Caroline, Or Change

South Euclid, OH – Mercury Theatre Company presents the award-winning musical Caroline, or Change, with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner (Pulitzer Prize, Angels in America), score by Jeanine Tesori (Tony Award, Fun Home), and directed by MTC Artistic Director Pierre-Jacques Brault. Caroline, or Change was nominated for six Tony Awards in 2004, and won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical in 2007. Tesori’s Drama Desk Award-Winning score combines spiritual music with blues, Motown, classical and Jewish klezmer music. The production will run from July 27 through August 11th, 2018 at Notre Dame College, 1857 South Green Road, South Euclid, OH 44121.

1963. Lake Charles, Louisiana. The eve of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Caroline Thibodeaux is an African American maid earning thirty dollars a week working for the Jewish Gellman family. She is a single parent and the mother of four children. The world is about to change. But is Caroline ready to change with it? This emotional and uplifting musical, inspired by Pulitzer-prize winner author Tony Kushner’s boyhood, deftly mixes blues, soul, Motown, classical music and Jewish folk songs to create a beautiful, uplifting and deeply moving portrait of America at a time of momentous social upheaval spurred by the civil rights movement. If you enjoyed Mercury Theatre Company’s Ragtime, you will love Caroline, or Change.

Veteran actress and MTC Associate Artistic Director Kelvette Beacham will star as Caroline Thibodeaux. Beacham appeared previously at MTC in last season’s sold-out production of Hairspray, and as Mrs. Mullins in the 2017 Best of Theater Best Musical Award-winner (Cleveland Jewish News and Cleveland Scene Magazine), Carousel. Broadway’s Derrick Cobey makes his MTC debut as The Dryer/The Bus. Cobey most recently appeared in the Broadway production of The Scottsboro Boys.

Book Writer and Lyricist Tony Kushner is a playwright best known for his two-part Pulitzer Prize-Winning epic Angels in America: a Gay Fantasia on National Themes, for which he also received back-to-back Tony Awards. He co-authored the screenplay for the 2005 film Munich, and wrote the screenplay for the 2012 film Lincoln (both directed by Steven Spielberg). Kushner’s plays A Bright Room Called Day and The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures have been produced locally to recent critical acclaim. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded Kushner the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor for achievement in the arts conferred to an individual.

Composer Jeanine Tesori is the most prolific and honored female theatrical composer in history, with five Broadway musicals and four Tony nominations. In 2015, Tesori shared the Tony award for Best Musical with Lisa Kron for Fun Home, which is currently running on Broadway. Tesori and Kron are the first all female composing team to win this award. Tesori won the 2004 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music for Caroline, or Change. Her other major works include, Shrek The Musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Violet.

The creative team for Caroline, or Change includes Eddie Carney as Musical Director, Nicholas Thornburg as Scenic Designer, Michael Jarett as Lighting Designer. The remaining cast features Bob Abelman, Jyrah Graves, Emily Grodzik, Keyonna Hughley, Colleen Longshaw, Brian Marshall, Kyle Monaghan, Sunayna Smith, Lynette Turner, Cindi Verbelun, and Carter Welo.

Tickets for Caroline, or Change can be purchased at mercurytheatrecompany.org or by calling 216.771.5862.