PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 20, No. 17, April 5, 2001

Dennis Cleveland: Multimedia-opera’s Midwest premiere is April 12-13

Melissa Mitchell, News Bureau Staff Writer
(217) 333-5491; melissa@illinois.edu

Multi-media opera   "Dennis Cleveland" reaches out and speaks to America's infatuation with the culture ofmass media as it recreates the confessional TV talkshow environment as theater with composer Mikel Rouse himself as both host and catalyst. The Midwest premiere is at 8 p.m. April 12and 13 in the Tryon Festival Theater at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

Part therapist, part priest, part provocateur, the TV talk show host emerged at the end of the 20th century as an unmistakable icon that continues to reflect a surreal image of postmodern life.

Composer Mikel Rouse studied those reflections and used them as a launch pad for creating "Dennis Cleveland," a multimedia opera, which will receive its Midwest premiere April 12-13 at the UI’s Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Composed in 1996, "Dennis Cleveland" is the second opera in a trilogy that includes "Failing Kansas" and "The End of Cinematics."

Simultaneously a live opera performance and a live, taped TV production, "Dennis Cleveland" combines aspects of both types of entertainment – including a hypnotic musical score and live video of audience reactions – as a vehicle for examining the underbelly of the talk-show phenomenon. Under the harsh glare of real TV cameras and bright lights, real life is transformed into an artform by Rouse, who portrays the title character himself. Collaborating with Rouse are scenic designer/video producer John Jesurun; an eight-person ensemble of professional actors and singers from New York; Krannert Center production-staff members; UI students, faculty and staff members in the School of Music and College of Communications; and videographers from WILL-TV and WCIA-TV.

The production is providing UI- and community-based participants with the rare opportunity to collaborate alongside Rouse and his professional troupe to redesign and remount the show for a proscenium theater. Previous runs of the show, in New York, California and Australia, were staged in more intimate "black box" theater environments. Plans are in the works to use the Krannert Center production as a model for next year’s production at New York’s Lincoln Center.

According to Rouse, the show’s narrative "is derived from the libretto, which follows Dennis Cleveland through myriad encounters chronicling the promise of salvation through popular culture."

"There is an Elmer Gantry-like quality to the host and his reality, particularly the late-20th century phenomenon of television ritual as replacement of ceremony previously associated with religion. Thus, the ritual is enforced in real time as the opera progresses and it soon becomes apparent that the audience exists in Dennis Cleveland’s future: that of the ultimate voyeur, the TV talk show host."

'Talking TV Talk'
Panel discussion scheduled in conjunction with 'Dennis Cleveland'
In conjunction with the UI production of "Dennis Cleveland," Krannert Center for the Performing Arts is hosting "Talking TV Talk: TV Talk Shows in American Culture," a free panel discussion at 4 p.m. April 12 in the center's Foellinger Great Hall.

Topics to be explored include the demographics of talk-show audiences and how such shows fill needs in people's lives.

The discussion, moderated by speech communication professor David Tewksbury, will feature Mikel Rouse, composer and creator of "Dennis Cleveland"; UI professor Andrea Press, who has joint appointments in the College of Communications, departments of speech communication and sociology, and Women's Studies Program; and Bruce Williams, UI professor in the Institute of Communications Research and department of urban and regional planning.

Panelists also will include television-industry professionals. Among them, UI theater department alumnus Fred Rubin, a television writer/producer and professor of film and television at the University of California at Los Angeles and Loyola Marymount, and an instructor for the Warner Brothers Writers Workshop and the Disney Writer's Fellowship; and Perry Chester, vice president and general manager of WCIA-TV, Champaign.