We had a very busy day on Saturday, August 14th, and it didn’t look like we were going to be able to make it to the Centennial Peace Plaza at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens (CCG) by 6pm in time for a program titled “A Trip to the British Isles” presented by the leadership of the British and Irish Cultural Gardens.
But, at the last minute, we broke free and were able to make it by 6:30pm; a half hour late but still in time to watch Shakespearean works and Irish dances be impressively performed by members of Rubber City Theatre and Murphy Irish Arts Center.
Along these lines, Rubber City Theatre is Akron’s only year-round professional Equity theatre and on this occasion Ms. Katie Wells and Mr. Alex Funk, two talented actors, masterfully presented scenes or “tasters” from such classics as “Othello”, “Much Ado About Nothing”, and “Macbeth.”
Afterwards, young hoofers, clad in black and green, brought off such favorites as the “Traditional Irish Jig” and “The Blackbird” as our friend, Ms. Sheila Crawford, introduced each piece by talking about style and history.
In addition to ourselves, we were pleased to see such CCG stalwarts as Ms. Svetlana Stolyarova, Ms. Lori Ashyk, and Mr. Asim Datta also in attendance.
Sadly, we had to leave after about 45 minutes but to see such artistry at work, however briefly, was still very much worth our time and vehicular mileage.