WordStage Takes New Approach to Biography in Local Productions

Tim Tavcar has taken a new approach to biographical storytelling with WordStage, a chamber music readers theater that performs in Shaker Heights and Rocky River.

“WordStage performances are to inform and entertain, kind of educate, but not pedantically so — not just a boring recitation,” Tavcar, producing artistic director, said.

The plays focus on real people, interesting figures in history, from composers like Chopin to poets like Edgar Allen Poe and Marcel Proust to the subjects of this weekend’s production: 800 years of English monarchs.

Inspired by 1970s radio dramas Tevcar heard on Cleveland's classical radio station WCPL, the productions "focus on the words," he said.

No one reads lines written for their characters’ mouths — instead, the actors read letters, speeches and poems written by the subjects themselves.  The accompanying music is either written by the subjects or during their lives, and works written by the subjects’ own family and acquaintances is featured, as well.

“It tells an interesting story about those people,” Tavcar said. “It’s a very simple format and people get a lot of information about these people in a gentle, non-preachy way.”

Most of the plays are original works, but this weekend’s production excerpts The Hollow Crown, a play written in 1961 for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Tavcar revived the theater in Northeast Ohio in 2011 after spending 15 years living and performing in Vermont.

He said he noticed a change in Cleveland when he returned to visit a few years ago. 

"The art scene has grown so much and there are so many wonderful people to collaborate with," he said. His new friends and colleagues coupled with the more reasonable cost of living spurred his permanent stay.

His productions have been getting attention from local venues.

Libraries, like Lakewood’s, Beachwood’s and Shaker Heights,’ are in talks with Tavcar to commission or host performances. The Shaker Heights Arts Council is interested in incorporating WordStage into their AHa! series.

"The Hollow Crown" begins at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 6 at the First Unitarian Church. Admission is pay what you can, but $15 is suggested.

It will also be performed in Rocky River on Friday, April 5 at 8 p.m. at the West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, 20401 Hilliard Blvd.