Page 14 HIGH GEAR-APRIL 1981

ENTERTAINMENT

Coping with Joey

By R. Woodward Playing at the Cabaret Dinner Theatre in North Royalton Thursdays through Sundays from April 2 through May 10 is a new version of the musical play Pal Joey.

Well aware of space limitations at Cabaret and not satisfied with the book of the original Broadway show, Mark Marple, the show's producer, has written his own version. He is also the

Mark Marple

director.

In casting Pal Joey he found players he was impressed with for every part except one. With what he felt was a great cast lined up, he was unable to find an adequate Joey. Unable to bear the thought of leaving unused the various talents he had assembled, he decided that he had no choice but to play the lead role himself.

Talking to the HIGH GEAR interviewer during the final weeks before Pal Joey's opening, Marple looked and sounded as fresh as someone who had just emerged from the most restful and invigorating night's sleep that he had had in his entire life.

He attributed his being so cheerful and unworried to the skills, finesse, and genera! competence of those he had found.. work with. Talking of how rehearsals were going, he said, "I have never been in a show like this that has been so far along this early."

He was especially eager to praise the abilities of his choreographer, Donna Davis, who also appears in the show as Linda, the woman that womanizing Joey

finds himself unable to resist falling in love with. (It's Linda who sings "My Funny Valentine.")

Marple said that not only did Davis have "fabulous" choreoraphic ideas, she was also sowing a special genius for getting her ideas across to the cast.

Davis, Marple said, has been a dance teacher, and evidently a very good one. She was getting the entire cast so well attuned to her inspirations that it was (Continued on the next page)

Leigh Hercher, Peter DiBonaventura, and Cynthia Graham in George Balanchine's "Serenade." At the Cleveland Ballet as part of its new Spring season.

Cleveland Ballet's spring season

ballet. Set to Tchaikovsky's Serenade in C Major for String Orchestra, it was created in one of Balanchine's early ballet classes at the School of American Ballet.

back from its tour of New York Balanchine's first American nd Florida, Cleveland Ballet will open its spring season at the Hanna Theatre with Leonide Massine's "Gaite Parisienne," a tale of Paris cafe society in the late 1900's, and two ballets new to Cleveland, Balanchine's "Serenade" and a new ballet by resident choroegrapher, Dennis Nahat.

"Serenade" was George

2402 Club

2402 St. Clair Gleveland, Ohio (216) 694-9823

APRIL 12 Robin Morgan

APRIL 19 NASTY, NAUGHTY, & NICE «Cathy Craig.

Melissa Ross, and Jamie Withers

Special Guest

Kara Delao

APRIL 26 Crystal Starr's Gong Show

MAY 3rd Miss DeeDee from Canton

D.J's--MARK and JOHN G.

ALL SHOWS AT 11 PM

HAPPY HOURS-Monday-Thursday-8:30-10:30 PM UK DIANA SOUL weekends with Miss CATHY CRAIG

The ballet was built in sections, adding and deleting according to class size. One day, when all the girls rushed off stage at the end of a piece, one of the girls fell and began to cry. Balanchine told the pianist to continue playing and the sequence was added to the dance. Another day, one of the girls was late for class, and that, too, was left in.

Also premiering this spring will be a new ballet with an "oriental flavor," by Associate Director Dennis Nahat, set to an original commissioned score by Associate Musical Director Stanley Sussman. Sussman, who has just returned from a week-long appearance conducting for the Martha Graham Dance Company at the Kennedy Center, has also composed works for the Martha Graham Dance Company, Southwest American Ballet and Toronto Dance Theater.

"Quicksilver," "Ontogeny," "Three Virgins and a Devil," and "Serenade," March 27 through 29: "Concerto Barocco," "Serenade" and "US", March 31 through April 2; "Concerto Barocco", "New Nahat Ballet" and "Gaite Parisienne," April 3 through 5; "Some Times," "New Nahat Ballet", and "Gaite Parisienne," April 7 through 9; and "New Nahat Ballet," "Swan Lake" Act II, and "Gaite Parisienne," April 10 through 12.

Curtain times for weeknight performances are at 8 p.m., Fridays, and Saturdays 8:30 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Tickets are priced at $16, $14, $12, $10, $8 and $5, and group rates are available.

Cleveland Ballet has hired one new female dancer and four apprentices to fill its ranks during the upcoming spring season.

Joan Tsao, a native of Norfolk, Virginia, comes to Cleveland Ballet from the American Ballet Theatre School. She has dericed with Maryland Ballet and Atlantic Dance Company, and has studied with Norfolk Civic Ballet, School of American Ballet, Melissa Hayden and the Joffrey Workshop.

The spring season, which will run March 27 through April 12, will also include four ballets seen recently on the company's first out-of-state tour, including "Three Virgins and a Devil," Four apprentices have also Agnes DeMille's comical ballet, been added to the company, all featuring Patricia Brown and of whom are currently students Ann Waite for the first time in new at School of Cleveland Ballet. roles; Nahat's "Quicksilver." They are: Isom Buenavista, Oak"Ontogeny," subtitled, "The Life land, California; Maria Savage, Cycle of a Simple Organism," Erie, Pennsylvania; Annette and the company's signature Scese, Royal Oak, Michigan; and piecesné svate on toiVirginia Thatcher. Pensacola, The spring schedule is: Florida. nah serigalendiƆ