The BorderLight Theatre Festival's online directory has searchable parameters to help find shows of interest alphabetically, from "BIPOC" and "Burlesque" to "Visual Installation" and "Workshop/Masterclass." In between, there are 17 other categories to narrow down the eclectic offerings at Playhouse Square this week. Many of them have strong local ties, such as “Ship Show," a farce about a way off-Broadway play set on the Titanic.
Sisters and playwrights Sophia and Natalie Casa grew up in Beachwood watching classic sketch comedy shows like "Second City Television" and "Saturday Night Live" with their Dad.
"I think our big moment where we realized that we wanted to do this... we had watched the Steve Martin and Martin Short special on Netflix,” Natalie said. "We just thought, 'They're so cool. I think we could do something like that.'"
The twins wrote their first show while seniors at Laurel School. Now they're in college: Natalie at Denison University and Sophia at Northwestern University in Chicago.
"When Natalie and I were both home for Thanksgiving break, I pulled her aside, and I was like, 'You might hate me for this, but I think we should do another show,'" Sophia said.
Collaborating through technology, Sophia crafted the music and sent it to Natalie for lyrics. They wrote eight original tunes for their second outing, which premieres at the festival. The twins also star in “Ship Show” as ensemble members. Mid-show, they hastily take over when the pompous leading man is injured. The move draws the ire of his father: Elton John.
“The show really goes off the rails at that point in a delightful way,” Sophia said. “It definitely starts in a more grounded place, gets sillier, but there's still heart in it at the end, which I think keeps it from being just like style without substance.”
Something for everyone
BorderLight began in 2019, billed as a fringe festival. The name has changed slightly but the mission has not: To bring a concentration of varied forms of performance art to the city for a few days.
This year that includes Radio on the Lake Theatre performing “The Captain, The Crew and The Creature,” an immersive audio experience in which the blindfolded audience is enveloped in the action. The company’s managing director, Caroline Breder-Watts, is also an Ideastream employee.
Lee Chilcote, founder and past executive director of Literary Cleveland, wrote "Election Day," a play about Ohioans from different political backgrounds telling their stories on the way to the voting booth.
Lyndhurst brothers Steve and Christopher Johnston present their Irish-themed one-woman show, “Moonrise After the Mountains Fall." It’s a revamped version of the show which was workshopped last summer at convergence-continuum in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood.
Along with performances in and around Playhouse Square, there’s related events such as a silent disco, where dancers feel the beat through headphones, not loudspeakers. Saturday is family-oriented, with chalk drawing, juggling demonstrations and an Afghan kite-making craft.
Some performances at BorderLight also tackle sensitive issues, including sexual assault.
‘Surviving’s Not a Noun’
Cleveland-based Dr. Erin Sheplavy is presenting a work at BorderLight, based on their post-graduate research about sexual assault at the Chicago School. A survivor, they wanted to convey how people manage day-to-day. They also wanted to challenge the notion in academia that researchers should separate their identities from their work.
“For me, there was a benefit in being a survivor,” they said. “Your average person would say, ‘Okay, how did that make you feel?’ And they'll say, ‘Angry.’ And people will be like, ‘Of course you're angry. That makes sense.’ Whereas for me, it was ‘Well, my anger at one point was anger towards myself. And then it molded and moved into anger at the system. Then it moved to anger at this person. And now it's anger and passion to make a change.’”
Sheplavy used their research interviews as a blueprint, with names changed, of course. They said creating the production is a way to share the findings so they didn’t “sit behind a paywall for academics only.”
"It's also going to create a way where people can emotionally connect to this experience," they said. "Victim blaming is so heavily based in people's own discomforts. With the arts, usually we can get people invested, and by the time they realize they're getting uncomfortable, it's too late for them to stiff arm you. They're already in it."
The piece is presented at BorderLight as a staged reading, and many in the cast are survivors, too.
"I hope that people who are in the room who are survivors, whether they've owned that or not, I hope they feel seen," they said. "Those who either haven't experienced this, or maybe have been a part of a non-consensual sexual interaction, have more awareness to maybe think more intentionally about how they interact in those moments.”
Representatives from the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center will also be at the reading at BorderLight to provide support and resources for audience members.
