and John Adams’s Shaker Loops.
Aurora’s task is simple: Deliver a wedding dress to the queen. But when an unexpected storm hits, the young girl finds herself on an adventure beyond her wildest imagination. Music and theater will collide through the bursting swells of a massive storm and in an extraordinary teaming of actors and chamber orchestra. Set amongst the stirring melodies of Benjamin Britten and John Adams, The Good Peaches combines a compelling drama of survival with live music performed by a world-class orchestra.
CPH Artistic Director Laura Kepley states, “Only two other major plays for actors and orchestra exist, so we are very proud to be working with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Hudes, and collaborating with the world-class Cleveland Orchestra to add another play to the canon. Cleveland audiences will experience it first but I am certain that orchestras around the country will be lining up to add this beautiful, evocative, girl versus nature musical odyssey to their seasons.”
Brett Mitchell, Associate Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra, adds, “All of us at The Cleveland Orchestra are enormously excited to collaborate with Cleveland Play House on this groundbreaking project. Working with the entire CPH team throughout this process has been an absolute dream, and we're delighted that these great orchestral works of John Adams and Benjamin Britten are such an integral part of telling this magnificent new tale, written in such beautiful poetry by Quiara Hudes and brought to life with such spirit by this extraordinary company.”
To learn more, please view these articles in The Plain Dealer and Broadway World.