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Bold director finds niche on west side
(by Herb Hammer - August 31, 2011)
Bold director finds niche on west side
By HERB HAMMER
Since its very beginning, Convergence-Continuum started attracting attention. The Tremont district's jewel of a theater company, now in its 10th season and completing its 44th production, has become exactly what director Clyde Simon envisioned.
Mr. Simon's adventurous life certainly doesn't appear to target what is now the most talked-about professional theater company in Cleveland. In fact, much of his life was spent in Southeast Asia, where he was involved in everything from 17 years of shrimp farming to teaching.
From his earliest years, Mr. Simon had grown to love the theater. While he was in Indonesia and the Philippines, he began directing and acting. There are over 500,000 English-speaking ex-patriots living in these countries, and many hungered for the theater experience Mr. Simon brought to them.
Born and raised in Hiram and completing his undergraduate work at Bowling Green State University, the young Clyde Simon joined the Peace Corps. After three years in the Peace Corps, he headed for New York, where he worked with the off-off-Broadway company Flea Theatre.
When he returned to Cleveland to work on his master of fine arts degree in theater at Kent State University, Mr. Simon met Brian Breth, a fellow theater major. Together, they worked on 22 productions. More important, they both had the same vision.
Brian Breth and Clyde Simon were determined to find the right space for a company that would stage cutting-edge theater.
They chose Tremont, for they saw this near-west-side community as the up-and-coming part of town. They were right. Along with trendy restaurants and shops, there is the Liminis, the home of Mr. Simon's and Mr. Breth's Convergence-Continuum.
The Liminis on Scranton Road includes the intimate 50-seat playing area attached to three apartments. All needed renovating. The portion of the building that now is the playing area was a bar built in 1910. The connecting apartments were built in 1860.
Two years of dedicated work converted the building into what they have today. When actors leave the stage, they wind up in Clyde Simon's apartment. Brian Breth, now in California, is no longer involved in the theater.
Mr. Simon, who had been teaching part time at Kent State University, is now spending mostly all of his time with the theater.
Part of the mission statement for Convergence-Continuum says the theater is generally thought of as "a mirror reflecting the familiar." What if the theater were "an opening into unknown territory"?
This is the reason Convergence-Continuum, through the dedication of Mr. Simon, performs only the works of contemporary playwrights the likes of Sam Shepard, Paula Vogel, Mac Wellman and Jose Riviera.
I asked Clyde Simon to tell me what was his favorite among the 44 plays he directed, performed in or selected others to direct. I really had him there. I had finally asked him a question he couldn't answer. My guess is, they are all his favorites.
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